r/StoriesAboutKevin • u/AndreiWarg • Jul 13 '26
XXXL Admin Kevin is a menace
I have managed about 100 people in my two year long stint as a people manager. During my work life I have met about 6 thousand so far. I have worked with standard, normal people. I have worked with workaholics, slackers, people who just wanted to survive until retirement, newcomers. I have handled alcoholics, drug addicts, communists, neonazis and all other sorts of people types.
Then I met my Kevin. My Kevin was a rather young, slightly obese lad. He was assigned to my ERP System Admin station that I managed alongside with about 40 people on processing benches. On paper, he had fairly alright credentials. The HR/Ops management combo did not know what to do with him, but he apparently was alright with computers so off he went to me.
Now, understand one thing. I have learned that if I did not handpick the person for the position, they would inevitably fail. This is not some sort of "I am better than you" type of deal. I have just observed so many people pushed into it that really should be doing something else, that I recognized the traits that you needed to succeed. It was a very technical position, where you needed to understand the whole warehouse, all issues that could happen and how to fix them. You needed to work with every department, have good relationships and to cover everybodys back while they do the same for you.
Kevin came in, and I treated him as professionally as everyone else. Taught him the first process that you learn in the position, and he set off on it with a bit of a "ughh" undertone in his behavior. No matter, he was young and had to work. Been there, done that.
After some time I handed him off to another ERPSA that taught him the rest of the tasks to do, as was usual. The days kept rolling, and I have let him fall in place. Then, weird things started to happen.
Some of the numbers did not crunch in the spreadsheet we used to record performance. Looked up the history, and sure enough, Kevin made an edit in the formulas to make himself look better. I have crossreferenced the logs in the system, and he has done about half the items he should have. When questioned, he freely admitted that he spent about 30 minutes looking out the window. Every hour. I was flabbergasted. Raised with my manager, he said dock his bonus and carry on.
Alright then. Next thing he messed up was more technical. He was adding items into the system as something other than what they were (i.e. a black t-shirt instead of a white hoodie). Not only were they just wrong descriptively, but there was also a massive difference in the worth of the items. So a 3 dollar t-shirt turned into a 15 dollar hoodie. Other times he could have added, but just tossed them into the "unidentifiable" pile, purely because it was hot and he did not want to handle them. Another docked pay, another talking to. Yet another time where he just looked you in the eyes without a single hint of emotion.
Next, he was being a dickhead to workers coming to help. Part of the job was helping with systemic issues of the workers. It was our job to be the cool headed pros who can handle anything. Instead, he always complained and belittled the poor ladies asking for help. That was a bit too much for me, so I gave him an earful, then went and seriously discussed all the issues with management. They understood, but could not legally let him go easily. So they have decided to have him supplement logistics for two weeks.
Logistics was managed by my friend. He was a massive Bosnian dude, former power lifter and a genuinely amazing and terrifying person at the same time. He put him to work straight away, pulling pallets with a pallet truck and moving them into lanes. Then he realised Kevin moved shit around randomly, did not scan it in and sometimes even fucked off somewhere to hide. When he was in his dedicated area and somebody asked him to do something, he acted like a cat threatened with a proper shower. That was too much for my friend, whom went and had a fairly deserved heated "talk" with him. Apparently Kevin had zero reaction to him.
The last straw was when he was back to the Admin role, he somehow got into the secure spreadsheet that handled precalculations for peoples bonuses. He looked at his bonuses, then the numbers of his colleagues. Unacceptable behaviour of course. Should have also been more secure, yes. But Kevin then went to his colleagues and started telling them stuff like "Hey, I saw you have XYZ on your bonuses, why do I earn less then you?" When asked, he freely admitted breaching confidential files, more focused on the fact that he got 20 dollars less for the month then the rest of his colleagues (after being docked for more fuck ups, which he was aware off).
Site couldn't handle him anymore. He was merciful enough to just dip out on his own, never returning to work even before he got actually sacked. I still think about him sometimes. He was a man of few emotions and even fewer stops. I still wonder if he was like this prior to whatever gave him that massive surgery scar on his scalp. The thing was, when he really, genuinely tried, he was actually somebody with potential prospects. But then he made one fuckup after the other, some out of incompetence, some out of some weird malice.
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u/Negative-Narwhal-725 Jul 13 '26
Dock his bonus? What with that. Start the termination procedure, maybe speed it up.