I'm Off the Clock

I once had a supervisor, who we’ll call Ryan, that went through a pretty intensive off-site ethics training that resulted in a certification. After receiving the certification on a Friday at 3:00 PM, for some reason, he unnecessarily went to his work site. I’m sorry but if your modified workday ended at 3:00 PM, your normal work schedule is 12:00 AM - 8:00 AM, and you decide to show up to your worksite at 5:45 PM on a Friday night, you need a life. I’ll be the first one to say I need a life for similar reasons, but at least when I’m at work before or after hours I’m doing something productive. Ryan’s services were not needed and he didn't actually clock in and/or perform work. Till this day I still wonder why was he even there!?

Anyway, as he was walking up to the facility, one of our patients was openly discussing how she sucked off the manager and a supervisor. As stated in the incident report, the patient said, “I sucked the manager’s dick and the Saturday supervisor too.” Instead of reporting the issue to anyone actually working, he went on his merry way and eventually left the premises. Company policy states any incident must be reported by the end of the employee’s work shift, or at latest, 24 hours after having knowledge of an incident.

On Monday morning at 8:00 AM, after working 3rd shift, he asked two subordinates if they heard about the patient and the manager and other supervisor. Shocked, they responded they had not. Seeing their discomfort, he then told them not to talk about it with anyone else, and that he would report it to upper management. Again, he left without actually reporting anything.

Concerned, the morning staff escalated the incident, and upper management called Ryan at around 10:30 AM to discuss the incident further. The supervisor admitted to all of the allegations, including that he did not want the staff to talk to management. Ryan responded that he hadn't reported it yet because he was off the clock and thought he had 24 hours to report the incident from his more recent shift. Seriously? What would have been the point of waiting!?

If the patient was actually blowing management, Ryan waited all weekend before he reported it. With this said, Ryan compromised the safety and wellbeing of the patient for over 72 hours and asked staff not to disclose the safety issue either (!).

As you could imagine, I immediately investigated the incident to ensure the patient wasn't being abused or exploited (which wound up being unfounded - the patient had serious mental health issues), but for Ryan, not reporting the incident was immediate grounds for termination.

Therefore, Jacob, a member of senior management, and I, met with Ryan to terminate him. Ryan came into the office and sat down. We explained that we had some difficult news, and due to the fact that he failed to report such a serious incident, we were terminating Ryan’s employment.

Ryan immediately pulled out his cell phone and dialed a phone number. I asked him what he was doing. He ignored me. He put the phone on speaker and it rang. I told Ryan to hang the phone up, as we were in the middle of terminating his employment. He responded, “I don't have to do shit.” Finally, someone answered. It was his lawyer!

It sounded like he had already been in contact with this individual, most likely because Ryan assumed termination was impending. Ryan, ignoring Jacob and I, began to explain what just happened. I interrupted the conversation and said, “Ryan, you need to hang up and do this on your own time. We need to finish up here.” Ryan continued to ignore me and talk to his counsel. Finally, the lawyer, I guess overhearing me in the background said, “Wait. Are you still in the office with them?” Ryan, extremely pleased with himself responded that he was and even asked me to repeat what I said during the termination. I explained that the conversation was between us, and that I would not continue while Ryan was on the phone. The lawyer immediately responded, “You need to end this call, have the conversation with them, leave and then call me.” They hung up.

I could not help myself and quipped, “Now that you hung up with your lawyer, I can finish terminating you now. Unless, of course, you have any other phone calls to make.” He stared back at me with intensity. I continued, “As I was saying, we’re terminating you based on your failure to report a serious incident. We need all company property returned to us…” etc. Ryan got up and stormed out.

Needless to say, we never received correspondence from his lawyer.