how many days can someone miss before getting fired? 1

[Senselessticker]

So we have this CAD operator who was hired a couple of months ago. I had suggested to my boss (who is NOT a good engineer and has no backbone), that he should interview this guy "in person" before offering him a job. Anyway....he offered the job to this guy over the phone without ever meeting him in person.

This guy missed his 1st two days of work. Yes, he showed up 2 days AFTER he was suppoed to start....car trouble was his reason....

He is horrible at CAD....and I mean really bad. He generally only stays at work for about 2 hours at a time, dissappears for 2 or 3 hours at a time, and argues with every engineer in the group (except his/our boss) about virtually every task or redline we ask him to do. Sometimes he misses entire days of work without calling in at all. Sometimes he shows up at 8am, stays till about 9am, then goes MIA till about an hour before quitting time.

Anyway....tomorrow he will have been MIA from work for an entire week. Last time anyone ever heard from or saw him was early Wednesday morning.....one week ago.

Besides my peers at work privately discussing our concerns about this guy (at lunch, behind closed doors, etc..), I've been approached by a hand full of folks who work for a completely different company (but who share cubeville with me).... "What's the story on this guy?"...."He's weird"...."He gives me the creeps"....etc.. etc..


Assuming he happens to shows up tomorrow, and my boss does not initiate some kind of disciplinary action (which I fully expect will be the case)...

Should I :

a) confront my boss and let him know that I think he has an obligation to the company to initiate some kind of formal discipline action.

b) turn my head as if it's "none of my business"

c) tell my boss that if he does not initiate some kind of action, that I will make a call to HIS boss explaining the situation.

d) do not confront my boss and just make the call back to the corporate office (where I relocated from and where I know virtually every VP)

My boss has 3 months with the company. I have 3 years. I have zero faith in my bosses professional abilities what so ever, and its general knowledge that I'm only "serving time" in my current position before moving on to bigger and better things within the company.

My peers and I believe this guy (CAD operator) to have either a very seriuos mental condition, or some kind of very seriuos drug problem. And all of us expect that our boss will take no action and just turn his head to this situation....

What to do?

 

[GregLamberson]

If you have aspirations of moving up in the company, my suggestion would be to have a serious discussion with your boss and have it immediately. Lay it out and discuss the options (there may be some legal issues that need to be checked out).

If he takes no action, then I would immediately elevate it to the next level and do so until action is taken. This should not be taken lightly, there are too many incidents of office violence from distrubed workers. This should be brought to the attention of your boss in no uncertain terms.

You might want to consider putting a recommendation or at least your concerns in writing. I hate the general notion of CYA, but there are circumstances that call for it and this one is calling loudly.

Greg Lamberson, BS, MBA
Consultant - Upstream Energy
Website:

http://www.oil-gas-consulting.com

 

[csd72]

You need to explain how much effect this is having on the other workers in terms of morale, productivity e.t.c.

Explain that it is hard to meet deadlines when you dont know when your cad resource is going to turn up.

 

[monkeydog]

Where I work (per written procedure), if you are AWOL for 5 days, then you have quit. The procedure has fancy HR words to that effect.
I would check with HR, if your company is small and does not have an HR or written procedure for such an event, then your local (government) employment office may have an answer.

 

[jmw]

This ought to be a no-brainer.... for the boss.... but probably he has no brain...

This guy should have been fired already and there shouldn't be any problems doing so for cause or simply because he should still be in a probationary period.

BUT: the problem isn't the worker but the boss and you ought to ask yourself why your boss hasn't done something or, just as important, been made to do something;

(a) he shouldn't have hired so recklessly (what happened to HR? Don't they have an involvement? aren't there established recruitment procedures?)
(b) he should have reacted already i.e. the day the guy appeared (did he ring in and explain, don't they have buses?)
(c) what happens to your boss? does he have a boss who will fire him or will you be stuck with him?

I would suggest that with such a situation you should consider how probable it is your boss will stay or go and what this will mean for you.

Giving ultimatums to bosses isn't a good strategy though you could ask what is going on.
But you don't want to stick your head above the parapet because, guess who might go and who might stay.

This is a catch 22 situation.
In a well ordered company you would be safe to ask the question or even take some kind of action of your own BUT then again, in a well ordered company the situation wouldn't arise.
The fact that it has arisen shows there are serious problems here and you need a foxhole and an escape planned.
Get your Resume/CV out there!

JMW

http://www.ViscoAnalyser.com

 

[kchayfie]

Devils advocate position:

Any chance this guy has good reason for being MIA that has been shared with the boss but you have no right to know (for example, the boss knows that CAD guy has a serious drug problem and is permitting him to disappear off to his support group or therapy sessions or whatever whenever he needs to in order to kick the habit). the boss may not feel that you need to know about the drug problem and may not realise that the unexplained, unplanned, unexpected absences are causing you problems. Going in with all guns blazing to get the guy fired in this situation could make you seem insensitive and a softly softly "anything I should know about, any way of letting me know when he won't be here" type approach could yield better results.

We have a guy working here that we suspect has a drinking problem. My view is that we should fire him, my boss wants to try to help him and my bosses boss doesn't care as long as he is still delivering decent work when he is here. I'm not on the same projects as him but the guys that are share the OPs frustration so I know where he's coming from.

 

[TheTick]

You have a poor employee with many reasons to be dismissed. You have a poor supervisor who doesn't care enough to meet the man before he is hired.

Take stock of what this says about your place of employment. Time to move on?

 

[whyun]

Having a talk with the "culprit" is in order.

