This post, the axe thrower, the carpet glue, and other astounding first impressions made by new employees , was originally published by Alison Green on Ask a Manager.
Last week I asked about the most astounding first impression you’ve seen made by a new coworker. Here are some of my favorite stories you shared.
1. The axe
We had a guy apply for a staff job. His very first day he was helping clean up brush along the edge of a mountain biking course. One of the other staff said “when you’re done with that axe, I need it,” and the new guy proceeded to say “OK” and THROW THE AXE AT HIM. It went within a yard of his torso. New guy’s first day was his last day. He protested that he didn’t mean to hurt anyone, he just didn’t think about the risk, and was told “Look, we know you didn’t mean it, but you’re so stupid you’re dangerous.”
2. The beneficiary
New hire insisted on naming himself as the beneficiary on his life insurance policy “in case I’m around when it pays out.”
3. The men
Years ago I worked in the cataloging department of a library. No public there at all, ever, just staff. Our New Hire had been at work about 2 hours when she asked, “Where are the men?” “uh, what men?” we replied. “MEN! I took this job so I could meet MEN!” She marched to her desk, gathered up her belongings, and stormed out, never to return.
4. The dinner
We had a new hire and there was a work dinner with clients his first week.
He got loudly drunk and started asking “okay.. so who’s f—king who at this table? I need to know the lay (ha ha) of the land.”
At times, I’ve felt like my company was too slow dealing with extremely problematic employees. But they moved fairly quickly in this case.
5. The security guard
I work at a commercial property management company and we have security guards on duty 24/7. We hired a guard to start on a Thursday at midnight who no-called no showed. He came into the office the next day with a friend, asked me for some Gatorade and told me he and his friend would be working together (that’s . . . not how it works).
We told him to go the security desk and train in if he still wanted to work, and he agreed. He went to the desk and told the guard on duty he would be back in an hour because he had to “take care of something” and never came back. We called him and told him it wasn’t going to work out, so he called everyone in the company he could get a number for and told him we couldn’t fire him before he started.
6. The oblivious new hire
Manager hired someone from a conference without conducting any interviews. First day she walks up to the administrative assistant and asks for a list of who she gets to “boss around” (in those terms).
(Then later, when a small local conference took place she introduced herself as the “Improved [name of former person in that position]” … to the person who used to be in that position and had left to a different local job which was a step up in terms of position.)
Not great at reading a room.
7. The shoes
I was wearing slides that had a bit of fluff over the toes. New hire yelped when she saw them, bent down, AND PROCEEDED TO PET them. It was both horrifying and delightful (as I knew it would be a funny work story for years). It was 22 years ago and it’s still a top story.
8. The disaster
The New Guy sat behind me, in the other half of the shared cubicle.
Day 1: He spent his entire day making a chart on graph paper, of every writing implement that the last person had left on/in that desk, with a column for each writing implement’s nickname, long description, and examples of solid and dashed lines. This despite me giving him the standard training materials and a practice assignment to complete.
Day 2: First thing in the morning he asked me a lot of questions, then told me my answers to each was wrong – in each instance running down his whole resume of how he’d done things “in my last 20 jobs” (the guy wasn’t old enough to have had 20 jobs unless the average tenure was +/- 3 months.) After he was done with me he moved on to my supervisor in the next cubicle, who had heard the whole thing and repeated everything I told him. After lunch he moved on to one of the higher-ups in the big offices, barging in on a closed door to repeat all the questions and complain about our previous answers. That guy marched him back to his desk, told him not to do that again, and to direct all his questions to me.
Day 3: He brought in a radio and played it loudly. I told him that wouldn’t go over well in that firm. He told me I was wrong. 5 minutes later people from all over the office started coming by to complain. He would turn the radio down, then gradually inch it up again to loud. The guy from the closed office came and yanked the cord out and walked away with the radio.
Day 4: The partner in charge of the office announced a full staff meeting in half an hour. New Guy decided to impress him by making coffee for everyone. But he didn’t put the coffee pots under the machines. A coffee river started rolling by our cubicles and everybody but New Guy rushed in with paper towels.
Day 5: New Guy played video games all day. I didn’t do anything about it because at least he was quiet and not flooding the office. Around 3 PM he handed in his two weeks notice. The boss said that’s ok, you can leave today and not come back. New Guy applied for unemployment. Maybe that was the plan all along.
When I was cleaning up his space for the next guy, I found a little notebook in which he’d recorded his judgements about each of us coworkers. They weren’t kind. Leaving that behind was probably also intentional.
9. The MLM
When we hired a new rep for a call center I used to manage, she spent the better part of her first week pushing her awful jewelry MLM to everyone in the office. She didn’t understand what she was doing wrong (despite being shown in our handbook that sales of any kind (think: Girl Scout Cookies or fundraisers not sponsored by the company) were not allowed.
