A Survival Guide to Managing Employees from Hell: Handling Idiots, Whiners, Slackers, and Other Workplace Demons

Chapter 25. Con Job

Would you be able to tell if a prospective employee was a con artist before hiring him or her or after a few weeks on the job? Sometimes it is very hard to tell because the con artist is the master of charm and smooth talking. He or she looks the part and talks the talk. And when the con seems to be up, he or she walks away. There may be a trail of conned employers left behind. But in this age of being afraid to say anything bad about a former employee for fear of being sued, you may not be able to find out anything. Or the companies the person previously worked for may be out of business—in fact, the con’s con may have helped in that regard. So how do you know and what do you do?

That’s the situation Fred, a sales manager for ...