A Survival Guide to Managing Employees from Hell: Handling Idiots, Whiners, Slackers, and Other Workplace Demons

Chapter 8. The Impossible Intern

Sometimes when you hire someone new to the world of work, he or she can seem like a grab bag of everything that could possibly be wrong about an employee. An employee who is just getting their feet wet often doesn’t know how to control his or her everyday behavior to conform to the rigors and restrictions of the workplace. He or she may think that work is supposed to be fun, fun, fun, and while work certainly can be, the employee puts the fun part of the equation first and work becomes something of an afterthought. Pity the poor boss who is trying to help the employee learn on the job. Is this an impossible situation or is there a way out? After all, every one of us had our own first job at some point, too.

That’s ...