Herbert looks for a new job

Well here’s a good example of life here….  About two months ago we were very busy indeed.  (My year end is July 31^st and we are about 30% up in turnover this year…).  I decide to employ another member of staff and sought someone who though not necessarily being familiar with materials and methods we use in our factory would nonetheless be familiar with some of the equipment and so abbreviate the learning time.

I interviewed five or six people having used an internet recruitment site.  One of them was a Latvian who was so keen and showed such a spirit of initiative that I hadn’t the heart to turn him down.  I was intending to recruit only one, but another fellow, an Englishman in his fifties, who had much experience and who had been unemployed for six months engaged my sympathy in his predicament and so I thought “Why not take two?”.  Let’s call him Herbert.

They both lived more than 200 miles away, so I found digs for them and they started.  Both knew about the machines but not the way in which we used them and so they were on a steep learning curve.  Herbert seemed very slow to learn and my manager John expressed doubt as to whether we should keep him.  I told him we should keep him for a while, that older guys were sometimes slower to learn but that he might be a reliable and useful member of the team in due course.

After seven weeks Herbert came to John and said that he had been head-hunted by an old friend who had offered him a fantastic job in a new start up operation.  He named the salary (about £5000 more than we were paying) and said that it was the chance of a lifetime given that he had been promised a directorship in due course.  Could he leave immediately, waiving his notice period, given that he had to commission a new machine in Denmark three days later.  I agreed – I’ve never ever wanted to stand in the way of anyone’s progress and certainly don’t want an employee who is anything less than happy working for me.  “You’ll give me a reference won’t you?” he said as he left.  “Of course”.  (Though I thought that odd given he had been ‘head-hunted’.)  It was the end of the month and he had been paid three days in advance, but he promised to refund that money and to return the clothing with which he had been provided.

That was a Friday.  On the Monday next (he had been going to start work on the Tuesday), the new employer rang up for a reference.  I said I was surprised given that he had been “head-hunted”.   

“He wasn’t head-hunted!” came the reply … “He applied for the job through an agency.”

“Oh, he told me that he had been head-hunted for a new start up operation with a friend.”

“I’ve never met him before!”

“He told me that he was in line for a directorship.”

“You must be joking!  This a family firm started by my parents!”

“Not a start-up operation?”

“No! Been going twenty years!”

“And not making alcohol related products?”

“No – we work in the food industry!  Can I ask you a question?  Were you using him as a consultant because you had problems which he was called in to solve?”

“No!  He was a trainee – and he answered a job advert on-line.”

“And were you paying him…..?” A sum £4500 more than he was actually being paid was mentioned.

Well Herbert didn’t get his new job.  And now he’s threatening to sue both me and the other firm.  For “breach of contract” as far as the other company is concerned and “defamation” as far as I am concerned.

If you’re wondering whether, a month later, we have been refunded the wages overpayment or had the clothing returned, then like me, you haven’t seen through Herbert for what he was.