# Employers, what do you do if an employee never shows up again? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [January 3, 2017, 5:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/employers-what-do-you-do-if-an-employee-never-shows-up-again/776210 "2017-01-03T05:53:49Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![HoneyBadgerDC](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/honeybadgerdc/32/1033_2.png) [@HoneyBadgerDC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HoneyBadgerDC)\ **Post date:** [January 3, 2017, 9:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/employers-what-do-you-do-if-an-employee-never-shows-up-again/776210/21 "2017-01-03T21:53:50Z")
I have had that happen many times over the years. I really don’t know what our official policy was but as a direct supervisor I would always place a call if an employee didn’t call in. Usually by noon. ---
**Author:** ![Mk\_VII](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/5f9b8f/32.png) [@Mk\_VII](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mk_VII)\ **Post date:** [January 3, 2017, 10:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/employers-what-do-you-do-if-an-employee-never-shows-up-again/776210/22 "2017-01-03T22:21:44Z")
We were told to start phoning some HR office ansaphone in the mornings, and in the evening at quitting time, after a guy at North West Sector Switching Centre in Colindale died in one of the bathroom stalls on a Friday and nobody noticed until the following week sometime. It had snowed on the weekend and when he didn’t show up on Monday people just assumed he couldn’t make it in because of the snow. Eventually somebody noticed his car in the lot was covered in untouched snow so it must have been there since before it snowed. Guess the janitors had just seen the stall was occupied and skipped that one. Probably contract cleaners so different one every day. Often I would forget to phone off in the evenings and would get a call about 8 o’clock. ---
**Author:** ![Marion\_Wormer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d07c76/32.png) [@Marion\_Wormer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marion_Wormer)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2017, 12:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/employers-what-do-you-do-if-an-employee-never-shows-up-again/776210/23 "2017-01-04T00:22:35Z")
When I was in the Reserves, I had the additional duty as my unit’s Personnel Officer. Some people would just not show up…ever again. We’d call, we’d contact their employer, and occasionally we’d get an apologetic answer that they’d had a baby/gone on vacation/whatever. For the no answers, I’d send some paperwork into the reserve HQ to see if they’d transferred units, but in the end, two of them disappeared off the face of the earth within about 2 months of each other. Since they were still assigned to our unit, I’d keep track to the end of the year, then send a notice to HQ that they got a ‘bad year’ and for HQ to take them off our roster so we could get new members. And for the two that disappeared, both were screw-ups, so good riddance. Another guy transferred to another unit, all the paperwork done, both commanders did the paperwork signature and everything, and HQ agreed, I got a transfer notice. About 3 months later I followed up with his exit OPR, and not only had he never shown up, no one had ever heard from him or heard OF him. ---
**Author:** ![ZPG\_Zealot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/e47c2d/32.png) [@ZPG\_Zealot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ZPG_Zealot)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2017, 12:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/employers-what-do-you-do-if-an-employee-never-shows-up-again/776210/24 "2017-01-04T00:25:45Z")
I hate to admit this. But if it’s a student employee who skips their usual work time and I don’t hear from them within a few hours I sometimes go knock on some doors at student housing. It’s nearby and I’ve found some seriously sick kids over the years. ---
**Author:** ![nearwildheaven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/90db22/32.png) [@nearwildheaven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nearwildheaven)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2017, 1:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/employers-what-do-you-do-if-an-employee-never-shows-up-again/776210/25 "2017-01-04T01:14:01Z")
> [@Filbert](#): > > One place I worked, one of the long term, most reliable employees, an older guy who did half the scheduling, and always cheerfully volunteered for the unpopular shifts, didn’t show up one day. Not just any day either, it was payday and we had to show up to collect it. > > His phone appeared to be switched off, and when he still hadn’t called or appeared by the end of the day, the boss phoned in for a police welfare check. > > They went round the house, and… nothing. He’d just had a few days off, and the flat looked like he hadn’t been there for them. > > They tried to trace his (old banger) car, and found it parked up in a backstreet somewhere, nowhere near any of his known