A Beautiful Mind
I worked at this place for years and it was a great family-run manufacturing company. We had a brilliant engineer who was smart, funny, good-looking, and personable, but something just wasn’t right with him. I was usually the last to leave the office, but on this one Friday night at 7 pm, he was still feverishly working away in his cube. I said good night to him and left.
The following week, on Monday morning, the whole office was in turmoil. I went around the office and what I saw sent chills up my spine. The guy basically went all Beautiful Mind on us. He spent the entire weekend in the office hiding files, hacking into emails, and doing all kinds of weird stuff. To top it all off, he turned it all into a game, leaving clues all over the place.
For example, on the president’s desk, he left a note with a riddle that led to the next clue. Overall, he had set up like 50 sequential clues. It was brilliant. I mean I love puzzles and I enjoyed the challenge, but the bosses were livid. Many of us spent the entire day trying to solve the clues and puzzles to get our stuff back. Every clue was impressive, but nothing beats the last clue.
It led us to his resignation letter. Because some of the clues had threatening statements directed to his boss and the head of engineering, the local authorities were called. It turned out that he suffered from a mental illness, but he had managed it for a long time with medication. His new girlfriend was Muslim or something she and was fasting for some religious holiday, so he had joined her.
Not eating had messed up his medication. He ended up hospitalized for a couple of weeks and tried to get his job back when he was released from the hospital. They did hire him back, but he didn’t last long after that. I think the stigma was too hard for him to deal with and he left for a fresh start.