We’ve all had that coworker at some point in our lives – the one that barely shows up and complains all day when they do. It’s only a matter of time until they leave, one way or another, and no one is sad to see them go.

OP is an extremely overworked healthcare worker (which is probably redundant these days) so they should have been thrilled when their boss hired someone to help.

I work at a nursing home as a QMAP (qualified medication assistant personnel.)

We’re super short staffed; for my first two weeks of employment, I had to work seven days a week, because there was no other Night Shift QMAP.

Except, that someone was taking their shifts (and money) but just sitting around and leaving OP to do the majority of the heavy lifting.

Finally, we hired a new person, who we’ll call Devin.

Devin was useless. I mean genuinely, truly, wholly useless. The only duty he did was administer medications… we only have to pass one med on night shift.

The rest of the night, he’d either sit on his phone or sleep. He never cleaned, did paperwork, checked on residents, did followups on PRN medications, charted anything, and he even argued with caregivers about who would “wipe the ***” of bed bound residents.

To make it worse, he took most of my shifts.

He worked five nights a week as a QMAP, while I worked the other two nights, plus three as a caregiver. On the two nights where I was QMAP, I had to desperately catch up on everything he let pile up through the week. What normally took maybe 3 hours of work per night suddenly took almost my entire shift.

Or really all of the lifting.

I tried to talk to him multiple times about his lack of work, but it was like talking to a wall.

I’d spend 15 minutes begging him to, at the very least, clean the kitchen so we don’t get ants or mice, and he’d just nod and say “yeah, I get it” in the most monotone voice.

Admittedly, I wound up blowing up at him twice, but I feel like it was deserved, because he wasn’t caring for the residents and he was lying to my face about his work.

Everyone (including my boss) knew he was completely useless, but we didn’t have enough staff members to fire him.

The bad employee decided one day they wanted to be the unemployed ex-employee and quit.

One Saturday where it was only me as caregiver and Devin as QMAP, I’d been called in earlier to work a double shift because we’re short staffed. 30 minutes before shift change, I got a call from my boss saying that Devin quit on the spot.

To my understanding, the interaction went as follows:

Devin: I’m changing my schedule to only working 3 days.

Boss: you can’t just change your schedule without talking to us.

Devin: then this was my last shift. I quit.

The situation at the facility got tougher when OP ended up in the hospital themselves, and when their boss reached out to tell them that the bad employee was regretting the spontaneous quitting, they also told OP rehiring was their call.

So all of a sudden, I was left as the only staff member on shift. I had to do the equivalent of 3 people’s jobs (normally there are 2 caregivers but like I said we’re short staffed.) Not to mention, I’d already worked 8 hours on evening shift.

It was a long, exhausting night, and i’m pretty sure I only got everything done thanks to a multi-hour long adrenaline rush and spite.

And I didn’t get a break after that, because I was once again faced with the fact that I was the only night QMAP, so I’d have to work every night until we found someone else. However, after a few nights of consistent work, I remembered how easy work is when you don’t have a mountain of it to get done.

Cut to 5 days ago, and I’m having a medical emergency. Without going into too much detail, I have a PEG tube and it has been persistently infected and it’s gotten worse. I wound up in the hospital, and my boss had to cover me that night.

I came back in the night after despite feeling like complete crap. Once I got on shift, my boss called me with some news: Devin texted her asking for his job back. Turns out he quit without backup income and was facing the consequences of his own actions.

My boss asked me if I wanted to let him come back, since I was sick and still the only night QMAP.

Despite everything, they told OP to go sit and spin.

I weighed my choices and came to the conclusion that, despite feeling like crud and being forced to work every night, it was STILL less exhausting and strenuous than trying to pick up after Devin.

It was a final, beautiful petty moment of revenge for the hours of stress and strain he put me through. I got to put the nail in his coffin. The idiot clearly didn’t want to work, and in no uncertain terms, he had told our boss that Saturday had been his last day. Who was I to say otherwise?

I texted him separately to inform him. It was “professional” but very passive aggressive.

“Devin, I made the decision with [Boss] to not hire you back. You told me several times that you did not want to work here, and your work ethic reflected this. On top of that, you quit; that’s a pretty definitive final statement. Happy travels”

I love it, but does Reddit? Let’s hear them out!

The top comment hopes OP can get the respect at work that they deserve.

This person agrees that people like that add more work than they ever relieve.

This commenter says that issues like this are everywhere in healthcare.

This one thinks the owners need to be held accountable for overworking everyone.

I feel bad for everyone in this scenario except the bad employee.

He definitely got what was coming to him.