regular haunts. He was an older guy, and not in great health, so hospitals were called to see if any unidentified unconscious people/bodies had been brought in with his description. Nope, nothing. > > It was about a week later, when the boss was trying to see if he could trace the missing guy’s adult son, on the basis of a possible name and that someone said he thought he lived in or near London, when the boss’s wife, filling in paperwork, noticed a slight discrepancy in the takings the guy had reported for the last week on one of his shifts (which was manning the gate in a car park)… > > It eventually turned out that when he’d been doing the unpopular early morning car park shift for the past year, he’d been fiddling the books and pocketing part of the takings, completely unnoticed. When I quit the job a year later, the police welfare check had turned into a warrant, but they still hadn’t found him. Are you sure he gave you his real name when he worked there? ---
**Author:** ![Lasciel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/e79b87/32.png) [@Lasciel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lasciel)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2017, 3:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/employers-what-do-you-do-if-an-employee-never-shows-up-again/776210/26 "2017-01-04T03:34:22Z")
Volunteer coordinator for various theatre backstage and prep workers: they don’t show, we try to contact to find out why (first by phone/text then by email) if we can’t contact them then if they’re a regular every day person we leave it at that, and if they’re a student (working for class credit or assignment fulfillment) we contact their teacher to let them know the kid was a no-show. Government job: I’ve had two employers/co-workers no-show in my 12 years in government jobs. First one was a coworker, our department head tried to call them a few times the first hour or so they missed, then our building manager tried to contact them that first day, then it escalated to offsite HR the next day when they missed a shift then too, and we had the job posted at the end of the next week. Rumor was that they got arrested, but we heard nothing official, darn those actual professional HR people! Second one was actually my employee. They no-showed for a shift after about two weeks of work, and I called them, but no answer. I was on the phone to HR to find out my next step when the CEO stormed in to my office with a letter they had gotten from the county board of directors which accused me and the institution of various exceptionally illegal practices (which were ludicrously false and dramatic) and ‘whistleblowing’ to the county because they felt their concerns would have been ignored otherwise. So yeah. We had to change the locks because the employee wouldn’t return their key to us, and I think their wages were garnished for it. They never did come back to work, and their check (what was left of it) was mailed to them. Funnily enough, they applied to another county job in the next county over, but our HR person was cousins with their HR person, and the whole letter thing was a big hairy public deal even though it was totally false, so for some unknown reason the employee didn’t get that other job they applied for. ---
**Author:** ![Lisaren](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/ecccb3/32.png) [@Lisaren](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lisaren)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2017, 3:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/employers-what-do-you-do-if-an-employee-never-shows-up-again/776210/27 "2017-01-04T03:46:04Z")
Company policy, three days no show you are considered to have quit. That agrees with unemployment rules in NC. The boss may call a long term employee, but HR did not try to find them. Final check was mailed to last known address or direct deposited. If the check was returned, it was filed in their terminated folder indefinitely. I never had anyone come to claim an abandoned check more than one week after payday. ---
**Author:** ![ioioio](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ioioio/32/316_2.png) [@ioioio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ioioio)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2017, 5:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/employers-what-do-you-do-if-an-employee-never-shows-up-again/776210/28 "2017-01-04T05:11:46Z")
No doubt the reaction depends on the job and the working environment. In my group of 15 professionals, an absence will be noticed and investigated quickly. A long-time reliable coworker didn’t show up one Monday morning. Within two hours, our manager tried to call him several times. When there was no answer, the manager called the police to do a check. Coworker had died over the weekend, sitting in front of his home computer. ---
