We had a gentleman that transferred to our group. His first day he brought in a basket of baked goods in for everybody. We thought it was a little odd, but we figured being odd with food was an acceptable affliction.

But we soon learned that he simply refused to listen to others. He acted as if he had some sort of secret superior knowledge and wasn’t interested in others’ opinions. But we figured that maybe it would take a while for him to settle into the group.

Then he started visiting our vice-president. He would just walk in and sit down and start talking. Now our VP at the time was smart with tons of knowledge, but a gentle soul. He would sit there and listen to this guy for a while, and then would mention that he had a meeting to get rid of him. Alas, a couple of days later he showed up in the VP’s office again, just to chat.

So the VP called our manager and asked, “What’s with this guy? He just keeps showing up in my office.”

Our manager was dumbfounded and called the guy in and told him not to visit the VP. If he had something to convey, tell him and it would be evaluated and then perhaps relayed to the VP. My manager thought he got the message.

Nope. Another call from the VP to our manager. He had stopped by again. This time our manager explained in no uncertain terms that he could not go visit the VP, and if he did so he would be subject to dismissal. He was told that the VP was complaining about his visits.

Guess what? The guy showed up in the VP’s office again to discuss the reasoning behind his prohibition to visit him.

Another phone call.

The guy was fired.