The Fox Hole

However, we noticed that he always, and I mean always, took MC on a Tuesday. Without fail, every single Tuesday he'd call in sick. Even my boss, who is normally very forgiving when it comes to these things, started to take notice. He'd call in sick when he is needed to come back on weekends for planned maintenance. He'd always leave before the official knock off time of 6pm, usually at 5.30pm or 5.15pm. It's like clockwork. Once 5pm comes, he'll disappear, and people just assume he'd be in the washroom.

Once, there was a job to be executed at 5.30pm. He was assigned to execute the job. However, he was nowhere to be found. My boss called "S" on the handphone, and he never picked up. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw him trying to leave by the back way. I caught up with him and led him back to the workstations and "gently reminded" him of the pending job he was to execute.

Then he did something nobody expected.

He declared that he has no knowledge of how to execute the job. Then he just shoved the job request form onto me and said "I need to go" and disappeared out the back door. At the time, my boss just happened to step away from his desk for a couple of minutes, so "S" apparently seized the chance and disappeared. When my boss came back and saw me doing "S"'s work, he was livid.

A couple of weeks later, there was a planned maintenance scheduled for Saturday and "S" was assigned to perform this. On Friday night, he "urgently" sent an SMS to my boss saying that he'd hurt his ankle very badly playing football, and he could not even stand up or walk to see a doctor. Hence, he was unable to perform the Saturday maintenance.

On Monday, he turned up at the office. One would have expected him to at least walk with a limp or have his ankle wrapped in bandage.

He had NOTHING. He walked fine.

On Tuesday, like clockwork, he sent an SMS to my boss saying, and I quote, "The doctor advised me to rest for 2 days, so I have 2 days MC. I will be back on Thursday".

Thursday came, and "S" presented 2 separate MCs to my boss. One for Tuesday, one for Wednesday, from 2 different clinics. My boss, having had enough of his nonsense, showed the SMS to "S" and asked:

"So which of these 2 doctors," pointing to the MCs on the table, "advised you to take 2 days MC?"

Needless to say, "S" could not provide an answer.

Friday morning came. "S" came to the office, late as usual. Then, for some strange reason, he requested time off from my boss saying he needed to go home (to Clementi. My office is located far to the east in Changi) to get "some important documents". My boss asked him, if it was work related, we had all the relevant copies of the documents right here in the office. "S" replied that the documents were personal ones, and repeatedly assured my boss he only needed "half an hour" to get home and retrieve his documents and be back in the office.

Everybody knows that you can't even reach Clementi from Changi in 30 mins, let alone get there and back.

Naturally, my boss turned his request down. "S" returned to his desk and made a flurry of phone calls, speaking in his own native language.

So lunch came and went. By 2pm, he still was not present at the office. My boss again tried to reach "S" by handphone, and had no answer. At 2.30pm, my boss decided enough was enough, and made a call to the Head of Security, to inform them to bar entry to "S" into company premises. Then he informed HR to draw up the relevent documentation to terminate "S"'s services with immediate effect.

At 3.45pm, "S" called us ("us" as in the colleagues) and said he was stuck outside at the guardroom and unable to enter due to some unknown reason. We informed our boss that "S" was at the main gate. My boss called up the main gate and instructed the security personnel to escort "S" into the office.

So, "S" came in and was told to clear out his desk. All the relevant paperwork was already done and his services were terminated at 3.55pm, and escorted out by the security personnel right after.

We were joking afterwards that it was "unfortunate" that he had never gone through SAF's training. Otherwise, he would have learnt how to "geng" (malinger) properly and not be caught with such obvious lies.