**Author:** ![Lord\_Feldon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lord_feldon/32/341_2.png) [@Lord\_Feldon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lord_Feldon)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2017, 6:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/employers-what-do-you-do-if-an-employee-never-shows-up-again/776210/29 "2017-01-04T06:38:34Z")
> [@Joey\_P](#): > > I’ll stop them and say 'remember that giant folder of paperwork I gave you when you got hired? All those forms that I spent a few minutes walking through with you and asked you to bring back to me? I told you you had to get them back to me before you could get paid?"…[nods]…“go fill them out, I can make you new ones, bring me your IDs that I showed you from that one page (the I-9) and once that’s squared away I can get you a check, but I can’t just hand you one now”. I know you said it wasn’t much money, but this is not legal. Pay cannot be withheld for lack of an I-9. ---
**Author:** ![Joey\_P](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/919ad9/32.png) [@Joey\_P](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Joey_P)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2017, 1:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/employers-what-do-you-do-if-an-employee-never-shows-up-again/776210/30 "2017-01-04T13:32:33Z")
> [@Lord\_Feldon](#): > > I know you said it wasn’t much money, but this is not legal. Pay cannot be withheld for lack of an I-9. It wasn’t for lack of an I-9, I can (and have) fired people for that. By law I can let someone work for 3 days without an I-9 (part of it anyways), then fire them with cause for not turning it in. It’s for a lack of turning in ANY paperwork. A lack of me even knowing their last name. A lack of me knowing what SSN to report their withholding taxes to. A lack of knowing how many hours they worked since they never punched out, they just walked off the job. Furthermore, when they show back up, I’m happy to fix it, but as I mentioned, there’s still going to be some paperwork to fill out. If they just sit still for 12 seconds and scratch their name, address, SSN and a few zeros a W-4 (and some other papers), I can get them a check the next payday. But, like I said, nearly everyone that does this just stomps back out the door. Again, it’s not that I’ve got their paycheck and I’m just waiting on a drivers license, it’s that people think they can work for 2 hours, walk off the job without telling anyone and think there’s a paycheck sitting there waiting for them. And, just to be clear, the first 10 minutes of that 2 hours was me explaining to them exactly what they need to do to get a paycheck, I’m pretty clear about it. It includes a checklist and everything. Some people even bring me the check list back, with everything checked off and, literally, none of it done. The mind boggles. PS, 90% of these people are 16 and 17 year olds living at home. No one is missing their rent or having to skip a meal over this. ---
**Author:** ![Pantastic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/3bc359/32.png) [@Pantastic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pantastic)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2017, 4:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/employers-what-do-you-do-if-an-employee-never-shows-up-again/776210/31 "2017-01-04T16:04:31Z")
I have heard about someone who went to work for IBM in Florida in the 90s for a while, found a better job in another state, then just up and moved without telling anyone. IBM tried to find him but couldn’t, and fired him as a ‘3-day no-call, no-show’. But since they didn’t have an address to send a formal notice of this to, they noted it in their HR records. Several years later he applied for a job with IBM in another states, and when IBM ran his name they saw this record. They actually arranged an interview for him and flew his old manager up to the interview, so that the old manager could give him formal notice that he was fired for not showing up. I don’t think he got the new job. It’s probably exaggerated, but I definitely wouldn’t put it past IBM to have paperwork sitting for years like that. ---
**Author:** ![muldoonthief](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/muldoonthief/32/3188_2.png) [@muldoonthief](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/muldoonthief)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2017, 5:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/employers-what-do-you-do-if-an-employee-never-shows-up-again/776210/32 "2017-01-04T17:02:46Z")
> [@Pantastic](#): > > I have heard about someone who went to work for IBM in Florida in the 90s for a while, found a better job in another state, then just up and moved without telling anyone. IBM tried to find him but couldn’t, and fired him as a ‘3-day no-call, no-show’. But since they didn’t have an address to send a formal notice of this to, they noted it in their HR records. Several years later he applied for a job with IBM in another states, and when IBM ran his name they saw this record. They actually arranged an interview for him and flew his old manager up to the interview, so that the old manager could give him formal notice that he was fired for not showing up. I don’t think he got the new job. > > It’s probably exaggerated, but I definitely wouldn’t put it past IBM to have paperwork sitting for years like that. I completely believe that IBM still had him in their records, though I find it unlikely that they would spend the money to fly his old manager out just to tell him he was fired. But big companies keep records like that forever. I worked at RCA the summer after my freshman year at college. Several years later, I got a job at GE in a different state. In the meantime, GE had purchased RCA (actually they bought NBC which owned RCA). When I started at GE, they had my work history from my 3 months at RCA, including the not-terribly-stellar review from my dead-by-then manager. ---
