5 Ballsy Job Applications That Backfired Hard
In the 2016 film Frank & Lola, we follow a chef played by Michael Shannon. At one point, he takes part in a sort of audition, in which he must cook a dish of his choice from a limited set of ingredients. He surprises everyone by going with a simple roast chicken, but he has a secret weapon. He has sneaked in a truffle, revealing his skill with foods both simple and gourmet.
If you’re familiar with movies about rebels, you might predict that his maverick spirit impresses everyone. Instead, they disqualify him for breaking the rules, and they also mock his roast chicken pick. Then, the movie moves on, never mentioning this audition again.
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In real life, the bold applicant might not get the job. And by trying for it, they might be digging their own grave.
A CIA Employee’s Brilliant Plan for Becoming a Double Agent
William Kampiles worked for the CIA, which sounds exciting. It wasn’t. His job as a watch officer meant he routed traffic through the office, a job that would be automated after the 1970s ended and offered little-to-no adventure. His real dream was to be a secret operative, a Cold War double agent. And so, he traveled to Greece in 1977, entered the Soviet embassy and sold the Reds a secret spy satellite manual that he’d stolen from headquarters.
If this were his attempt to become a double agent working for the Soviets, he might have succeeded. Other Americans tried something similar and remained undetected for years. But Kampiles tried this scheme as part of his plan to become a double agent for his own country, working against the Soviets. We only know about the sale because he told the CIA about it, thinking they’d be impressed with the contacts he’d forged.
via Wiki Commons
“No!”
Instead, he learned that stealing classified material and selling it to the enemy is what’s known as a “crime.” A judge sentenced him to 120 years in prison (he ended up serving less, thanks to concurrent sentencing and parole). The judge could have given him life but chose not to, based on the assumption that anyone who’d done something so stupid probably wasn’t capable of doing anything like that again.
The Artist Who Hung His Own Painting in a Museum
Next up is another lowly employee who figured he was destined for something better. This was a 51-year-old man who worked at the Pinakothek der Moderne in Munich, an art museum. He was part of the tech team, which meant he installed exhibits and dealt with lighting. Inside him beat the heart of an artist, and he believed his paintings were just as good as some of the nonsense this place put on display.
You’ve heard the stories, right, about how visitors to museums will mistake anything on display for legit art? How they’ll rave at some canvas that turns out to have been painted by a monkey, or they’ll gather solemnly around some installation that turns out to be just a drinking fountain? Our tech dude was sure his own art would fare at least as well as those frauds. So, he hung up a piece he’d painted himself. It measured two feet by four, and he found a nice spot for it on an otherwise empty wall.
Staff noticed the new arrival immediately when the museum opened the next morning. They decided to wait till closing to take it down, to avoid impeding normal operations, and this gave them a chance to find out the public’s response to the painting. “We did not receive any positive feedback on the addition from visitors to the gallery,” a museum spokesperson later said.
The museum fired the employee and also filed criminal charged against him, for drilling holes in the wall to hang the painting. His inability to hang a frame in a non-destructive manner means that besides being an unremarkable painter, he wasn’t even an especially artful technician.
A Maid Broke in to Clean Uninvited
You can hire someone to come clean your house, which is nice. But in 2012, Ohio woman Susan Warren figured that she could save clients the trouble of hiring her by entering the home on her own, unsolicited. She broke into a house, while the owners were still inside and asleep, and cleaned the place. Then she left a bill for $75, writing the charge down on a napkin.
When police later arrested her, she pointed out that she hadn’t stolen anything. “There was stuff laying there,” she said. “I could have cleaned these people out. But I didn’t.” It’s unclear if she meant that as a pun, but if she did, that alone was a reason to press charges. She ended up pleading guilty to attempted burglary and trespassing.
Note: It’s still trespassing if the owners are at home when you enter. In fact, some owners may feel less violated if you wait till they’re out.
The Robber Who Quickly Returned
Our next applicant lacked that maid’s restraint. He did rob the place he visited, which was a True Religion store in Syracuse. He walked in one day in 2013 and piled $500 of clothes into shopping bags. Then he walked out without paying, and the employees could do nothing but take a good look at him so they could file a report.
He must not have gone far. Less than an hour later, he was back, wearing the same brown striped T-shirt as before. He now asked for a job application. The employees said they recognized him, so he took off before thy could get his name. That means we’re pretty sure he didn’t land the job.
A Murderer Applied to a Nursing Home and Got Life in Prison
If you were disappointed that the previous criminal got away, don’t worry — we’ve got one last story of one who didn't. It starts in 1998 with Sondra Better, a cashier at Lu Shay’s Consignment Shop in Delray Beach, Florida. It was the 68-year-old’s last week at work before she was going to retire. Then someone came in and robbed the cash register. This robber also stabbed her to death with a cake knife.
He left some of his own blood behind, as well as a set of fingerprints on a large decorative marble ball. Sondra, meanwhile, left behind the husband she’d married 50 years earlier, who went on to die with the murder unsolved. He funded a scholarship for criminal justice students in hopes of turning some young mind into a detective, but to no avail.
Those fingerprints didn’t match any of the 37 suspects the police investigated. But then, 20 years later, a match did turn up. A man named Todd Barket applied to work at a nursing home, and as part of this application, he had to submit his prints for a background check. The check didn’t flag him for any past convictions, but it did connect him to that crime scene from 1998. Later, his blood would also turn out to be a match.
When police came to his home and said they were arresting him for the murder, Barket shrugged and said, “Okay.” He is now in prison, sentenced to life. If you have left any prints behind at violent murders, we recommend not submitting to any kind of background check. There are plenty of other jobs you can get. You could even apply to be a cashier.
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