My own low-point onboarding experience (as a contractor) was when I was expected to use the top of a photocopier as a desk.
Really, if you don't do some basic prep to take someone on beforehand, you are going to be wasting a shedload of money.
Really, if you don't do some basic prep to take someone on beforehand, you are going to be wasting a shedload of money.
Still though, my absolute favorite was the quasi-government project requiring very costly and involved background checks for us to even be on the project, in which all of us would be working from home and where we had to work through two layers of people in order to do anything. As in, I had to talk to someone, who could talk to someone, who theoretically were blessed enough to put their hands on the keyboard, somewhere. It was 6 months of the most ridiculous meetings I've ever experienced, and then they were mad that we hadn't done anything. :-(
And then in another gig, I got sent to Boulder Co, via Denver for something like a three hour meetining, which once again resolved nothing, though this time I was in the back of the plane. I liked seeing the Rockies, but really...
Perhaps Covid has made things better now, at least with such idiocy as this?