Did I cross the line at work?

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First, a little backstory though so you'll understand what happened and why. A few months ago, one of our employees quit and my boss wanted to hire out for the position. However, one of the new hires wanted to try it out and since no one else wanted it, he got the position. For weeks he bragged about how awesome he'd be, how we wouldn't be able to live without him, typical teenager stuff. Then I have to train him, which goes well and he does a good job (thankfully he dropped the narcissism while we trained). So we set him off in the wild, come back the next day and everything is a mess. When he comes in, he starts yelling about there's too much work and he's gonna ask for an immediate transfer back to his old position cause he can't handle it. The boss, however, tells him that he asked for the promotion, got it and now has to stick with it as we can't afford to lose him (especially since it was his first day solo). He flies of the handle, mentioning that he's only gonna do the bare minimum and if he can't find it or doesn't know how to do something, he's not gonna do it. He proceeds to do just that over the next two days, leaving everything a huge mess and neglecting his job duties, even after getting a verbal warning to knock it off. His go to excuse was "we're out of it" and when I'd prove him wrong by finding the object and giving it to him, he'd return it back to where it was and lie to my boss that we were out. Our DM even came in and yelled at us for a sharp decline in sales, which prompted our big boss to pull the new kid in the office and write him up. Long story short, he blamed me for not "training him properly" and "setting him up to fail with too much work". Thankfully, the boss knew better and told him to stop blaming other people and do his job.

Now for today. I luckily haven't had to work with him in a few days but I had to today and my boss was off. Tired of his excuses, I write him out a detailed list of "To Dos" with a bold caption underneath stating "We are not out of anything and nothing on this list is optional. It is to be done exactly as written." I make three copies, run it past the big boss to make sure I'm not out of line (and give him a copy) then proceed to give it to the new kid. He reads it with a look of disgust and rolls his eyes then ignores me all day (which is fine with me). However, once the other worker goes home and I'm alone with him, he immediately confronts me and tells me "The back room is a mess. I won't be able to find all of this" trying to intimidate me because I'm quiet and usually non confrontational.

At that point, weeks of frustration and letting stuff go erupted and I went off on him. I told him that he WILL get his stuff done, it's ALL back there and if he can't find it, he's gonna have to look harder or he'll face disciplinary action again. He tried to change face and say he was asking for help but I told him he was lying and just wanted an excuse so he wouldn't have to do it (which he had already admitted before). He tried to fight back and say I was overloading him and never trained him but I told him that he was taught, the work is expected of all our employees and that he was just a lazy arrogant quitter who was afraid of hard work. He threw his hands up and I walked away to calm down. I ended up doing extra work outside of the department for the final two hours of my shift to avoid him but I felt really bad afterwards cause I didn't mean to lose my cool, just to reenforce that his work ethic was unacceptable.

Was I in the wrong? Do you think maybe I misinterpreted his question and he really was just asking for help? Have you guys gone through something like this before? I certainly didn't mean to chew him out, but I was tired of him telling us (the experienced clerks and management) how he was gonna do the job and especially tired of coming in and seeing everything torn up knowing he was doing it on purpose.

Sorry for the rant.

Are you his supervisor?

If not, I would have reported him to his immediate supervisor instead of directly confronting him.

If you are his supervisor, you were in the right, but maybe you should have been calmer about it. Tell him that he must perform his duties, and that you'll catch flak if he doesn't. If he still refuses, discuss him with YOUR immediate supervisor. Discuss how you'll correct the problem with your worker. Put it in writing to leave a paper trail. Present the improvement plan to the worker and verbally warn him, with a warning about him being written up. If he continues to screw up, write him up.

Employees can't all screw up. Otherwise, all jobs are on the line.

Everybody has to pull their weight.

I was in charge a few days last week (including yesterday) as our backup supervisor was on vacation and I was her replacement (but most of the time I'm just the senior clerk). I really should have talked to him a bit more calmly and I do feel really bad about the whole experience. I shouldn't have lost my cool. I did apologize for my tone when I saw him today (which was pretty hard) but I did impress upon him that it didn't condone his actions.

Unfortunately, we've talked to him three times about his behavior (with both a documented verbal and written warning prior to yesterday's encounter) and it's more his "I'm not gonna do it" attitude that is getting in the way (as he does good work when he tries). The first time he flew off the handle and said he wanted out and he can't take the workload. We tried to address his problem areas and assured him that he was doing a good job but he started threatening (which we let go as we figured it was just him letting his anger talk). The second time was after he actually carried out his threats of doing the bare minimum and he neglected several key job duties so we gave him a documented verbal warning. He basically told us that he doesn't care as he's transferring out of the department soon anyway so "why bother learning how to do it right". I tried to help him by leaving him "To Do" lists with my cell phone number on them so he can call/text if he has questions but, as stated, his go to excuse was "I couldn't find it" and even when I'd find it for him, he'd put it back and lie to the department manager. Because he was neglecting his duties, the DM came in and yelled at us for our decreased sales, which prompted the big boss to pull him behind closed doors for the third time and give him a write up and to tell him that he's to do whatever is asked of him and to take responsibility for his job performance.

I still feel really bad about the encounter, but it's aggravating knowing someone is capable of so much more but has given up and tries to act like we're inconveniencing him by asking him to do his basic job duties (even more so when I have to take the flak from the big boss for his screw ups). The next step is suspension, which I really hope he improves before that happens cause I don't ever want anyone to get to that point. I'm just glad the back up supervisor is back this week so I don't have to deal with the stress of the position for a while.

Thank you very much for your advice though. It's very sound advice and applicable, but unfortunately it's been done already and he hasn't listened.

He's probably itching to get fired. In most places, he probably would have.

Is the issue ignorance or insubordinance? Is he trying his hardest to get the job done but just not meeting expectations? (where I work, it wouldn't matter lol) I feel he sounds entitled and lazy, the way he's treating you is unacceptable and he should be very aware of such things. A lot of teenagers don't give the work force the respect it deserves, it's not as they're expected to show respect to teachers in high school any more. They think it translates into the real world, and it doesn't.

It's not ignorance. It's smart-assery.