Kirklin was shaking his head. “I don’t know how we missed it,” he muttered.
“Missed what?” I asked.
“We hired this guy about a month ago, to be a supervisor in one of our technical areas. Six guys on his team. How hard could it be?”
“I don’t know, how hard could it be?” I probed.
“Apparently, pretty hard. His team’s production is behind and his team members are coming up to me privately and complaining.”
“What are they complaining about?”
Kirklin thought for a moment. “Just general stuff, doesn’t really matter. Bottom line, this new supervisor has never supervised a team before.”
“Then, why did you pick him for the job?” I wanted to know.
“Well, he was a supervisor at his old job. I mean, he had a supervisor title. Today, I asked him how many people he had on his team. Turns out, he didn’t have a team. He supervised a machine.”
“How did you miss that in the interview?”
“I guess I never really asked THAT question,” Kirklin replied.