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ghosting employee

Started by curved-wood, December 03, 2019, 06:55:50 AM

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curved-wood

Ghosting is when an employee disappears or didn't show up with no message, no email, no tel just no message of any kind. They disappear like a Ghost and sometimes not showing up at the first day of work !! Another new word in my vocabulary. A North American study show that 69% of the business had ''ghost'' experience in the last 2 years. That is a lot. No wonder that emerging country have an easy market in North America. Just difficult to have stable employees. I didn't had any ghost experiences in the last 2 years simply because I had enough and I decide to work alone on the mill. I Had my share of ghost experience; I even had 2 employees that didn't came an get his pay check (not much $$ but still )!! If I decide to hire a new employee I will ask : are you a ghost ? :) 
What about your ghost employee experience ?

lxskllr

Not an employee of mine, but years ago my old company hired a new rodman trainee. First day, we stopped at McDonalds for lunch. He walked in the front door, out the back, and was never heard from again  :^D

florida

Years ago had a guy telling other people at work he was leaving and going back home. He failed to show up one Monday, I called and got no answer, I went by his house which looked deserted, heard nothing for a week so hired hs replacement. The week after that while I was still training the replacement the ghost walked in and started picking up tools. Needless to say, he walked right back out. He filed an unemployment claim and won! The state said it was because I didn't have a written policy that explained that you couldn't just walk off the job. I appealed and lost again. In the meantime, the state was paying him unemployment every week.  I appealed a second time but since the state had lost the recording of my last appeal they couldn't do anything except to pay him. You can't make this stuff up.
General contractor and carpenter for 50 years.
Retired now!

YellowHammer

I didn't know that.  I would imagine there is a basic "Employee Policy Code" that defines these basic rules, published by the government?  Similar to the OSHA poster?  I will start looking for it.   
YellowHammerisms:

Take steps to save steps.

If it won't roll, its not a log; it's still a tree.  Sawmills cut logs, not trees.

Kiln drying wood: When the cookies are burned, they're burned, and you can't fix them.

Sawing is fun for the first couple million boards.

Be smarter than the sawdust

Jeff

Back in my sawing days I had innumerable bodies start the day, go to lunch and never come back even for a pay check.

The boss's kid was more of a zombie. He'd  disappear,  quit, get fired, show up and just sleep in the break room, and on the rare occasion work. We made up an excuse jar we could draw out of when he wouldn't  show up. It contained many of his excuses he had used over the years like:


  • Best buddy died,(used multiple times)
  • Bit by a spider
  • Bit by a cat
  • Stuck in the frost. Yes he said frost.
  • Won 3000 in the lottery so took his best buddy cliff blackledge to windsor to the casino and strip clubs.  Cliff had died the year before. See excuse 1.
  • On and on...
Just call me the midget doctor.
Forestry Forum Founder and Chief Cook and Bottle Washer.

Commercial circle sawmill sawyer in a past life for 25yrs.
Ezekiel 22:30

barbender

Jeff I work with one of those. Not the bosses son but the same pattern of excuses. Idk how he keeps a job NOT being a son🤷🏽‍♂️
Too many irons in the fire

barbender

I could at least maintain a certain level of respect for someone that just said "I didn't feel like working today. Fire me if you want."
Too many irons in the fire

sawguy21

Probablly why my last employer stated in the handbook that anyone that didn't show for work or make contact for three consecutive days would be terminated.
old age and treachery will always overcome youth and enthusiasm

