a job placement firm sent us someone who can’t do the work but they say they’ll lose their funding if we don’t keep her
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I am NOT OP.
Original post on Ask A Manager**
trigger warnings: >!using disability as an excuse for bad behavior, assault!<
mood spoilers: >!it starts bad, gets worse, but ends pretty alright!<
a job placement firm sent us someone who can’t do the work but they say they’ll lose their funding if we don’t keep her - July 22, 2025
I’m an office manager for a niche type of job — think boats, expensive boats. I’ve been in my job for 20+ years, and we have traditionally had a position filled by a developmentally disabled adult through a nonprofit. “James,” an adult with special needs, worked for us for 10+ years and just retired. He was a great worker with a great attitude. So, we went back to the same nonprofit to fill his space. (The owner of the company fully believes in this organization; his son was a client before he passed away a number of years ago, so this is a non-negotiable).
The job requires the following abilities: answering the phones, managing the supply closets/lists, delivering mail inside the office and to the slips, setting up conference rooms, and general office tasks like filing/copying, etc. James had worked 25-30 hours a week when he was with us and did all of these tasks well.
The nonprofit sent us “Carol.” She is in her 40s and lives with her very wealthy parents. Carol cannot do any of these things and her mother insisted on setting her schedule around her daytime sports pursuits — lessons, clinics, matches. The job is secondary in her life — unlike James who needed a paycheck, Carol does not.
After two weeks of Carol’s placement, which I shall call The Disaster of Hellmouth Proportions, I called the nonprofit and spoke with “Alice.” Alice was cagey on the phone but sympathetic and then asked me to meet her for a coffee. While we’ve worked together during James’ tenure, I had never actually met her. So, I took her up on the coffee.
Alice told me that I had to make this work for Carol. Carol’s parents are extremely wealthy, had just moved in from out of state, and were making six-figure donations to the nonprofit to ensure their daughter received a good job, and they were very choosy. It had to be an office job, daytime, flexible hours — not many offerings in the nonprofit’s realm offered what we did. Alice said that with uncertainty from the federal government, they needed all of the funding they could procure. I told her I totally understood that situation but this woman was not a good fit. I outlined the following issues we had in just the first two weeks. I could not make this up if I tried. I deal with some weird, entitled, and wealthy people all day as part of the job, but nothing like this:
- Carol cannot answer the phones. She picks it up, laughs into it (maniacally, I might add), and will yell “NO! HELLO! NO!” I’ve been having to cover the phones during the one-hour lunch break our receptionist receives since Carol could not fulfill that duty. I asked the mother to work with her so she could do the phones and the mother told me that was my responsibility!
- Carol was told to deliver mail to the slips. Her mother left me an incensed voicemail about asking her daughter to go out on the docks because she “wanders.” Again, this is a major part of the job.
- Carol has discussions with external personas (I don’t know the correct word here). She will argue with herself about random things — imagine the devil and angel on the shoulders from the cartoons. It’s like that, but real. I asked her mother about it and was told that she doesn’t medicate Carol and this is just her way of processing things. It’s upsetting the other people in the office. It has yet to stop and sometimes the external personas will yell at each other.
- Carol yelled at a delivery man. He set a box down near her workspace and she told him to pick it up “because you’re fat and you need exercise.” I told her and her mother this was unacceptable behavior. Her mother then emailed me that I was “finding reasons to pick on her daughter” and I needed to “do my job and keep her busy.”
- Carol was asked to staple packets. I showed her what was expected and watched her do a few. I came back 10 minutes later and she had thrown all of the papers on the floor because she “was done and wanted to do fun things.” I told her mother she could not do things like this. Her mother said, “Her last job managed to get her to work. It must be YOU!” (ME!?!?)
- Carol “borrowed” a bunch of items from the supply closet. When it was discovered, her father came in and brought them all back and suggested we not allow her in there anymore because she was “confused.”
Alice said she was sorry, but her hands were tied. I told her even my boss, who fully believes in their mission and makes donations regularly as well as offering this job to their clients, said this is not a good placement.
A few weeks passed. Carol became more and more of a problem, and so did her mother. The mother came into the office to berate me in front of the rest of the staff for having her daughter set up the meeting space and pick it up afterwards. Apparently, this is “beneath” her! Again, part of the job! The owner happened to be in that day and told the mother to leave and that she was not allowed in our building again. So, now the father comes to “check in” on Carol. He’s a bit more reasonable, I guess.
After that, the owner called the nonprofit himself and also received the “we need this to work out because we need the donations from this family” line. He is friendly with their director, and told me to try and find things to occupy Carol while she’s there and he’s going to tell the parents himself she can only work 10 hours a week. This doesn’t do us any good, and now I’m tasked with finding “parent-approved” tasks for her. I can’t do my own job because I’m constantly keeping eyes on her and doing the parts of her job that she can’t. I’m just waiting for something catastrophic to happen here. I also feel it is totally unethical for this nonprofit to give jobs to those who can afford to “buy” their placements.
