One guy during the probation period called IT saying his laptop was broke, they told him to bring it into the office. It turned out he was on another continent and didn’t bother to tell anyone. As expected he lost his job.
We had this once with a guy working remotely who decided to move to Poland without telling anyone, which was not allowed in the terms of his contract nor did he have a visa to live in Poland. Only person I’ve ever heard of getting deported from Poland to the UK
This is becoming quite a thing here in Vietnam. We are starting to get quite a few undocumented migrant workers from the USA. It’s slowly becoming problematic. I expect my compliance paperwork to increase in cost and complexity if the trend continues.
Also I see them die on the roads sometimes, maybe one per year. That’s not an outcome I’d wish on them, but it’s not surprising either.
Makes sense. I don’t know why, but I somehow read the original comment to mean that Americans were randomly dead on the side of the road, sans car. Lol
Driving a motorcycle unsafely in mixed traffic without a license, registration, insurance, experience, or the ability to read the road signs. Saw two doing unsafe stuff on my way to work today. Not sure specifically where they are from, I didn’t stop to ask. I can infer non-compliance from the license plate types with decent accuracy though. Generally plates that say NN (foreign resident), NG (foreign organization), or LD (local enterprise) are compliant and others are not. There are a couple of exceptions beyond that, but they are quite rare.
One nearly got hit by a bus as they cut across the road at an intersection. The other was just being pushy but didn’t outright do anything that would get them killed – not really out of the ordinary, just ‘somewhat unsafe’.
I recently went on a short trip for my wife’s surgery just over the border and did work one day remotely from another country. I used a travel router connected to the hotel WiFi but that router was running a Wireguard tunnel back to my apartment. From there I connected my work laptop to its WiFi so all the traffic out to the Internet appeared to come from home. When I connected to the company VPN on the work laptop it should’ve appeared as though I was connecting from my home country, right?
I’m pretty solid that that’s the case. I confirmed on all my other devices connected to the travel router that there were no DNS/IP leaks.
Probably, but that’s not the issue from a corporate perspective. You still transported a company laptop, presumably containing company IP or other confidential information, across an international border. That’s the big sticking point with most corporations due to the rules about search and seizure of said data when crossing borders. Some companies might insist that only prepared clean (essentially empty, not just encrypted) machines can cross borders and you can download the data you need through a VPN once you reach your destination.
Yeah, we have a country list with different security levels. The company issued laptops are only allowed in some countries, for other countries you get a special travel laptop. Not sure if China is not just entirely black-listed. Certainly just working remotely from China is a no-go. Business trips are probably okay under some conditions.
Yeah, even crossing (or just existing within a couple hundred miles of) a US border, even as a US citizen, you give up almost all privacy and rights against search and seizure including personal “papers” stored on any storage device to border patrol and customs agents. It’s crazy the freedoms and protections people have voted away in the name of security theater and convenience.
In addition there can also be serious legal implications for a company if they have workers working in another country. Is the company now subject to the tax laws of that country because the employee visited? How about labour laws? Do their products now need to be translated into another language because the employee worked while in that jurisdiction? Etc.
So they hired a professional interviewee to be interviewed for them? Amazing. I wonder how you’d get that job, and what the recruitment process would be like?
This is not uncommon in IT type jobs with individuals from a certain country. I was at lunch with a coworker when he was approached to do an interview for a cousin of one of his friends. I must have looked puzzled because he explained it to me and I was flabbergasted. He said that it was more common during phone interviews, but since “they all look the same” to white hiring managers, it still happens over video interviews.
It’s more they have a friend that speaks better English do the interview and hope that big companies don’t notice a difference when they start the job.
Had that happen to me once. Guy we phone screened did not match the guy on the video interview. Immediately bounced, you could tell their accent and talking style was different.
Worked security at a factory that made kitchen appliances. It wasn’t his first day, but it was his first shift by himself.
There’s a gate at the front that you lock when you go on rounds.
Dude chooses to go on a round 5 minutes before shift change for the factory workers. He gets a call on company cell that folks are at the gate. Instead of coming back, he tells them to wait 20 minutes so he can finish his round.
20 minutes where they won’t be getting paid.
Second in command big boss of the factory is out there checking IDs and directing traffic when dude gets back from his round. Now this dude is nice. Genuinely one of the nicest people you’ll ever meet. Old union rep, shirt off his back type. Tells guard not to worry about it, all’s good. Just time his rounds better next time.
Guard starts screaming at him about how he had no right to undo the lock, to get out of here, he’ll handle them, and if he wants to make them wait that’s his right. Boss man tells him to chill out, he won’t get in trouble, just go do his log and then he can take over checking IDs.
Guard pulls out, in one hand, a mag light flashlight he was told not to have, and in the other chemical spray that’s illegal for a guard to carry without certs (which he didn’t have), and this is an unarmed site. Threatens to ““arrest”” him. When boss pulls out his cell to call the guard company, the guard sprayed him and knocked his cell onto the ground, and kicked it across the parking lot, breaking it.
Needless to say, he was fired. Boss didn’t press assault charges, but we nearly lost the contract.
