Kudos to you, sir

Quitting without notice is, sadly, a common affair in our business.

My opinion?

Be an adult and just let us know you quit! Sure, I’m still going to judge your reason for quitting, which is probably juvenile, but at least you have recouped some points by behaving like an adult about your decision.

I digress. Let's get back to it. Disappearing acts: not uncommon. Check. Moving along.

We had an employee who mustered an “alright” work performance rating. Which, honestly, levels up to 'great worker' in my line of work. Not a ton of absences/tardiness. Not zero, but he always communicated when he wouldn't be in or was running late for work. Several points in the positive category right there.

And then.

(There is always an “and then” or a “but” in these stories, isn’t there?)

His supervisor emailed me close to the end of the day on a Friday to see if the guy had reached out to us to let us know he wouldn't be in. A quick check in his file revealed no, he had not. The supervisor thanked me, I marked the guy as a NCNS (no-call, no-show), which was weird, but we both moved on.

The following Monday, I received an email from the same supervisor to let me know she had, in fact, heard from the guy. Turns out, he had been arrested and ended up in the slammer for a few days.

(Before you ask: no, this was not the first time I'd had a contractor miss work because of an arrest.)

I cannot recall why he'd been arrested, but, get this: he used his phone call to call his supervisor to let her know what happened and that was why he missed work. Talk about dedication! That was the first time I'd heard of such dedication. Frankly, the negative accrued points for the whole ‘getting arrested’ thing on Yours Truly's personal judgement system were nearly balanced by the positive points for calling his supervisor from jail.

Kudos to you, sir.