**Author:** ![Joey\_P](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/919ad9/32.png) [@Joey\_P](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Joey_P)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2017, 5:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/employers-what-do-you-do-if-an-employee-never-shows-up-again/776210/33 "2017-01-04T17:31:03Z")
I agree, it sounds exaggerated, but it brings up a few points. As far as record keeping goes, things get consolidated and I’m sure different things get lost depending on different types of software and retention schedules, but an employee that tried to start working at the same company just a few years later…all those records will still be in the payroll software and HR will likely still have a file on them or can get it within a day or two if it’s offsite. Just flipping through my employee notes, they go back well over ten years. Plenty of people in there whose names I don’t recognize at all. All the notes in there are typed by me. If any of those people were rehired, as soon as I tried to enter them as a new employee the software should catch it (I think, I’ve never tested that, I should). I could then check my notes and go from there. As for what to do with a paycheck. Wisconsin (and other states, I assume) considers them unclaimed property and has a procedure for that. ---
**Author:** ![Hari\_Seldon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hari_seldon/32/5173_2.png) [@Hari\_Seldon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hari_Seldon)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2017, 6:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/employers-what-do-you-do-if-an-employee-never-shows-up-again/776210/34 "2017-01-04T18:22:59Z")
Between 1982 and 1984 I sat on my local school board as a parent rep. They had a case of a teacher who just stopped showing up with no warning, no notice anything. They could not just fire her on account of the union contract, but had to go through the motions of notice, hearings, etc., all of which she ignored. She would allow either a representative of the board or the union into her house. She was apparently seriously depressed. Finally, the union president pointed out to the head of the school board that they were legally obligated to defend her from being fired and would have to sue and the school board would have to defend and it would cost each of them a totally useless $25,000. So she proposed that each put up $25,000 and offer the teacher $50,000 to sign a resignation. And that’s what happened. ---
**Author:** ![Pantastic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/3bc359/32.png) [@Pantastic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pantastic)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2017, 6:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/employers-what-do-you-do-if-an-employee-never-shows-up-again/776210/35 "2017-01-04T18:50:22Z")
> [@muldoonthief](#): > > I completely believe that IBM still had him in their records, though I find it unlikely that they would spend the money to fly his old manager out just to tell him he was fired. Well, I’m sure it’s not policy, but if the notice that they found the guy and were going to send him the formal ‘you’re fired’ paperwork came up, he might have gone to do it himself. A lot of managers have enough singing authority to do that, and if their next level manager thinks it’s amusing no one’s going to get bent out of shape over the ticket. So it’s in the ‘not actually impossible, but probably BS’ category for me 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Joey\_P](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/919ad9/32.png) [@Joey\_P](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Joey_P)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2017, 7:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/employers-what-do-you-do-if-an-employee-never-shows-up-again/776210/36 "2017-01-04T19:02:13Z")
> [@Pantastic](#): > > Well, I’m sure it’s not policy, but if the notice that they found the guy and were going to send him the formal ‘you’re fired’ paperwork came up, he might have gone to do it himself. A lot of managers have enough singing authority to do that, and if their next level manager thinks it’s amusing no one’s going to get bent out of shape over the ticket. So it’s in the ‘not actually impossible, but probably BS’ category for me 🙂 My guess would be that it started out as the guy applied, so they brought him in for “an interview” so they could hand him his final paycheck and whatever else they needed to give him. From there it may have turned into his mythical manger flying out to fire him in person based on a years old grudge. Assuming there’s any basis in reality. ---