Not just mall cops, it’s just people in general in any position of power. When I was young I used to host game servers for a community I created and liked to have a decent amount of people to administrate them and keep the games fun for everyone. There were people playing for months and always seemed reasonable and level headed and I’d see if they would be interested and most jumped at the chance to be more involved in the community. Every once in awhile though those reasonable and level headed individuals once they got some measure of authority went absolutely crazy and there’s no indication of who it would be. People can be the exact opposite too, they clown around taking nothing seriously always trying to push boundaries, but then you give them some responsibility and suddenly they are the most responsible person you’ve ever met, they just needed a chance to show it.
Depending on the state, security guards do have some power. In Tennessee, guards can be bonded, which effectively makes them cops.
In Virginia, security guards have powers of arrest, so they’re not cops, but can legally arrest and detail you, to include handcuffing and up to lethal force in certain situations.
But to your larger point, it’s a power trip. I worked security for 10 years. Most guards do not give a fuck, they don’t want to do anything more than the bare minimum, and will passively just sit there while people steal and shit.
But occasionally you get a power tripper. Someone who went into security because they couldn’t hack being a real cop, so they decided to become a rent-a-pig. This is usually seen in people 60+ or under 25.
A couple times now at my current job they’ve hired someone, only to have them just not show up on their agreed first day with no communication. I’m guessing they just got a different job they like more or something, but still, I’d imagine one usually at least tells people not to expect you, under that circumstance?
It’s so weird. I’ve seen a lot of people do that over the years.
One guy even responded to bring called, claiming he had spoken to the another manager about the start day, making it seem like a miscommunication. Next day rolls by and he’s still not showing up. Didn’t bother calling him at that point.
Companies can’t be arsed to let you know you didn’t get hired, I can see how someone would just ghost if they got a better job. Not commenting on whether it’s right it wrong, just making an observation.
The first full-time job I had was stuffing circuit boards. We got a new person in one day, she was clearly struggling but it seemed like she was trying… She never came back after lunch. I mean, say something or ask questions, any of us would have helped her out.
Semi-proud to say that after an intro day showing him the scope of the software, my replacement quit. We tried to tell him in the interview but maybe he just didn’t believe us.
Not on the first day but after a few weeks. He missed work every Wednesday, always claiming to have eaten something bad the evening before (it was always the same food). He wasn’t all that bright.
My wife had a guy start at her company the same day she did, but he got fired that same day because for reasons no one understands he decided it would be wise to make his Teams (or whatever they used. Slack? I can’t remember) profile picture a meme that said “Epstein didn’t kill himself” or something to that effect.
It was a six figure software engineering job, too. I cannot imagine losing a job like that for such a silly, self-inflicted reason.
At my last job some intern burst into Slack calling everyone “mald” for disagreeing with his sexist memes. That whole event was just a couple of hours.
Starting this off myself, there was one fella at my current job who bought vodka at a liquor store during his lunch break, poured heaps of it into his soda from a fast food joint, and wound up getting fired when they noticed him getting drunk as hell.
That was before I started working here, but coincidentally I met him at my other job!
Mine is similar. Arrived, day one in a new team; this one was more high-intensity than the usual - a fast-paced and very hands-on work environment. Noticed the team leader was working in a dysfunctional and unsafe manner; seemed unsteady. As the most junior member and a newbie at that I hesitated to confront directly; thankfully I managed to find a more experienced colleague. Scene was made safe; turned out the guy was drunk as a skunk. Canned within the hour.
I’ve since learned to be stronger and more willing to confront suboptimal or dangerous performance in team members, regardless of their seniority.
Bro. I worked for a call centre way back and in training some dude did the same thing sans the soda.
Just downed a 1/2 bottle and went back to training. Suffice to say he was pretty drunk (admittedly an alcoholic, and I sympathise) and started being a bit louder. He was promptly fired.
I knew a guy who would get absolutely wrecked on his lunch break in his car, and show up early thinking he was late because he was high as a kite on hard drugs.
You couldn’t tell unless he told you. He was a top performer. Probably the only person I’ve ever met that was a well functioning drug abuser, and that’s an understatement, the guy was fucked out of his mind all the time and to everyone around him he was perfectly coherent and capable.
Laptop repair in one of those third party warranty shops where the manufacturer ships them to get them fixed under warranty. Fucker had the best quality control numbers in the shop.
That is kinda cool but sad also. I knew someone like that as well. Worked for a company were the best quality control person for boards was a functioning alcoholic. And I mean like her hands started shaking around 9 o’clock. She would drink all day long from tiny schnaps bottles hiding in her office or from her flask.
These boards were mostly for prototypes or small series, so always something new to look out for. Tiny parts mounted by hand. She would catch any error or faulty joint. But couldn’t talk straight. I never understood how that’s possible. I guess these people are better focused when drunk/high. Or just ultra pros at their jobs…
I know someone like that. He’s always drinking. And always drunk. He says he’d rather kill himself than drink less. Has a fancy government that drug tests him every 5 minutes just about. He makes a lot of money though. No idea how this is even sustainable. Guess they don’t give a shit as long as you don’t smoke weed.
Got drunk for the first time a week ago, I struggled to speak but I definitely felt hyper focused on what I was doing. In contrast I’m usually focused on what’s going on around me and have good spacial awareness. I can totally see myself doing quality control and not missing a beat.