Fooey Files: Nationwide Employee Of The Month Outed As Bear
From the Fooey Files archive, April 26 2014.
DAYTON, OH—Bob Calhoun, insurance agent for eight years of the local Stalsworth and Associates Nationwide Insurance branch, was discovered to be a bear Wednesday.
Susan Charles, the payroll and workforce manager of the Stalsworth and Associates branch, came across proof Bob’s true heritage after finding his original hiring document behind a cabinet. The document, which had never been filed, was missing the social security, address, and citizenship information, simply including a name and gender: Bob Calhoun, male. A brief glance at a few weeks worth of security footage confirmed Charles’ fear – Bob was a bear.
“It was all so sudden,” explained Terry Lakewood, a recently hired sales agent. “No one really saw Bob, personally, because he worked the only night shift we had each Saturday and it didn’t overlap with the rest of our shifts. But, we received all of his emails and various reports and they were all very well articulated.”
Bob’s closest co-worker, veteran sales liaison Sammy Birchwell, was disbelieving at first. “I honestly couldn’t believe that the guy I was emailing my sales leads to was in actuality a bear.”
Branch manager Thomas Stalsworth believes there were multiple contributing factors. “Because Bob’s hiring paperwork wasn’t formally completed, neither tax forms nor payroll info was generated for him. He was never paid throughout his entire tenure here at Nationwide.” Stalsworth continues: “Even though we had only about six employees at any one time, we never had a dedicated workforce employee until we hired Susan [Charles] six months ago. We also did not store our records electronically until Susan convinced us to recently. So, this kind of thing was very easy to overlook given the circumstances.”
Calhoun wasn’t officially terminated from his position since he never actually held it in the first place. When word got out in the office that Charles suspected Calhoun was a bear, Birchwell decided to help out his friend. “I texted Bob when all the rumors were flying around. Something like ‘For some reason everyone thinks you are a bear.’ He never came back after the text and I never got a reply.”
Even though reports from employees indicate new sales have slowed to a trickle, Stalsworth denies the need to further downsize. “The clients we’ve added from Bob’s hard work will be keeping us very busy for the foreseeable future.” He has no regrets in terminating Calhoun. “Having a bear in the office breaks a lot of our office policies as well as violating plenty of OSHA rules. As a business owner, we had no choice but to let him go.”
Ohio has in recent years seen a growth in bear populations, which could explain an expansion of bears into the human workforce. Many businesses are always hiring, including many fast food establishments. Stalsworth holds no ill will towards the employee he had to let go. “Bob is always welcome to a letter of recommendation, provided he does not request it in person. He knows my email address.”
Source:
Houser, Alice. “Beary Bad News for Local Nationwide Branch.” Dayton Daily News 5 Jun. 2008. Print.
Thanks to forumite SpanishCheesecake for the find.