to be shocked at having been ghosted?

[GraceSlicksRabbit]

We just recruited someone. During his first week he had a really comprehensive induction and lots of care was taken to make sure he was welcomed with lunches etc as well as just work stuff. Everyone who met him said that he was really engaged. He’s early thirties-ish, married with kids.

Didn’t turn up for work on Monday and hasn’t responded to any calls or emails, we even tried his emergency contact. We were genuinely worried about him!
He was on standard probation so could have walked away with minimal notice if he had just told us he had changed his mind.

Is this what people do nowadays?

For context, this is a permanent mid-level job in a big corporate, not a minimum wage type thing that might normally have high turnover. He was university educated and came across as articulate and pretty normal. All his references checked out in that they confirmed he had worked for them during the dates he gave. Two jobs in similar organisations to ours lasting many years.

We’re all a bit stunned.

One of my colleagues went missing and he'd actually died falling down some stairs :( Hope he's ok, if he has ghosted then how unprofessional

Sunshinecake by name but not by nature, eh?

It would appear from his CV that this would be out of character for him. Hopefully they get in touch somehow.

Had similar with a young guy when I was in my first management role. He was a grad, mid-20s, few years good experience in a similar role and had moved back to his home town and was in the process of buying a house with his gf, so not just a flakey kid.

We were all sat in the open plan office one lunchtime chatting about holidays, plans for the weekend, usual inane drivel, when he got up and said he was just popping out to the bank.

He never came back.

An hour or so later I sent 2 of the team out to have a look for him (this was in the days before everyone had a mobile) and I went to have word with HR in case they had heard from him. Nothing...

We called his next of kin - his father - he'd also not heard anything from him, but eventually, about 4 hrs after the chap had disappeared, his father called to say he'd turned up at their house.

Apparently he just didn't like the job.

How odd. I also think he had a better offer elsewhere though.

Rude bastard. You're better off without him

A new guy in the next department, very loud on the phone all day. The next day he wasn’t there - someone commented its quieter today only to be told he had died of a heart attack in the night.

Young woman who lived below me didn’t turn up for work once - it was out of character and her boss came round to her flat. No answer.

At 5pm that night the police broke her door down and she was barely alive. Taken to hospital but passed away that evening.

If it had been her second week I doubt they’d have gone straight round.

This happened to a dear friend of mine. She didn’t turn up for work, they couldn’t get hold of her next of kin so her manager called the police. They broke into her house and she had died in her sleep. She was only 23.

I do hope he’s ok.

I haven’t heard anything more from HR but just to put people’s minds at rest he does live with his wife and children and said his in-laws were also visiting at the weekend. Unless that was all fantasy I think that he was surrounded by plenty of people who would realise if he had gone missing.

I think if an employee has been at a place for a while and is usually present and conscientious when off sick, colleagues would be more concerned if they suddenly stopped attending, knowing it was out of character. But a new employee, you don't know if they have form.

A colleague in my old place didn't turn up for work, we were very concerned about him. He was single and lived alone. His parents ee 're both dead and he was an only child and came fee om Venezuela. We tried contacting him and a colleague went to his flat. No answer,. We got a welfare check, but when the police broke in, he was dead. :(

I imagine he had been interviewing for a number of jobs when he accepted yours, and a 'better one' in his mind was offered to him at the end of last week.

Hopefully, HR will confirm that his disappearance is a tragedy but basic rudeness and inconsideration for other's time and efforts.

I've got an employee who is currently ghosting us.Well not quite. After four weeks unexplained absence (after working for us for 3 days) she sent in a sick note back dated to cover the four weeks and then another for the next two weeks) sickness noted as 'stress'.
No idea what's going on with her but it's hard to manage it when you don't know the person well and they don't communicate.
Hope this person is just ghosting you and not hurt-but if the former it's bloody annoying!l

I am sure your ex employee is ok, as he has a family etc.

It’s not a new thing sadly, I used to work in a very busy office, in the summer we were flat out and often used agency staff, some didn’t return after lunch, it became a bit of a joke, especially when one runner told the agency, there was no work for her to do!

I had a similar situation where an employee who had been with us for about 3-4 months just didn't turn up for work one day. I phoned over and over again, text messaged, emailed, sent a letter. (She had a family, so I wasn't worried about her lying at the bottom of the stairs undiscovered). She never replied to me and I found out about 6 months later from another colleague that she had got another job in a company where I knew the HR manager. I took great delight in contacting them to say how flakey and unreliable she was to disappear and ghost us. She failed her probation there, not sure if my input had anything to do with it. I still think about it now and wonder just how anyone can do that to others. It's truly bizarre.

My friend has done this a few times, he decides that the companies not for him. He's too much of an introvert to tell anyone so he leaves and doesn't return.

How does your friend manage to get news jobs SlothMama does he just not put the ghosted companies on his CV?

@Scrumymum

I still think about it now and wonder just how anyone can do that to others.

Probably the same way you deliberately called up her new place of employment to bad mouth her. Not only unprofessional but petty and mean.

I don't think we can assume he's ok because he has family. The following might have happened:

He doesn't answer because he can't
His wife doesn't answer because she's in shock and/or doesn't recognise the number
She doesn't contact you because she's in shock/can't easily find a contact number/can't even remember where his new job is

My husband's boss only got told, if I'm honest, because my dad is process driven and has his shit together and is calm in a crisis. Not sure I'd have been able to contact a complete stranger to tell him my husband had dropped dead.

Hopefully he is ok and has won the lottery rather than something bad happen!

When I worked as a private cleaner years ago I ghosted one of my clients, it was very rude of me I know

But if his wife knows he is not OK codemonkey then that’s all that matters. We wouldn’t have any further involvement anyway.
I can’t believe that people think it’s mean or spiteful for scrumymum to have passed on a true statement of fact about a former employee.

We once had someone new who didn't turn up the next week. We were worried about him and as the HR Manager I ended up having to trek him down. Turned out he was so well thought of he was taken out on the Friday night, got wasted and went off the wagon (previous alcoholic). I found him and he was embarrassed we had tracked him down. He didn't come back.

Why are people outraged at what scrummymum did but not at what her company's former employee did? Talk about a double standard!