I don’t want to use his real name so for that I’ll just say his name is Fred.

Fred is an older man who works at my store, he seems to be a little out there, has clearly had a rough life, and he’s just kinda different. I can’t understand him fully, but I try to be nice to him. No one else but me would cover his shift when his dog died so I pulled a double which is something I swore off for my own sake.

But. He has been working at my store for 1 year now. And his behavior at work has never been worse & is *not* improving.

He has never been on bar - he refuses to learn any drinks & just stays on register or warming. When you put him on bar he takes 10 minutes to make 1 drink bc he asks you questions every single step, even if it’s the same drink he just made 2 minutes ago.

Fine. Bar isn’t everyone’s strong suit.

When he’s on warming though, he touches all the food on accident with his hands but won’t say anything unless you call him out on it. You also walk over to constantly find like a bacon gouda & a sausage cheddar in the same oven together. Okay he wants to move faster & is embarrassed that he’s not, then just say something & admit that you were wrong to continually put wrong food in & hit the wrong buttons on warming. But he won’t do that. He just says “Oh I know!” & moves on like he didn’t do anything.

So that leaves register (cafe only store - very busy with mobiles though!!! We keep up with our drive thrus in district for sales!!)

When he’s on register, he rings drinks in WRONG all the time. Because he doesn’t ask clarifying questions. Or, because he again refuses to be on bar so he doesn’t even know what’s in most of our drinks! Even fellow partners he’ll mess up our orders. The amount of times I have been rung up by him & asked for a Venti of whatever & a fellow bar partner hands me a Tall 🙄🙄🙄 we just stare at each other like “Fred on register?” “Fred on register”.

So now he’s not good on bar, register, or warming.

I can’t put him on support because then he’s either doing nothing at all or the absolute craziest stuff. I have now caught him beating our card reader twice with his fists & when I asked why he told me “well this fixes it every time I have a problem with it” so now I know why our card readers have been acting wonky for two weeks now!!!

I’m a new shift & every day I have fellow partners saying he’s messing stuff up, or not doing anything at all but singing when they’re running around like crazy because we’re 15 minutes behind on our mobile orders.

He loves to just stand by register or out in the lobby while he’s on Hand Off & sing really loudly while doing absolutely no work at all.

My problem is the customers LOVE him!!! Because they just see a man who is singing in the lobby all the time. A customer emailed corporate literally just last week about how great Fred is! And all of our reviews on our store on google are Fred is so fun Fred is so kind - none about him actually doing his job well. The customers don’t see the man who is NOT doing a single role at the store correctly or efficiently in any manner, and it’s making all of our jobs more stressful!

How is this acceptable behavior when it is every single day????

My own manager is sick of it but Fred refuses to change his behavior & at this point I want him either fired or transferred!!! Or I’ll transfer because I can no longer handle this strain on my mental health.

I will appreciate any suggestions for how to handle a fellow partner who’s behavior has been a strain to you and what you did to change it!