Incompetent New Hire Causes Havoc At Work, Pushing Nearly An Entire Department To Quit

When it comes to work, one bad employee can make their entire team miserable. Sometimes so much so that they decide to collectively quit their jobs.

Reddit user Ill-Bridge3129 recently told the ‘Anti Work’ community about problems caused by a new hire. The boss asked the OP to share personal material in order to train him. They refused, which led to the newbie demanding for it, the superior getting it without authorization, and the team members updating their CVs.

The OP wasn’t willing to share their notes so the new co-worker could get out of their situation. Doing so simply wouldn’t be fair, considering that he had to spend time and money to learn something the new hire lied about knowing already. In addition to that, the workplace had nothing to do with the OP’s education as it canceled their plans for tuition reimbursement, which made the employee even more opposed to the idea. Moreover, even if they wanted to disseminate information, students are often not allowed to due to the subtleties of copyrights in education.

When the deception is as significant as it was with the new hire in the story, the truth ought to see the light of day at some point. But even with that in mind, an astonishing number of people—just over 80%—lie during job interviews nevertheless. When they do, it’s not only the quality of work that’s at stake. Research shows that lack of honest communication is the number one factor that negatively affects employee morale. As much as 33% of employees believe that to be true.

Open communication is vitally important among all types of workers, as lots of jobs nowadays require some sort of collaboration. Zippia revealed that in the US, at least half of them do. Therefore, it is not surprising that the majority of employed people (75%) believe cooperation to be very important. Joining forces often allows them to share the load as well as helps reach their goals in a more efficient manner. Zippia also uncovered that people who work in collaboration with others are 64% more likely to complete their tasks compared to the ones who work independently.

Both the individual’s and the team’s performance often depends on their superiors as well. In the OP’s case, the manager didn’t seem to help put out the fire. On the contrary, she went ahead and took the notes despite not having the permission to do so, which would likely make anyone mad. Maybe even furious enough to leave their job. Bamboo HR’s survey covered by CNBC revealed that 26% of people who quit because of their boss do so as a result of their inappropriate behavior. If you’re wondering how many employed people have left a job because of their superior—in the US, nearly half of them have (44%, to be exact).

The survey also revealed that one of the top five behaviors that people hate the most from bosses is hiring or promoting the wrong people, which is what happened in the OP’s story. The decision to upset the old employees and support the new one—who wasn't off to a good start—didn’t seem to work out in the end. TeamStage statistics show that roughly a third (33%) of workers believe that fostering a collaborative culture can lead to a boost in loyalty to the company.