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Forgotten Employee (2002)

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Re: Forgotten Employee (2002)

#11

Post by natural20s »

This happened to someone I knew back in 2014 or so. We were hired together at C** Consulting and I was immediately shipped off to Dallas to help with an eCommerce program at a famous Watch & Accessory brand. My buddy from orientation in NJ kept in touch and was jealous I was on a project so quickly. He went back to his home and went into the C** office dutifully for the first month and just did training, enablement and finally surfed the web and got bored.

It seems his manager LEFT C** right as he joined. The ORG had not changed to reflect this status and my friend now reported to a ghost. He joked with me about it but was also baffled that such a large company could let this happen. His humor turned dark and he started to stay at home - do nothing - and collect his check.

Last I heard he applied to Ac** Consulting - got a role and started up with them... collecting two checks for a while until C** figured out what was up and reassigned him - he put in his 2 weeks notice at that time. :shrug emoji: True story.

Re: Forgotten Employee (2002)

#13

Post by shubhamjain »

iamjackg wrote: post #7
shubhamjain wrote: post #3

I read it a while back. The story is probably fiction, but I have no trouble believing there must be shitload of people who must have worked an arrangement like that for themselves—taking paychecks without work. What surprises me is that almost always these people don't use their free time to do something productive—like picking up a hobby or up-skilling, they squander most of it. Ex: a programmer who outsourced his…

I'm curious: how long were your breaks? I've had two rather long (>6 months) breaks in my career, and I've enjoyed them immensely and have been very productive: finished personal projects, made music, YouTube videos, learned new skills. However, both times it took at least a couple months of passive life before I could do anything productive at all: I just slept, cooked, read, played video games, and scrolled Reddit.…

My break was almost 5-6 months. It's not like I didn't do anything. I revamped my website, shipped a puzzle game, wrote articles. But I had months where I basically didn't do anything. And it was hard to climb out of the stretch of unproductivity. The main issue was that I didn't have any concrete goals. And while theoretically I could have done anything, my mind was digressing everywhere and ended up doing nothing.

It was a good experience for sure and would definitely do it again. But I would keep my goals concrete and ideally have one project to dedicate myself to.

Re: Forgotten Employee (2002)

#16

Post by Lammy »

For history's sake, here are 3 of 5 parts of the original story preserved in the SA Goldmine for anyone who wants to read 2002 forum comments:

Part 1: https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=18... (dead link)

Part 2: https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=20... (dead link)

Part 3: https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=26...

Part 4: https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=30...

Part 5: https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=33...

Disclaimer: The word "sir" seems to have been edited into the f-slur at some point on part 5.

Re: Forgotten Employee (2002)

#18

Post by ericmcer »

iamjackg wrote: post #7
shubhamjain wrote: post #3

I read it a while back. The story is probably fiction, but I have no trouble believing there must be shitload of people who must have worked an arrangement like that for themselves—taking paychecks without work. What surprises me is that almost always these people don't use their free time to do something productive—like picking up a hobby or up-skilling, they squander most of it. Ex: a programmer who outsourced his…

I'm curious: how long were your breaks? I've had two rather long (>6 months) breaks in my career, and I've enjoyed them immensely and have been very productive: finished personal projects, made music, YouTube videos, learned new skills. However, both times it took at least a couple months of passive life before I could do anything productive at all: I just slept, cooked, read, played video games, and scrolled Reddit.…

It is interesting that you approach time off as a way to prevent burnout so you can ultimately be productive. I have done it a handful of times and struggle with what the overall goal of a >6mo break is.

Traveling and having experiences is great but it is stressful to burn cash that fast, sitting around the house is cheap but leads to ennui, working hard on projects makes me wonder why I don't just go back to work. I usually end up just rotating between those three things which is a nice freedom to have.

Re: Forgotten Employee (2002)

#19

Post by tonnydourado »

dwater wrote: post #14

This was originally a series of posts on the Something Awful forums. The first 2 parts are gone but the later parts are still available: https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=26... The author acknowledged that it's fictional.

Something Awful. That's what SA stands for. Makes much more sense then my first thought, Sexual Assault forums.

Re: Forgotten Employee (2002)

#20

Post by bademployeetoss »

shubhamjain wrote: post #3

I read it a while back. The story is probably fiction, but I have no trouble believing there must be shitload of people who must have worked an arrangement like that for themselves—taking paychecks without work. What surprises me is that almost always these people don't use their free time to do something productive—like picking up a hobby or up-skilling, they squander most of it. Ex: a programmer who outsourced his…

> What surprises me is that almost always these people don't use their free time to do something productive—like picking up a hobby or up-skilling, they squander most of it.

I agree that this story is probably fiction, but I feel like I broadly fit into this category of collecting a paycheck with minimal work. I feel it takes one or two days of effort per week at work to station keep.

I spend nearly all of the "extra" time on a few work Slack channels, goofing off with work friends, occasionally doing internal tech support, and reading the web. I feel regret that I'm not making better use of this windfall of time, but I haven't been able to take the step to working on my own startup or pursuing hobbies during work because it feels outright dishonest while "be available, but not very productive" doesn't hit quite the same way.

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