It might not have been so bad, but she was terribly pushy, saying things like “I know for a fact everyone here can afford $5!”, and had told another new hire during orientation that she mainly got this job to obtain a “new customer base”. She refused to stop harassing others with her toxic pyramid scheme (many who would be ON the phone with a customer. She would tell them to put them on hold briefly so she could give them the newest catalogue). Thankfully she left before being shown the door, probably because she realized she wasn’t going to make a dime in this office.
10. The carpet glue
Many moons ago, I worked for a company that rented office space on the third floor of a building that was showing its age. In particular, the elevator made some weird noises. The certificate in the elevator was also not up to date, although we were told that the current certificate was on file somewhere. We had a new hire, let’s call him Bo, who was especially vocal about the elevator.
One night in his first month of work, Bo was especially determined to take a smoke break. Unfortunately, the building owner was replacing the carpet. At the time of Bo’s smoke break, the carpet layers were replacing the carpet on the one and only staircase. Bo refused to use the elevator and he REALLY wanted his smoke break, so he decided to use the stairs anyway. The stairs that were covered with super sticky, smelly carpet glue. He walked through the glue-covered stairs, got to the second floor, and realized that his shoes are now gross. He decides to use the second floor bathroom to try to clean them. The carpet has already been replaced on the second floor, so he and his glue-covered shoes are now walking on brand new carpet. The carpet layers were trying to get him to stop but did not speak English; they put a carpet scrap down on the floor in front of him so he could wipe his shoes off. He JUMPED OVER the scrap and continued to the bathroom, where he apparently made another mess.
Building management was obviously not happy and complained to my boss. Boss was out of town and asked me to let Bo go before he got back. (There had been other issues involving Bo’s attitude, so it was not the first strike, just the funniest.)
11. The cocaine queen
Working as Corp Trainer at a call center. CEO comes storming down to our offices asking who owns a car with a car wrap on the hood that says “Cocaine Queen.” We find out whose car it is and tell them they can’t park the car in the office parking lot because it isn’t appropriate. She gets indignant and tells us that it is her “stage name” she worked nights as an exotic dancer. When we tell her that is fine, but it can’t be parked in the parking lot, she tells us that she picks her kids up from school and no one has ever said it wasn’t appropriate.
12. The geese
This wasn’t their fault at all but I’ve never forgotten it. I happened to look out the window as one of the new hires was walking towards the building. He noticed that there were geese in the fountain and detoured to go look at them. They had nested and if you know anything about Canadian geese, they can be vicious! The geese started chasing him, he freaked out, ran around to get away from them, slipped on the geese poop, landed on his back in the grass, and had 4 geese honking at him. Poor guy came in covered in poop and wet grass. I told him to go home and we would try again tomorrow.
13. The hero
We hired a new volunteer manager at my mid-sized nonprofit. Young guy, not completely new to work but only a couple years out of school. His role has very little authority built in – he recruits volunteers, gives them the orientation spiel, and then hands them off to the department manager where they’ll be working. Well his first group volunteer orientation comes around and because Covid, it’s being held on Zoom. Because it’s New Guy’s first one, our CEO has logged in to say hello and whatnot. Well apparently CEO logged in from his phone in his vehicle because New Guy stops the orientation and PUBLICLY ASKS HIS BOSS’S BOSS’S BOSS’S BOSS NOT TO ZOOM WHILE DRIVING. He did, all is well, and I’ve never been so impressed with someone in my life!
14. The skunk
This happened to me – first day of new job and my dog got sprayed by a skunk that morning. You know how bad skunk smell is, I showered multiple times, sprayed air freshener on my clothes, etc. I knew it was still on me but it was my first day and I was young and so scared to call and say I wasn’t going to show up. I thought I would look like a flake. So I went and I could immediately tell how overpowering it was. I swear, people looked like they wanted to vomit as soon as I got close to them. I guess they were too polite to say anything, and I was just trying to pretend it wasn’t happening. Manager called me in the office and told me to go home. He was nice about it. When I went back the next day I could still smell the skunk smell lingering in my chair / office area. They must have hated me! No one ever said anything. I am gone from there now, but I always wonder if people at the office thought of me as Skunk Lady.
15. The office supplies
So many years ago I hired a new receptionist (we can call her Erma) to manage our busy front office. Erma interviewed very well with myself and the rest of the hiring team and had prior experience that included some great references.
One of the receptionist’s responsibilities were ordering office supplies for the company. Erma was provided with an account with a local office supply company and could order whatever was needed within reason. Anything over a certain amount, or including items needing special approval, would trigger and e-mail asking for me to review and provide approval. Erma went through training on how to order office supplies and was given a list of items we normally stock along with our monthly supply budget. The former receptionist who was doing most of Erma’s training was very pleased with her positive attitude and how quickly she seemed to be picking up on her new tasks. No red flags at all.
