This is a story from my early days in HR. It was quite a learning experience that has since turned into one of my best (and longest) HR stories.
Joe Smith had been a pharmaceutical sales rep with ABC Company for nearly 3 years but his sales numbers kept going down. He was put on probation that lasted 5 months… it was extended because we had to wait to get sales numbers back and that took extra time. Things didn’t improve so we decided to terminate. The VP of Sales and his manager both flew to his location and arranged a meeting at a hotel (this was the norm for our nationwide reps).
During the meeting he got really red, started vibrating, jumped up and ran out of the hotel room shouting “catch me if you can.” Since he had a company car, prescription drugs used for samples, and literature, it was necessary to try to talk to him at his home. The VP and manager had to take the time to get a map to find his place and get their car, then they headed out. When they were about 2 blocks from the rep’s home, they saw a police car coming from the opposite direction and it stopped them. The officer made them get out of the car, assume the position, and they were frisked.
It turned out that the rep had called the police and said 2 people (that looked a whole lot like the VP and manager) were on the way to his place to kill him. Once my people had a chance to explain things, they all went to the rep’s home. (Picture about an acre completely fenced in, like a compound.) The gate was locked so they couldn’t actually go up to the front door so they all stood on the street. The rep appeared in the picture window and shouted at them. The officer suggested they wait to talk with him again and everyone left.
The manager and VP went to the airport to catch flights out. Meanwhile, in the home office, we found out that he had cashed a $500 advance on his way home from the hotel. One of our employees got a call from him and passed on the message… “the drugs are at the curb by the street light.” Since these were prescription drugs, we had to get them off the street. We called the VP and was told the manager had already flown out. The VP cancelled her flight and went about renting a storage unit. Our CEO called the police to ask them to pick up the drugs. We later got a call back from the police and were told, “yes, they’re there but too many to fit in the car” so they left them there. The CEO then tried the fire department who did go out and collect the drugs and took them to the storage unit.
Our attorney said we couldn’t consider the car stolen until enough time had gone by (about 3 months). So the CEO hired the “goons” (aka repo guys) to try to get it back. Reports kept coming back that they could never catch him off his property with it and they couldn’t trepass to recover it. In the end, time went by and we were able to declare it stolen. It was returned but was missing the back seat (which he tried to say was never there), had an additional 5,000 miles on it, and was absolutely filthy (lots of dog hair and other things). The fleet people weren’t happy and we took a big hit on it.
It was nearly a year to the day from the termination when we heard from him again. He’d gotten in just under the deadline and filed a complaint with the Labor Board. At the hearing, the rep tried to claim that he was promised unpaid commissions but the judge threw that out when he saw my offer stated only that he was eligible to participate in the commission program. The rep tried to claim other things and started becoming red and vibrating (sound familiar?) and making the judge so mad, the judge nearly threw the rep out of the hearing. In the end, the judge sided with our company on everything.
No big surprise that the rep then filed a lawsuit. When our attorney and the VP flew down for the deposition, neither the rep nor his attorney showed up. Our attorney went to court to get reimbursement. The rep’s attorney declared that he was no longer working for the rep because he hadn’t been paid. The judge stated he was on the case until he was relieved by the court. Our company was to be reimbursed for the expenses involved in the no-show deposition… the rep’s ex-attorney had to paid half of those costs before the judge let him off the case.
By this time, we’re about 6 months into the whole process and $30,000 down. Our attorney had discovered that the rep had pulled a very similar stunt with his previous employer but they had settled so it wasn’t discoverable in a background check. Right then our CEO decided to take this as far as needed to get it on the books.
One day our attorney called and told me the case was dismissed. It seems that the rep had written a check to the court system when he filed the suit. The check bounced and he was told he needed to replace it with cash and he never did. Shows you how slow the government moves… it took 6 months for this to come to light! Given our CEO’s mindset, our attorney went to court asking for a judgment so it would always show up on background checks. It was granted, plus the rep was ordered to reimburse for the $30,000 we had spent.
The rep declared bankruptcy, but we didn’t really expect to see the money. During all this, the rep’s wife left him. For nearly a year I would get the occasional call from her telling me where we could locate Joe. We didn’t worry about it until a few months later.
One of our newer reps was approached for information on Joe from someone who believed they worked together. The new rep had never met him. Turns out that he was still listing us as his current employer on his resume. Our attorney sent a letter to stop that.
The final twist on this came several years later when our company was acquired. I went to work for the acquiring company and had starting building a sales team for them. Guess who’s resume I received?! Yep, and he was still crazed… our company was no longer listed on his resume but he had buried the 3+ years he worked for us into the time frames of the jobs before and after ours. No, we didn’t interview him although we could have had a lot of fun with that since the VP and manager were still working with me!
