So this actually happened a few weeks ago, at my friend's workplace. My friend works in a really strict, uptight, by-the-book corporation. They are a couple of people in the team, not more than 7-8 in total. They each have their responsibilities, but at the end of the day, they collaborate together to achieve a joint goal. Their work also depends on one another, so if someone is missing today, one of the people that are at work, needs to do the missing member's work as well.
So, rolling back the story to a few months ago, my friend tells me, that this Tam person (name is made-up, for easier referencing throughout this post), each second week or so, or at least 2-3 times in the month, Tam would go missing. Either Tam is sick, or Tam is away unannounced, he caught corona a record-braking 4 times so far, and so-on, using all the existent and non-existent excuses in the book, to avoid doing work. Also, my friends team, all of them work from home during the pandemic, and usually, once every month or so, they go to the office to meet each other and complete some important piece of work. Tam naturally, would always have some excuse to not show up.
Another thing is that Tam also has some close family in another country, so each Friday afternoon, and Monday morning (the exact times of some cheap flights), he comes down with a sore throat or similar…
This has been going on for a while, about 1.5 years to be exact. Which brings me to the latest story that my friend told me recently. Apparently, Tam pulled-off a mega-move, ghosting his employer and the team. So how it happened, roughly, is that one day, Tam just stopped coming to work. For the first 1-2 days, people assumed it was business as usual, Tam is sick again, whatever, people are used to it… Then 3-4 days have passed, and Tam's superior, the leader of the team, tries to contact Tam. No response. Then a few days later, the leader of the team calls the emergency contact for Tam, no response. Basically, it has been ~2-3 weeks now, and nobody has heard a thing from Tam.
My friend has Tam on whatsapp, and notices that the number does not exist anymore, and Tam has probably cancelled the subscription for that number for a while… Also, this comes in the perhaps the most busiest time for the business domain that my friend is working in…
My friend suspects that Tam has had a look at employment law, as he stopped showing up, on exactly the same day that the pay calculation starts, so he got 100% of the previous period's pay. Also, employment law says if you don't show up for N weeks, your contract is terminated, so he is now gone off the books as well…
My question is, is this normal nowadays…? Is this something people do?!