Fast forward a week and Erma’s first day after her finishing her training was off to a good start. She was showed up a little early and was busy rearranging her new work area and making it her own. She said she noticed that there were a few things that would make her life easier such as a pop up post it note dispenser and clip boards to make it easier for candidates coming in to complete paperwork. I told her that I was totally fine with that and to go ahead and order what she needed. Later on that day I get an e-mail from the supplier….Erma had ordered…. an expensive new chair for herself, a side desk, a lamp, a coat rack, a computer stand, an ergonomic keyboard, a light up bathroom mirror, pink glitter pens, pink chair cover, foot rest, artwork for the wall, a pink fuzzy rug, about 20 bags of candy, and a candy dish, a bunch of fancy lotions and soaps along with matching dispensers… and those are the items I remember!! The invoice was several thousands of dollars.
I thought this has to be an accident. So I approached her on it and she said oh no it was very much her doing. I explained to her why this was not ok as it was way over budget and included many items that require special approval such as furniture and artwork and she pitched a fit! How can she work in this environment? Her chair was too high, the office was drab, the pens all blue and black… lack of a candy dish is soooooo uninviting…. and forcing her to work in such an environment would be bad for her health. I showed her how her chair was adjustable and told her I was fine if she wanted the special pens and a couple of bags of candy, but we just did not have the budget, or the authority to purchase those other items. Corporate had a specific “look” for the office and well pink fuzzy rugs were not part of our corporate colors or their vision. She had a full-blown toddler fit and said she could not work with such a micromanager and she left. The next day she tried to show up to work like nothing happened. Security turned her away at the door. A few months later she actually put me down as a reference for a new job. I told them that I was not comfortable being a reference for her. I will never forget Erma!
16. The terrible judgment
I had to train a new accountant for another manufacturing plant in our company. He came down to our company was immediately set everyone’s back up because he knew everything about everything and WOULD NOT SHUT UP. And I’m talking stuff he literally didn’t know anything about, like arguing with the middle aged lady with 2 kids about how much it costs to raise children, him being a 21 year old unmarried just out of college young man. He rearranged the furniture in my office because he felt “trapped” behind the L-shaped desk during training, and would randomly make barnyard animal noises while he was working on the computer (like random moos, or snorting like a pig or whatever..appropo of nothing, just like a tic or something). I muddled through the training steadfastly ignoring his utter weirdness, just telling myself everyone is different, it’s not on me to judge.
He went back to the plant after training, and OH BOY. Apparently he unplugged his desk phone because “people kept calling him and he didn’t want to have to figure out the answers” he was told multiple times by multiple people, up to the plant manager that he had to leave it plugged in, and he just kept unplugging it each day. After a couple weeks he went straight to the plant manager (this was an entry level accounting position) and demanded a raise, because he was so much smarter than everyone else he was working with. He caused such a ruckus over this that he was eventually frog marched out the plant by security and told never to return. And this is a company where previous employees might stop by and hang with old coworkers, ie super chill. After all this went down a couple of us did some after the fact digging and found his FB page which was a veritable hotbed of wackadoodle conspiracy theories and nonsense. Turns out his first impression was indeed correct.
17. The mistake
I was in my 20s, working at a new job in marketing. I had recently read a memoir of someone who seemed confident and funny, if a little bit of a mess, and she was relating tales from her previous jobs. For some reason, I thought that using some of her language at work would help me portray the image of myself that I wanted–smart, funny, perceptive, a little irreverent. So, in a meeting with my boss and a couple other people, I offered an insightful critique of a proposed marketing campaign: “I think this would be us blowing our wad too early.”
18. The student worker
I was asked to see if I could find the brand new student worker who was supposed to be staffing a front line desk, as everyone who walked past noticed no one was sitting there. I happened to go around the desk- and discovered her sitting underneath the desk, absorbed with her phone. (She’d taken off her shoes, for an added touch.) I politely asked her to sit in the chair. She climbed out from under the desk, said something about not feeling “people-y” today, and sat in the chair, eyes never leaving her phone.
19. The temp
We had a temp-to-hire in an office setting that seemed normal in a short interview, but the crazy came out strong in her first week. She was stressed out her first morning about having left her bird home alone all day. She talked about having connections to the mob. She also spent a fair amount of time complaining about the work she had to do – which was exactly the tasks and responsibilities discussed in the interview.
And then about day 3, she said she was a medium and told a coworker she had a message for them from a dead relative, but would only relay the message if the coworker went to lunch with her. A little emotional blackmail anyone?
Fortunately, she only lasted a week. But what a week it was!
20. The coding genius
Someone joined my team fresh out of school. A few months into it he said he was going to teach himself to code to figure out a problem that was pretty complicated. I was sort of like “yeah, OK, cool” and figured he’d take months to do it, never do it, or it was just the start of a longer learning process.
I was wrong.
Somehow he self-taught a coding language in a week and googled all of the glitches and hitches that would’ve stopped most senior people in their tracks.
He realized he had a huge talent for it and eventually left to be more data focused.