My mom has dreamed of working in travel, particularly as a gate agent at the airport, for over 30 years. A few months back, she was offered a position doing just that with a major airline. She went through their processes over the course of a few weeks of pre-employment, then heard nothing for probably about a month. After all that time of not knowing if she had a position still, she was invited to begin training at our local airport. She very enthusiastically attended the training and was eager to learn all the important information and processes that she would need to know.After a few weeks of training, She is told she will need to be flown to the airlines major hub, where they have a specialized training facility. The date she is expected to go is changed numerous times, finally ending up just 2 days in the future. There is no consideration from the airline as to if any home life needs to be taken care of, but she goes ahead and takes the trip. She spends the 1st week of the trip excited telling us back home all the stuff she is learning and how interested she is.
Then on the 2nd week of the training, she comes down with a bad illness. She immediately comes home, cutting short the training by a few days. Once home, we find out its Covid. She tells the appropriate contacts what's going on, the only response being from the teacher back at the hub facility.
About 3 weeks pass before she has recovered enough to return to work. She once again gets in touch with her managers, still no answer. A few days later, she gets an email wondering where she is. None of these managers have actually taken a moment to try to figure out what's going on until this point. She has a month worth of unexcused absences, and only at this point have they bothered to try to contact her.
After she has explained the situation, she is contacted by the administration office, that she needs to come see them. She prepares for a day of work, as she would if it was her 1st day, and heads to the airport for the meeting. The administrator is short with her, but they try to work on the situation. Mom does what she describes as the most boring day of work she's ever had, basically being stuck in the break room for the full day and only working 2 flights. She goes back the next day, same situation with admin, and then is sent to meet with a gate agent to train. She comes to find out that the flight she has been assigned to and the person she is meant to meet, essentially don't exist together. She finds the flights gate and is meant with snark from the person working it.
At this point, fully discouraged, she made the decision to walk off the job. The companies lack of communication and then inability to coordinate its employees, has destroyed a 30+ year passion for an industry in a little over a few weeks.
TLDR: They took an employee that would have been beyond passionate about their work, and drove them away from their dream without ever working a day on their own.