With everything that's written about bad bosses, it is easy to forget that employees can be as bad as any manager. And in this post on HR Capitalist, Kris Dunn relates the story of one worker who may have been the most devious yet (Oh, I don't know – what about this guy? - ED).
According to Dunn, this particular employee worked in an HR Call Center. The problem was that he was taking time off – almost monthly - to supposedly attend the funeral of a different aunt or uncle. Needless to say, his manager got suspicious and began to try setting traps to snare the liar.
First, they asked that he come back from each funeral with a program from the ceremony. Surprisingly, the employee did come back each time with a program that included a picture of the deceased.
Second, they decided it was time to start calling the funeral home. So, a manager would call and claim to be checking on the correct spelling of the deceased's name. It was then that the true scam began to unfold.
It turned out the CSR has an "inside man" at the funeral home. This person would print up fake funeral programs, complete with picture, whenever the employee called to say he needed to take more time off for bereavement. The inside man even added logos for the funeral home for that extra added authenticity.
Needless to say, soon after this discovery was made, the Customer Service Rep lost his job. Exactly what happened to the funeral home employee is unclear.
This story does go to show, however, that there may be no lengths to which some employees will go to get out of work and just how careful you need to be as a manager when it comes to monitoring such things.