Pretend(er) Drama

As the last bit of confidence I had in the Pretender eroded, the truth that the best indicator of future performance is past performance burned into me.

Soon after, the client requested that we extend our hours of operation into the AM by 1 hour. The Pretender was the opening sup, so he took on the burden to come in earlier. As a week or so passed by, the client kept expressing concerns that they were not able to transfer us calls before 7:30. We opened trouble tickets and worked with IT to try and research the issue, but could never determine a root-cause.

A few days later, I noticed some irregularities in rep exception codes that spurred me to ask a few questions. The rep that was scheduled to open was always coded exception time for about the first 15-30minutes of her shift. The Pretender explained that she was exceptioned while he was on the phone trouble shooting the transfer issue with tech support.


Finally the rep came forward in a showing of emotion and tears and finally told me what was going on. She would arrive at work to only find a locked front door, and no supervisor. She would wait outside until HR arrived to let her in. HR would then pay her for her time that she had waited outside so that she wouldn’t feel the need to escalate the issue. HR had been abusing her authority, and working with the Pretender to conceal a very serious issue.

As usual, the floor knew what was going on, and when they saw her emotionally grab me that morning; they knew that she was brining me up to speed. When the Pretender arrived, I pulled him into the conference room and termed him.


His exit was as dramatic the second time as the first. He grabbed his stuff, and walked out. HR came running up to me and asked if she could drive me him home. He didn’t have a car, and he lived 4-5 miles away so I agreed.

After going back into the conference room, a verbal assault initiated on the rep who came forward. Instead of the floor coming to the logical conclusion that his own actions resulted in his own termination, it became the reps fault for breaking the “code” of silence. Reps were crying, HR was falling to pieces, I had reps walking off the floor…

Will the drama ever end...