@Angie Roach - "He was someone we were grooming for management or higher and someone that I sought out in order to gain his opinion. How was I so blind?"

Not surprised, I am sure a lower level employee could have told you this was coming. But sometimes management makes decisions in a black hole. He was likely always wrong for the position, but adequately fooled everyone on top. I think companies have developed some very poor recruiting and retention policies. Essentially passing over many good people who otherwise get cut during the filtering/interview phase for “nonsensical” reasons. Learn you lesson and move on, maybe next time you will use better judgment during the hiring process. Truly look at all your options and not just the ones that perfectly followed all the interview rules.

Angie, I'm pretty floored to. I would also feel burned. However, I guess it is somewhat of a lesson and maybe since hindsight is usually 20/20 you can see some red flags or warnings...as to why he would just pick up and leave in the time he spent with you at the office.

Clearly, this was an unprofessional move on his part. I would start to think what can we do to ensure this doesn't happen again, or that we don't hire someone with such little regard for a team, career and the people who helped him/her along the way.

Thanks for sharing. When it's personal like it has been for you, it really hits close to home.

I take this with a grain of salt. I worked in nonprofits early in my career, moved to the "dark side" believing that I hated all things "corporate" and later moved back into the nonprofit world. I was unprepared for the level of disrespect that was the norm there. I was angry almost every day.

Even in my middlin' corporate role, I felt I was treated as a person whose intelligence and abilities were valued. Not so in two nonprofits, where I felt I (and my coworkers - this was a system problem, not a personality conflict, in my opinion) were treated like unskilled servants.

So, I can understand a person just having enough and walking out the door. I didn't do that and still feel a little dirty that I let myself by so degraded for so long!

People leave managers, they do not leave companies.

That is a statistically proven fact (Gallup).

This person either did not have what he needed to do his job, did not have outcomes defined well enough for him, or saw no future for his personal growth. These are all variables within the domain of the immediate supervisor to be responsible for.

People leave and do so in the way they do for a reason or reasons.

The question now is, does it serve your company to tarnish his reputation before you do the post-mortem on why he may have left?

People are immature, its a fact of life. I'm sure he decided it worth burning all the bridges over having the conflict. So its not you, its him. I wouldn't worry about it too much. You can't change people and its hard to really personally know a coworker. I'm sure his closest friends weren't too surprised that he pulled a stunt like that, but there is little chance you could have figured it out. So, what goes around comes around and if you were satisfied with how you treated this person, then you should treat the next guy the exact same way.

boohoo,

The post was how she personally felt betrayed by a colleague, not a subordinate, in the disrespectful way he treated her and her coworkers. Obviously, if there is a bad manager then that should be addressed. But if she thought that she treated a person well and mentored him along his career and he returned the favor by being a deuchebag, then she shouldn't feel like something is wrong with her and how she acts.

@ First Anonymous, when I read your post about being treated worse at non-profits than the corporate world, I thought of my experience going between the two. I would have to agree with you that the most egregious poor displays of professionalism happened in the non-profit world. I remember being interviewed for 4 months at a non-profit, brought in on a temporary contract, and told after 1 week that this wasn't going to work because the person I was working with refused to spend the time to train me.

The corporate world is a more of a case of death by 1000 cuts.

The subject of the post did exhibit incredibly poor judgement but I have to wonder what their reasons were?

The picture that you used in this story was taken by me. I don't recall you asking me for my permission to use it. So, in all reality, you stole this image! If you wish to use my photo's in your blog, feel free to ask. I usually don't say no. To say that I'm a little upset that you stole my image would be an understatement. I really don't appreciate it!

@ Kevin - That is frightening that companies are trying to take away the right to unemployment. I'll have to follow that story. Thanks for sharing.

@Rob - Again, my apologies! I have removed the image from my blog and openly admit my mistake...total new blogger ignorance. I'm checking into what I can do to edit my feed on this website to give you credit or remove the image - guess I'm doing my best to lose credibility myself, huh? Sorry, poor attempt at humor. What can I do to make it up to you? I also sent you a note via Flickr if you would like to respond there as well or feel free to email me personally at angie608@gmail.com.

@Deadhedge - I am so sorry about your experience in the nonprofit world. I can admit, the ones I have been to as well have done a poor job training people on exactly what they want them to do...in my experience, it has been do everything and just figure it out. I think that is something we really need to work on as a sector, especially as we are looking to hire people with different expectations and experience about job placement and orientation.