I don’t even know what I’m asking. Maybe the readers can chime in with ideas for my survival during Carol’s 10 hours. Any ideas what I can give her to do? She can file pretty well, but we have like … 20 minutes of filing a month, if that. Am I enabling this? Should I let Carol crash and burn to prove how little she’s doing when I’m not picking up her slack? Or would that be too mean to someone with her issues?
Editor's note: read Alison's advice here.
Update - December 2, 2025 (about 5 months later)
I found some menial tasks from the lists given and put Carol on them. She really liked making paper chains, cutting out paper decorations for her desk, and coloring them. I spoke with my boss and Alice (the placement firm contact) about getting a job coach for Carol. I told my boss I needed to hire a second person to do the work Carol wasn’t able to do — which was just about everything on her job description. Alice agreed to “look into” getting a job coach. Carol made lots of paper decorations for her 10 hours a week when we were babysitting. My boss said I could hire someone else to do Carol’s job as a part-timer but to interview candidates in September, when I returned from my long-planned vacation.
Two weeks after I asked Alice for a job coach, she was no longer with the job placement firm. We were back at square one. Then, I went on my vacation for two weeks. In those two weeks, my boss covered for me and got to see just what a problem Carol was firsthand. Highlights of those weeks include:
- Carol’s dad dropped her off extra early one day. She came into the building and took the receptionist’s chair, replacing it with the one at her desk. The receptionist is an older lady with mobility issues and has a large, high backed chair. Carol’s is a simple office chair like the rest of us. Carol refused to give the chair back even saying “I deserve it!” multiple times while waving her arms threateningly at the receptionist. My boss called her dad to pick her up. The next day, he delivered a pricey office chair for her.
- Carol’s mother decided to try coming to speak to my boss without me there. She arrived during the day, after Carol had been picked up. My boss told her to leave. She yelled across the office at how much better Carol was doing without me around. My boss told her to leave before he called the cops. She left.
- One of my coworkers was tasked with giving Carol work. Carol yelled at her and told her, “You don’t tell me what to do!” She did this every day I was gone, despite being told I was going on vacation and “Lauren” would be in charge in my absence.
- One day, Carol’s external conversations with herself were so loud and out of control my boss called her dad to get her. He was honestly afraid she was going to hurt someone or herself.
- Carol was asked to wipe down the microwave and sink after she used them during lunch and left a mess. She told my boss, “I’m not a maid. You get a maid to do it!”
- Carol had another run-in with one of the delivery guys. He asked her to hold the door to the package room since she was coming out and he was going in with a large load. She yelled at him to “do his job” and called him fat. Again.
After all of this, my boss called the organization and said Carol could not come back until they sent a job coach. In the meantime, I hired a high school kid to work part-time after school. Best decision ever.
Three weeks later, Carol came back with a job coach in tow. The coach, Fred, wasn’t great and I don’t even think he was trained as a job coach. He seemed very young and inexperienced and spent a lot of time on his phone. I called the agency and asked about Fred. The director there spoke as if this guy walked on water but I wasn’t seeing it. I asked Fred what his last job was, and he said a front desk clerk at a lower tier hotel chain. He said he took this job because the hours were better. I told him I needed a lot more coaching because paying Carol to cut paper decorations all day was ridiculous. He agreed, but didn’t care enough to actually do something. I called the agency again and was told that he was all they had.
So that brings us up to mid-October. Mid-October is our company’s big fall festival for the employees and our families. Carol showed up with both parents in tow. My boss allowed the mom to be there since we weren’t in the office but in a rented space. The parents spent a lot of time socializing with people, including my boss, but the mother made a clear effort to avoid me.
While this was going on, Carol was wandering around trying to play games that were meant for kids. She was told she couldn’t be in the bounce house, since kids were in there. She wanted a pony ride but was told she was too big. Stuff like that. Then she happened upon the cornhole game. A bunch of kids, probably ages 8 – 12, were playing cornhole while “Danny,” one of our long-time employees, was watching and filming his kids. Carol walked up and grabbed the bags off the board and said it was her turn. Danny told her she could play when they were done. Carol kept yelling that it was her turn. Danny told her to go find her dad. Carol then picked up a cornhole board and threw it across the grass. It struck another employee in the legs. Carol then threw the bags at one of the boys, hitting him in the back.
And that’s when my boss fired her right on the spot and told the dad he could come get the chair and any of her belongings on Monday but they had to leave immediately. The mother threatened discrimination lawsuits and kept yelling and ranting about how she’s never been treated so poorly in her life and how awful we all are — that we needed “more compassion” for Carol.
My boss said get out or he’d call the cops because Carol had just assaulted two people.
The dad at least had the good sense to pull the mom towards the car and then went back to get Carol who was still in mid-tantrum.
They never came back for the chair, so I claimed it as my reward for dealing with this ridiculous family.
The other good news is my new part-timer is a great kid. He’s going to welding school next year and I told him if he ever wants a welding job, he’s got one with us.
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