Feeling guilty

Not kid related.

We are chronically short staffed at work. About a year ago, we got an inquiry from a new graduate who didn't start a job right after completing training (red flag #1). We interviewed her and I remembered having a random negative interaction with her at a meeting a long while back (I have a crazy good memory for such things, and don't often have random negative interactions with strangers, so this was weird). I didn't really like her all that much in the interview, but everyone else thought she was fine, she could start right away and she could help with some of the work we had been struggling to find time to do.

So she started 6 months ago and within 2 weeks it was obvious (to me) that she was not a good fit. My boss took longer to come around but by the summer, it was out of control. It was a good week when we only got several complaining emails from her about what she had to do, how unfair things were, how people were disrespectful to her, etc. She was frankly mean to the people she was supposed to be supervising (told them they were unfit for their job, criticized their fashion sense, told them they were not as good as people she used to work with, etc.) And she wasn't even all that good at her job, but at least she was a warm body doing work. But she was such a personal hassle that I often wished she would just quit and leave.

A few weeks ago, she made a mistake. A fairly big one. I was in a position to catch her mistake but I didn't. Not on purpose, but because it wasn't my responsibility to be supervising her. But I could have realized what she was doing and stopped her. After the mistake she attempted to cover her tracks. This is a BIG mistake. Everyone sometimes makes mistakes, but lying to cover oneself made it 1000 times worse.

So as of Friday she is on "administrative leave" and probably will get fired. She will likely have trouble finding a new job in this field with this being her only employment history out of school. I feel so guilty about this. I know it isn't my fault, but I'm having a hard time letting it go.

Let it go. Seriously. This isn't worth your mental energy. She lost my sympathy at being repeatedly mean and disrespectful to her staff. It's one thing to be new at a job, try your hardest and make well intentioned mistakes. We've all been there. It's entirely different to be deliberately unkind, whine about fairness and then make a big mistake and lie about it. If you had somehow prevented this mistake it would have delayed the inevitable and something else would have happened, possibly with more serious consequences.

If I had to hazard a guess I'd suggest that the negative behaviors you witnessed were present in her training and contributed to her not finding a job immediately. Her attitude and behaviors didn't just appear overnight at your workplace, nor will they disappear afterwards without a lot of effort on her part.

I'm so sorry you're going through this!

But, yes, absolutely, this person is not worth your time or energy.

I have zero patience for the behaviors you've described; I actually worked with people like that and will not work with anyone like that again. (I think I managed to become that person at my last job, which was probably related to my layoff to be honest, but when I made mistakes I always owned them.)

Think about it the way you might with your kids... sometimes you have to "let them fail" so they can learn from it.

In this case, you might could have saved her this time... but based on what you've described, it's only going to get worst in the future.

So you've actually done her a favor in the long run by letting her fail so that she can learn from her mistakes while she's still young and can recover and become all the better for it.

I agree with the others, it's not your fault and some people have to learn the hard way. DH has a younger friend at work that is on his 2nd strike- he whines, complains, pushes back on changes requested by client. Their work is client driven, so you just get it done even when you know it's ridiculous suggestion. DH has tried to give him advice, but now says the guy, whose early 30s, may need to get fired before he changes his attitude.


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Look at it this way, how will you feel if her administrative leave ends and she's back at work doing the same thing? Happy she wasn't fired? I wish her the best, but I agree with PP, sometimes people have to fail to succeed.