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The original was posted on /r/androiddev by /u/ContributionOwn9860 on 2024-10-26 00:52:51+00:00.

Hey All.

This question is mostly for team leads or managers, but obviously I’m interested in any takes.

I just had one of the weirdest, most rollercoaster weeks of my working life, and I’m a bit dumbfounded as the dust continues to settle.

On Monday, we had a new Android dev join our very small team at a startup (2 devs -> 3 devs when he joined).

This person aced all 3+ interviews as well as doing the best on a take home assessment we’ve seen yet. They totally blew every other candidate out of the water, and we were completely sold on them joining and being an asset to the team.

The only real “red flags” were that they didn’t own a car, and we required some in-office work. Ok, not a huge deal, we can work with that…

They join on Monday, and we start onboarding. This is a lengthy process that would take all week, if not into the following week. On Tuesday, HR informed us that they hadn’t yet completed some of their onboarding, so we sent them off to complete any of that before proceeding.

Wednesday arrives and they’re cleared to return to Android/Mobile team onboarding. We spend this day going over the real “bread and butter” of our company, the real juicy company “secrets” that make us tick. We end this day by giving them a worksheet, to help them gain a better grasp on the content we discussed that day.

The intent with the worksheet is for them to hit snags, get confused, and ask questions to clarify. This is really about repetition, and recognizing the patterns we’ve put in place moving forward.

Thursday, yesterday, they do not show up for morning Standup. I reach out via Teams, and via text. No response. My boss reaches out via Teams and text, again, no response. I call them, and it goes straight to voicemail. Only, their voicemail isn’t set up! Now I’m starting to worry….

Did they get in an accident on their way home on Wednesday?? Their computer logs from IT are showing no access since Wednesday end of day. Could we be getting scammed? I had all kinds of scenarios running through my head.

End of day Thursday comes, and they still have not reached out to anyone. At this point, we have even had HR reach out to them as well as their emergency contact. No response whatsoever.

I spend Thursday night wracking my brain, what the hell is going on?!?

Today I wake up, check my emails, and see a new message from 1AM. CC’d is my boss, my other teammate, and our TPM.

“Hey everyone, sorry about that! I was working so hard on that worksheet that I decided I needed to turn my phone off and really get cracking. I felt as though I needed to really nail this worksheet so I could feel comfortable in this position, so I thought it’d be best to not attend any meetings and get to work.”

Uhh, what??? Now I’m even more confused. Why would you not just communicate this to us? We would probably have been OK with it! Instead, you chose to ignore everyone and everything.

Here’s the kicker, they sent back their “completed” worksheet too. It’s nowhere near complete. In fact it’s so incomplete and inaccurate that it seems like they hastily ran it through chatGPT and called it a day.

Suffice to say, they have since been let go.

Hired Monday, gone by Friday.

Now I get to start this fun hiring process all over again.

Has anyone seen anything like this before?!