There are some truly sick people in the world. I think I may have come in contact with one of the craziest of them all, "the death recycler".
Ok, let's start from the beginning. Back in early June my company hired this new girl...we'll call her "J" for short. According to the bosses, J seemed to be qualified for the job. She started with he company and seemed to be grasping the job at hand.
Within two weeks, J had called in sick a few times. Ok, things happen, right? Within a month, she had taken about eight sick days. That should have been a huge red flag. But, the owners let her stay and before you knew it, we were well into July.
Then on a Monday, J calls and says she had an "accident" over the weekend and that she would be out for a few days. She ended up being out for the week. The following Monday, J comes in on crutches, with her left foot/ankle wrapped in an ace bandage and her right wrist/hand wrapped in one as well. We were all like "wow, she must really be hurt!" But then, I started to get a little suspicious. On Tuesday..the crutches disappeared, then on Wednesday the foot wrap vanished....by Thursday the hand wrap was gone. I also noticed her climb on a desk to write something on a dry erase board with ease...showing no signs of pain.....but like everything else...they let that go too.
Then the "my mother is in the hospital" days off started. Sometimes upwards of 3-4 days out a week through August and September. During that period, she went in one of the owner's offices crying that she had no money for food, that she was helping with her mom's medical bills. So, he gives her $100. Now, if you were BROKE and someone gave you $100 for food, wouldn't you buy tons of cheap stuff? Boxes of mac n' cheese, soups, etc? Nope, she goes out and buys a HUGE bag of shrimp. The shrimps were bigger than my shoe....must have been a $40 bag...and has the balls to bring them into work.
So, the spotty days off continued through September and October. Two fridays ago, she shows up at 7:40am. Keep in mind..I am always the only person in the building between 7:30 and 8:30am daily. This girl is due in at 8:30 daily and is never on time. Anyway....she engages me in conversation...small talk...and in passing she says...."my mom died last night." I was shocked and went out of my way to show compassion and concern. She said it very casually. She worked until 10am that morning..until the paychecks were passed out and then took off. I thought that was strange. The girl is out four days a week to "care for her mom" then when she "dies" she shows up for work.....
Monday comes and we called her to find out where the funeral was, as we wanted to take up a collection and send flowers. A day passes and she calls back and says "Oh, don't bother the funeral is in NJ in the neighborhood where she grew up." We were like, it is ok, we'll call 1-800-flowers...they deliver everywhere. She completely avoided giving us the funeral home name/address. So, we pressed her on it and she finally said by email, "In lieu of flowers, please make a donation to ____ _____ church in Glen Cove, NY. She gave a priest's name there. So, when we called the church, the priest had no idea what we were talking about. Could she have lied about her mom's death?
I think she recycled that death. I believe her mom passed years ago, yet she used an "illness" for weeks to get days off with sympathy and then recycled the death because she got wind that she was going to get fired because of excessive absences. I mean, who would fire someone whose mom just died, right? Perfect way to save her job. And she may have pulled it off....but after returning to work last Friday...for one day...she called in sick again today......unfuckingbelieveable.
She is what I am dubbing...a death recycler.
