Once in a while you meet people in the workplace that truly amaze you. And not in a good way. I once knew someone who kept falling asleep at his desk. I’m not talking about a catnap during lunch. I’m talking complete lights out, loud snoring during office hours. AT HIS FIRST WEEK AT WORK.

Our initial assumption was that he had been up all night playing computer games (yes, stereotyping here), so we subtly asked what his hobbies were. Not games. Someone else suggested he might suffer from narcolepsy, especially when he would fall asleep literally FIVE minutes after holding a perfectly normal conversation. We couldn’t exactly ask, but the recruitment agency whom we hired him from said he had no known medical condition that would impede him from working.

We even wondered if the jobs we assigned him to do were too easy since he mentioned that we worked at a slower pace than he was used to, but he never actually did his work, much less quickly! For example, he was expected to call a candidate on Monday, but by Friday of the same week, he had yet to pick up the phone.

After a painful 6 weeks (his manager was incredibly kind to allow this to drag out) during which we continued to encounter at least 3-4 sleeping/snoring incidents a week, he was eventually terminated.

He did leave behind a legacy of sorts though. When his replacement was hired in and stayed conscious for the entire week, we couldn’t help but think, “Well, that’s already better than the previous guy!” Awake? Check!