**Author:** ![epbrown01](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7ba0ec/32.png) [@epbrown01](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/epbrown01)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2017, 7:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/employers-what-do-you-do-if-an-employee-never-shows-up-again/776210/37 "2017-01-04T19:14:06Z")
At my old job, if someone was no call/no show, we notified HR and they would try and reach the person, leaving messages if possible. If you didn’t show or call on Day 2, they called the police and asked for a welfare check at your house. If the police reported you okay, but you didn’t show up the third day, you were terminated for job abandonment. Crazy thing is, we had people try to just show up again and go to work. One person on my team re-appeared after two months and pretty much just tried to play it off (“What? I took a few days!”). Someone in another dept. showed up after a year and a half, then went on a rant about how could she be fired if no one talked to her while sercurity pretty much dragged her out. My current job has a turnover rate in the 80% range - often people work a day or two and never return. I don’t think they bother trying to find out why someone doesn’t show, they just look for a replacement. ---
**Author:** ![Yarster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/7c8e57/32.png) [@Yarster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Yarster)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2017, 7:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/employers-what-do-you-do-if-an-employee-never-shows-up-again/776210/38 "2017-01-04T19:31:22Z")
We’ve had all of the following happen at my job: 1. Employee died at home and never showed up for work. A co-worker went to check his house at lunch and found him dead. 2. An employee not fill in his time card because he had a heart attack at the client site, and the client never bothered to tell us. We called the next day and found out, placing him on short term disability. He still works for us. 3. An employee stop showing up due to depression. Her supervisor visited her at home the next day, got her into treatment and put her on short term disability, then brought her back three months later. She did the same thing again at a critical time due to stress. The second time, we laid her off with two weeks severance due to ‘lack of work’, and made her ‘ineligible for re-hire’ with HR. There was concern that she might otherwise sue the company due to being discriminated against for a disability. 4. An employee who was hired never show up for work. That was most interesting because he was coming out to San Diego from the East Coast, stopped in San Francisco to visit his brother, and met a girl in a bar the week before he was starting. He fell madly in love with this train wreck of a woman, got married at a justice of the peace, then moved back to Ohio because of some kind of custody issue with her kid from her last marriage. He never called or answered his phone or e-mail for a week, because of his embarrassment. He was terminated for never showing up. All of us were desperately trying to find a picture of this woman because he was getting a huge pay raise to come work for us, and abandoned it over what I assume was a one night stand. We assume she had a magical vagina. ---
**Author:** ![kayaker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kayaker/32/441_2.png) [@kayaker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kayaker)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2017, 7:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/employers-what-do-you-do-if-an-employee-never-shows-up-again/776210/39 "2017-01-04T19:39:23Z")
> [@Yarster](#): > > We assume she had a magical vagina. I’m picturing the apparently endless train of scarves being pulled out, amazing one and all. ---
**Author:** ![Musicat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/musicat/32/20189_2.png) [@Musicat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Musicat)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2017, 7:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/employers-what-do-you-do-if-an-employee-never-shows-up-again/776210/40 "2017-01-04T19:44:52Z")
> [@kayaker](#): > > I had a new employee who worked three days, then never showed up again. She hadn’t yet returned her paperwork (taxes, emergency contact, etc) so there was no way to contact her. Speculation was that the work was a bit too hard for her. She never picked up her pay for the three days she worked, so we used the money for a couple of pizza parties. What kind of reputable company hires someone without proper personal data? How had they planned to pay her without tax info? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/employers-what-do-you-do-if-an-employee-never-shows-up-again/776210.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/employers-what-do-you-do-if-an-employee-never-shows-up-again/776210.md?page=3)