WV Sawmiller

   My first paying job (I had helped my dad put up monuments and chain link fences since I was 6 y/o) was at a Boise Cascade plywood plant north of Pensacola. It was supposed to be a summer job and they hired 8-10 people per week. They put me on graveyard shift stacking core out of the kiln. I was tail end Charlie and got the pieces the ladies in front missed or let go. My stacks looked like crap and after an hour or so they moved me to the spreader crew making plywood. I was a core layer/feeder feeding core through a glue spreader half the night and catching and laying glued up core sheets wearing rubber gloves the other half the night. I'd generally work over a few hours and come in on weekends to do clean up or unload a box car load of flour or such. I stayed over and worked in the green end a few hours one day and that was the hardest work I ever did in my life. The regular guy who did it had arms that looked like Hulk Hogan and a bullet bulging out just under the skin of his pecs where he had been shot years before and they could not remove it at that time. When working the spreader job we often had people com in and work 2-3 hours and say "They can have that 2 hours" and walk out. I was the only one out of the crew we hired that week to last the summer and that was typical - maybe 1-2 out of an 8-10 man crew would stay 2-3 months. I stayed on and worked weekends for another 3 months after I started college. I don't know if they had a termination policy as I never saw anybody stay long enough to get fired. 
Howard Green
WM LT35HDG25(2015) , 2011 4WD F150 Ford Lariat PU, Kawasaki 650 ATV, Stihl 440 Chainsaw, homemade logging arch (w/custom built rear log dolly), JD 750 w/4' wide Bushhog brand FEL

Dad always said "You can shear a sheep a bunch of times but you can only skin him once

Old Greenhorn

Quote from: WV Sawmiller on December 03, 2019, 11:53:52 AMI don't know if they had a termination policy as I never saw anybody stay long enough to get fired.
AH the good old days, when if you wanted a job, you came to work did what you were told, and if you didn't want to work, you quit.
Nowadays, they come to work and tell us what they will and won't do, and how they are gonna do it rather than how we told them we wanted in done.

 "Welcome to the company, do you have any questions?"
 "Yeah, how much vacation do I get?, how long are the breaks?, when is lunch? When does the first break start?"
Tom Lindtveit, Woodsman Forest Products
Oscar 328 Band Mill, Husky 350, 450, 562, & 372 (Clone), Mule 3010, and too many hand tools. :) Retired and trying to make a living to stay that way. NYLT Certified.
OK, maybe I'm the woodcutter now.
I work with wood, There is a rumor I might be a woodworker.

Raider Bill

Sounds like the list of why I can't pay the rent excuses I get from tenants.
The First 70 years of childhood is always the hardest.

Pine Ridge

Had a guy retire a few years ago, someone asked me how long i'd worked with him. I told them i never did work with him, i'd worked "around" him the past nine years.
Husqvarna 550xp , 2- 372xp and a 288xp, Chevy 4x4 winch truck

curved-wood

I was surprised how commun the ghosting is common. One employee was always contesting what he had to do. So I told him to stop responding to everything I was saying. He start to scream after me : ''you will listen to me ''... sorry about that I am the boss. So I told him that it would be better to take the day off and calm down. Didn't show up for a few days. Came on Friday to get his pay and ran out the door. Never showed up. Crossed him in the courthouse ( I was there for a zoning change). Ask him why he his in the courthouse. He answer: ''it is a personal matter''. I went to check the criminal record office and found out he was charge 3 times for beating his wife. Some people have a really rough life.

Bruno of NH

Last summer I hot ghosted by 3 different guys.
This spring by one guy.
It's the new thing.
The guy that's helping me now can never be on time.
He works hard when he's here.
I tell  him I want to make a sitcom on what's he gives for an excuse every day.
It's always somethings fault :D
I say it Mr Natty Daddy and doesn't like that. 
Lt 40 wide with 38hp gas and command controls , F350 4x4 dump and lot of contracting tools

