I am also going to throw this story at y'all -
There was a guy on my team who was arguably the worst coworker I've ever had. A good contingent of people on our team did not like him and found him annoying, and other teams just hated his guts and he was oblivious to it all. He thought he was hot **** all the time, and of course he went to tu for school. He constantly would try to talk trash and it never worked well for him. Bottom line, dude was a total ass and someone who I would tell anyone to not hire.
Well, one day we are on a kickoff with a new client from Arizona, and the the client had a painting of a longhorn behind him. My coworker kept asking the client about it and the client clearly had no interested and kept saying he was in a hotel room and he had no idea what the painting was of, but he had limited time and needed to get through the kickoff quickly. My coworker finally said he was interested in the painting because it was a longhorn and he went to texas, and the client just said "cool" and tried moving on. I kept trying to get the meeting on track, but my coworker kept going back to the painting. I explained to the client that I would be the main point of contact moving forward, and my wonderful coworker chimed in once again and cut me off, but this time he said, "Hey (client's name), I just want to get in front of this and apologize. Yes, he's going to be your main point of contact, but honestly the guy is a total idiot. Seriously. I mean he's just not intelligent. He went to Texas A&M, and people who go there are all just really really stupid. Just want to apologize ahead of time since I'm sure you're going to experience that first hand." The client's jaw was dropped, my jaw was dropped, and the client said, "so you're giving me a guy you claim isn't smart - why is that?" The coworker then elbowed me and said, "oh he'll even admit it - right? Tell him you're dumb man!"
Afterwards I told him that was completely inappropriate and uncalled for, and he told me I needed to learn to take a joke and move on. Our managing director ended up calling us in to ask what happened and my coworker told him I ruined the kickoff because I didn't click with the client and couldn't take a joke. I got moved off the client because of it, and the client ultimately chose to not move forward with us.
I haven't worked there in months, but old coworkers of mine who hate the guy still text me and tell me he can't keep my name out of his mouth and how he spins the story at least once a week about how I lost a client because I'm "such a hardass who isn't likeable". The people who text me all hate the guy and say they wish i was still there which makes it even funnier.
Bottom line - their leadership sucks, they have terrible employees and culture, and I hope this is the end of that company and that the old coworker of mine eventually gets a nice dose of karma thrown his way.
