I am starting to think that all mechanical designers have a tendency to become delusional, crazy @ssholes. Buffalo Bill has been on a steady decline since starting at the Mecca last March.
When Buffalo Bill contacted the Sarcastic Brit, looking for a job, it looked like a fortuitous turn of events. Bill had worked for the Mecca for a couple of months as a temp, before landing a full time job elsewhere. Bill had not really caused any troubles and seemed like a quiet, hard working guy. We all liked him well enough and he wasn't a trouble maker.
When Bill left, we hired the CAD Jockey. He admitted to being a wee bit paranoid and delusional, and claimed to be much worse when his allergies were acting up and he was on his antihistamines. When his term ended (with my ineffectual boss firing him, and earning himself the moniker "punk @ss m*therf#cker") we were in need of mechanical design support. Since we deemed Bill unlikely to use such colourful phrases, we figured that he would be a perfect fit. He was hired on a contract basis (due to the fact that the Mecca was basically out of money and couldn't afford the extra burden of an additional salaried employee), but was promised a full time position once the funding came in.
Since Bill nominally reported to the Sarcastic Brit, the Sarcastic Brit was responsible for the negotiations that would make Bill full time. At that point, the Sarcastic Brit had reservations. Buffalo Bill had turned what he had originally scoped out to be a four week project into a six month project (and counting). His time lines had been wildly wrong, and a three year old with a crayon could have come up with more elegant designs. He kept telling us that he was "much more than a draftsman". We should have been worried! Indeed, he has a BSc in project managment (what the hell kind of major is that?), yet was unable to differentiate between a four week project and one that would last for eight months.
The fact that his designs were bad wasn't so awful. After all, we had only used him as a drafter before, and not as a mechanical designer. The larger problem was his chronic underestimation of when he would be finished. I was starting to look like a dork every time I had to report them to Swiper.
The Sarcastic Brit entered negotiations with a salary figure budgeted. It would require a pay cut of a few bucks an hour to cover the medical insurance, vacation pay, and other overhead that comes with being full time. Buffalo Bill didn't like it, but he agreed to it. However, he never signed it.
The next day, he went to my ineffectual boss to try his hand at negotiation once again. Apparently, he felt that the Sarcastic Brit was being cheap because he wasn't authorized to offer more. Perhaps he just thought that the Sarcastic Brit knew his work too well. Mr. Ineffectual offered him a five percent pay cut from his contract pay. When you figure the 4% in vacation time and stat holidays, this seemed pretty generous to me. Buffalo Bill however, decided that he could do better if he just held out.
Unfortunately for Buffalo Bill, his ability to assess advantage is about as good as his ability to figure out how long it will take him to complete a project. He was still working at the Mecca, so why bother pushing through a contract that would cost the company more money? Mr. Ineffectual's refusal to cave on the salary issue didn't help Buffalo Bill's attitude. Of course, his running around behind the Sarcastic Brit's back didn't help that relationship any either.
Next came the questions regarding why the project was so far behind schedule. There were many excuses. Some of them were real, such as scope creep in the project. Some of them were politically unwise, like claiming that things were not finished because the Brit was slow to review the drawings. Needless to say, you should not throw the guy who is (at least in title) your boss under the bus.
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