Old Greenhorn

This actual ghosting thing only happened to me once. I was running a CNC shop and the Boss brings me a guy. Says he is a personal friend and a great guy. He was a merchant mariner and I have a soft spot for such folk, they can be rough and tumble types but they have a very tough job in a challenging environment. My Grandfather was in the merchant marine his entire life.
 Now this guy is big, I am 6'1" and he looks down on me, he also has biceps I can't get two hands around and is covered in tattoos. He probably has 75 pounds on me and no fat. He is very intimidating to look at, but seems like a gentle guy, and he is the bosses buddy. So I bring him over to a machine running a simple job that was all set up. All he had to do was put the part in the vise, snug it, tap the part to make sure it was home, then tap the vise handle to make sure it was tight and hit the Green button. Then repeat. I told him to take his time and get me if he had any questions. I checked on him a time or two and all seemed well. He did not set the world on fire, but the machine was running and the parts were good. I like to start new folks out easy as they get used to the shop and this guy told me he had no machining experience.
 So lunch time comes...and goes....and he doesn't come back. I go in and ask the boss if his friend had something else going on. He was as surprised as me, said he would find out. Well the next morning the boss comes over and asks me what I did to the guy. I told him exactly what went down. He said "well I talked to him and he said you intimidated the heck out of him and gave him a very complicated job. He said this was way too technical for him to ever work here." The boss saw the job I had him on and realized it just didn't work out, but from then on I was know as the guy who could intimidate men that were twice my size and weight.  ;D :D
Tom Lindtveit, Woodsman Forest Products
Oscar 328 Band Mill, Husky 350, 450, 562, & 372 (Clone), Mule 3010, and too many hand tools. :) Retired and trying to make a living to stay that way. NYLT Certified.
OK, maybe I'm the woodcutter now.
I work with wood, There is a rumor I might be a woodworker.

SwampDonkey

I always figured a guy that don't show up has quit and that's what was written on the pink slip if he ever showed up. And no advances on pay, you work for it or don't bother coming. :D ;D The boss I work for now, takes a lot of crap from scammers and some owe him money. They are some glad I ain't boss. :D
"No amount of belief makes something a fact." James Randi

1 Thessalonians 5:21

2020 Polaris Ranger 570 to forward firewood, Husqvarna 555 XT Pro, Stihl FS560 clearing saw and continuously thinning my ground, on the side. Grow them trees. (((o)))

thecfarm

Oh yea,we have them. I work in a hardware store.Hardest part is loading 50 pounds of grain. Don't do that steady either. Sometimes we have the Wonder Crew. We wonder who will come in today. ::)
Model 6020-20hp Manual Thomas bandsaw,TC40A 4wd 40 hp New Holland tractor, 450 Norse Winch, Heatmor 400 OWB,YCC 1978-79

Raider Bill

I have a girl that works in my office. She's been here 9 years and has never been on time. She's a great employee and stays late without fail to make sure all the works done for the day so the morning girl doesn't have to do it, fantastic on the phones and a hard worker but always late.
I spoke with her mom one time who used to own a restaurant and said she was never on time there either.
The First 70 years of childhood is always the hardest.

SawyerTed

Yeah I had a couple of guys pull that ghosting thing when I was facilities manager at a manufacturing plant.  I didn't have hiring or firing authority so I had to try to get stuff done with who the owner sent to me. 

One I started calling "Blister."  After a few days he finally asked me why I was calling him "Blister".  I told him it's because he only shows up after the work is done.  

One guy would disappear during the day, turned out he had to go home to take care of his kids while his wife went to work.  Our work day was 7:30 to 4:30 Monday thru Thursday and 7:30 to Noon on Friday. He left about 11:30 each day.

Then there was the guy that carried the same box around the plant for a couple of hours a day....the lights were on, nobody was home.

Woodmizer LT50, WM BMS 250, WM BMT 250, Kubota MX5100, IH McCormick Farmall 140, Husqvarna 372XP, Husqvarna 455 Rancher

Okefenokee_D

This is one of the things that will make the US fall.....lazy citizens.

Brad_bb

That ghosting thing is what society is today.  People have friends on line.  They portray themselves as they want.  They don't have to interact with people.  That's too scary.  Confrontation, that's too scary.  They don't want to live in reality, they want to live on twitter and facebook and Instagram.  They're growing up with participation trophies.  They're not learning how to be adults, nor do they want to be. Work ethic, looking people in the eye, being an honest and upfront, that's old fashioned.  

Call me old fashioned I guess.
Anything someone can design, I can sure figure out how to fix!
If I say it\\\\\\\'s going to take so long, multiply that by at least 3!

YellowHammer

In my old job, the one I retired from just a couple years ago, we didn't have that kind of problem.  Everyone was screened, trained, retrained and then screened some more. Some, many, didn't make it, some did.  As soon as someone showed the first sign of laziness, incompetence, stupidity, or even being accident prone, I reassigned or got rid of them.  We were all professional Level 3 explosives handlers, engineers, fabricators and demo experts, conducting research for for Uncle Sam.  It was a fun job, that involved, among other things, blowing big things up.  The first thing we would do is take a new employee to the range, set up a warhead charge on a full scale test item, maybe an armored vehicle, a small building, a missile, whatever, go into the bunker, then "one, two three" and BOOM! The air in their lungs would shake.

