Over the years I have had my fair share of employees that were handed to me as I for one would not have hired them. The owner of the business via family connections having promised a parent or a close friend he would hire them. Your expectations are high as for one you think they will be educated and secondly having the connection someone you can rely on and trust. This is not a comical post, but the individuals that stand out one could have made a film about due to their special cases and would grade them unemployable.
There are a few such whizz kids that stand out for all the wrong reasons and were a nightmare to deal with. As an employee you are tested to the limit and at some point something will break and it is either you or the so called 'protected" employee who thinks he is safe and untouchable. The problem when doing favors employing their off spring is you have to be seen as being fair and giving them the best chance possible to succeed so they do get more rope to play with even when you know it is a lost cause.
The first employee we will call Roger and all of these will not be real names for obvious reasons as I can only recall one real name anyway. Roger was a grand son of a close family friend who had been known to the family for a good 50 years and when he asked for a favor hiring his grand son the owner felt obliged to help.
Roger looked a decent enough type of kid who just needed to be taught how things were done. His hygiene was not the best and was the first warning sign this may be a tough case and not something one would expect. With a few cans of deodorant and a personal chit chat that was resolved with a promise from his mother she would make sure his laundry was done. You will be surprised this is actually not that uncommon with the no clothes washing and we have had a few over the years and there is no easy way to avoid this besides hitting the problem head on.
Roger was not very good at most things and the only solution was to use him as a driver as at least he had a license. At this point of his career he was already on thin ice having not appeared for work on certain days of the week and liked Mondays and Fridays off. His mother used to phone through saying how ill her baby was and that she was sorry for his absence.
One day out driving he was involved in an accident and thankfully there was no other vehicle involved. According to Roger there was a witness and kid you not this was stated on the police accident report. The witness was a sheep in the field right alongside where he had crashed. My guess is he was either travelling too fast or was busy texting on his phone or both. When he was questioned back at the office he was adamant the sheep was his witness and saw nothing wrong or peculiar with this. The insurance company handling the claim had phoned asking if we were serious and that this was not a joke and told them unfortunately not and this was the official police accident report.
It was at this point I decided to terminate Rogers contract and he was long past his sell by date. The owner who had hired him doing a favor for a family friend said he was not protected and if we thought he needed to go then it would be best for everyone involved.
The mother once she found out her baby was given the boot threatened the company with an unfair dismissal claim because unbeknown to all of us worked for a law firm that specialized in such cases. I knew here from a family gathering and was not someone you would chit chat with and would only acknowledge she was there by a greeting and a good bye. The threat was just a threat and Roger was gone for good to the relief of everyone and definitely was a lesson learned doing favors for family friends. Roger by all accounts was unemployable and the questions should have been asked right at the beginning why he could not find a job and was up to his grand parents to find employment.