Afterwards, the rest of the group should talk with the boss.

Is the CAD guy a relative of the boss? It can happen.

 

[Maui]

If you think that your situation is bad, check out the one described by Pat Primmer in this thread: thread1088-187420

Maui

 

[BJC]

The guy could be the bosses brother in law.
Or he could have one of those compromising photographs of the boss and a goat.
Approach the boss with things like "we need to help whats his name, he has a problem..."
Also find out if they both go to the same church.

 

[Senselessticker]

Well, the CAD guy was still MIA today. No word from boss on the matter. Although I suppose I should have inquired into the situation when I had the brief chance to chat with my boss today. I was more concerned with getting answers from him regarding my own project deadlines and priorities. Which of course was not fruitful as is normally the case.

I have no fears regarding my place within the company. And have been re-assured by multiple memebers of upper management for years regarding their plans for me. When I accepted the current position (which required relocation), I was assured by upper management, that I would have the opputunity to basically reclaim and relocate back to my old position if I became unhappy with my new position. They needed someone with my skill set at the time to fill the position I'm in now. And the work is actually really good experience and has enhanced my technical skill set to a new level that I would have been unable to gain if I had not accepted the offer to relocate.

I feel a little guilty because I've been unable to rally behind my current boss since he took over (he was recruited from another company and has 20 years more experience than me). I know that the corporate mgt. is unhappy with his performance thus far, and my boss has even admitted this to me. He knows that I have many ties to the home office, and I'm sure he's felt a little threatened by my presence within his group.

I've been in regular contact with my former boss (back in the home office) since relocating to this new position. And have been constantly kept in the loop concerning the direction the company is trying to go regarding new work, new contracts the company is seeking, etc... In a phone call today, my former boss subtley mentioned that one of the company VP's will be in town next week and that I should expect some kind of sit down with him.

I do not want to be a weasel in regards to revealing my current boss's poor performance and lacking technical skills. So I'm a little nervous about how to answer potential questions from the VP. I've expressed almost constant concern for the past 3 months regarding the need to implement better QA procedures within our group to my boss, but have received absolutely no support from from him. Our company is ISO certified and I've personally endured a couple of ISO audits in the past (and passed with flying colors). But I know my current group would fail miserably if audited.

I suppose I've drifted away from the OP, but this has been a good vent for me....sorry... I'm fearful that my current boss will either resign soon (he has even joked about it), or "will be given the oppurtunity to resign". Its tough because I came from a group that was rock solid in performacne for decades and has a reputation of outstanding performance both internally, and from most of our clients.

I'll stop rambling. I suppose the issue with the CAD operator will take care of itself. After he didn't show today, we're starting to think he's going to 86 himself, which will require virtually no effort on the part of our boss.

 

[WGJ]

I have no fears regarding my place within the company. And have been re-assured by multiple memebers of upper management for years regarding their plans for me.

Don't get suckered.

Bill

 

[SylvestreW]

talk to your boss's boss.

 

[IRstuff]

By now the MIA should have been declared legally dead, or fired, as the case may be. Sometimes, we're especially generous and give them another chance, but not often.

We used to have a CAD designer that seemed pretty promising. Then he started taking 1 1/2 hr lunches, which then stretched to 2, and so on. After a couple of warnings, he got the boot.

TTFN

FAQ731-376

 

[Ashereng]

Talking to your boss' boss is a bad idea. Most people wouldn't like someone going over their head.

I have a question though. Who is this guy's boss? If it is you, then go to your boss and say you want to fire him. If you are not his boss, then simply tell your boss that he is not performing his work and how it affects you. Because you are not his boss, I would think that his boss wouldn't care for you to be telling him/her how to do his/her job?

Just a thought.

"Do not worry about your problems with mathematics, I assure you mine are far greater."
Albert Einstein
Have you read FAQ731-376 to make the best use of Eng-Tips Forums?

 

[MedicineEng]

Fire your boss, get his place and then fire the CAD draftsman if he is still alive.

 

[Senselessticker]

CAD guy has finally been terminated. Is been the only time within my professional career that everyone seems relieved after someone is terminated.

The guy was probably the worst employee I've EVER encountered. And I worked in the resturant business for a decade and got to encounter some real losers! I just feel bad for the next group of engineers that this guy tries to scam...

 

[IRstuff]

I've experienced a worse person. "J" was hired as a design engineer at a previous company. My first run-in with her was when another engineer, assigned to her team, dropped by my office to discuss some issues about design rule checks on ICs. Next thing I knew, I was called into my manager's office to answer charges that I was interfering with J's project.

This was repeated in various forms with many others in the organization. All I can say further is that we had a greate going away party, but somehow, she never got the email invitation.

TTFN

FAQ731-376

 

[WGJ]

We once had a contract engineer working with us that ended up with the nickname "the projectionist".

Reason why -- he started going missing on random afternoons. As we work on a large site, this didn't cause too much comment as he always had an excuse about where he'd been.
However, it got such that he went missing every afternoon after about 1 to 1.30 and didn't materialise until the next day.
Someone joked that, based on the times he went missing, he was moonlighting at the local cinema. Hence he was the projectionist.
This went on for months. I think the fact that the person that hired him was his boss didn't help. He didn't like to lose face.


Bill

 

[BigH]

I once saw a "Legal Advert" in an Indian Paper a few years ago. In the add, they basically said that "so and so" has not shown up for work for 4 years (or so) and that they are considering termination. If he had any objections, he should contact the employer immediately.