The new employees, the ones that broke out in a big, ear to ear grin, were keepers and began the training.  The others went somewhere else.  No slackers allowed. It was a rare and fun job.    

It would give a literal meaning to the term "Ghosting" if the best people weren't doing their job.  

The guys and girls are still at work, I can still hear them occasionally, rocking the Arsenal, many miles away, if the wind is right and the clouds are low.
YellowHammerisms:

Take steps to save steps.

If it won't roll, its not a log; it's still a tree.  Sawmills cut logs, not trees.

Kiln drying wood: When the cookies are burned, they're burned, and you can't fix them.

Sawing is fun for the first couple million boards.

Be smarter than the sawdust

stavebuyer

I fired a regular "no show" who never missed a day until meeting the minimum time on the job to qualify for unemployment benefits. He of course protested his unfair termination and requested an appeal hearing regarding his unemployment benefits. As a general rule the Unemployment office universally finds for the employee. The "hearing" was a scheduled conference call that the former employee failed to call in. I didn't need to provide anything further for the summary judgement in my favor. Some days are good  ;D

Old Greenhorn

Quote from: SawyerTed on December 05, 2019, 08:43:18 PM
One I started calling "Blister."  After a few days he finally asked me why I was calling him "Blister".  I told him it's because he only shows up after the work is done.  
"Blister" I like that and I may use it. ;D
I used to work with a guy I called 'the fly' and somebody asked why I called him that. I said 'well he reminds me of a fly because he eats [shoot] and bothers people all the time.'
 I was sitting in the Conesville Country Store one morning around 7:30am having breakfast with one of BargeMonkey's guy's. Barge walked in and looked at the guy and said, "You are going to have to pick up the pace because we need a new slacker". It took me a second, but I thought that was a pretty good line, never heard it before. Of course, it was all in jest, kind of like the morning greeting, but still... :) :D
Tom Lindtveit, Woodsman Forest Products
Oscar 328 Band Mill, Husky 350, 450, 562, & 372 (Clone), Mule 3010, and too many hand tools. :) Retired and trying to make a living to stay that way. NYLT Certified.
OK, maybe I'm the woodcutter now.
I work with wood, There is a rumor I might be a woodworker.

Jeff

We hired a guy one time. Older guy, mid 50s. (I can say that because I was in my 30s :D )   He had worked for the road commission but no one bothered to check him out.  He asked about over time a week or so into his employment. We told him if he wanted to stay and shovel sawsudt out from under the mill or do other clean up for a half hour or so at night, that was encouraged.  The next day I looked at his time card. We got out at 5:30.  He clocked out at almost 8:00.  I asked him why he was there so long, as honestly you can clean the whole place in an hour by yourself if it hadnt been touch in two days.  He said he cleaned for an hour, but then could not figure out how to shut the lights off. He tried different things until it started to get dark. That is when he discovered we had already shut the lights off. He had been trying to shut off the sky lights.  DUH!   About two days later he pulled a loaded lumber cart over his foot. He was off for about 3 days.  He was back to work for about a week, and on that day at break, he came to me and said He had to go to the er because his wrist hurt.  He ended up suing the mill for carpel tunnel and won. He had done the same thing to the county road commission, and won at the mill because the work had "aggravated" his old condition.

I probably could remember dozens of stories from over the years about some of those winners.  At the first mill I worked we had the Sawyer (Me), A tailor (lumber stacker) a yard man, 2 truck drivers, a swing guy that could help where ever in the mill, the boss and his wife and a 3 man woods crew. I remember one year O'neal and Company (My first employer) sent out over 150 w2s.
Just call me the midget doctor.
Forestry Forum Founder and Chief Cook and Bottle Washer.

Commercial circle sawmill sawyer in a past life for 25yrs.
Ezekiel 22:30

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