This week has kicked my fanny and I feel like I'm finally able to come up for air!
It was a very cold week here. I always chuckle when normally moderate areas of the country get a cold wave and the national news reporters and weather people get all excited and report on it with the same zeal as discovering Duchess Kate is carrying an alien baby. Or Prince Harry's. It's JANUARY, folks! Unless you live in Miami or Hawaii, chances are pretty good you might need a jacket in January somewhere in the country!
As a department director, I have three managers who report to me and about 70 employees who work for us. While I don't have to deal with the day to day management of employees, like payroll and scheduling, I do get involved when problems arise. When an employee appears to violate a policy or not follow some procedure (set up to protect themselves and others from harm) the managers will ask me to vet the situation and we decide together what the next steps should be.
It would be nice if employees would step up and behave in ways that would give indication that they want to continue their employment. One long-term employee, who has a long history of sporadic corrective actions and issues, advanced to the last step before termination last fall. He continues to call this correction "bogus" and has the arrogance and ignorance to continue pushing the line with leadership. I would love to give him the benefit of the doubt and continue coaching him, but coaching him becomes a wrestling match with an angry octopus. He's too busy throwing his peers under the bus, deflecting any accountability and blaming his direct supervisor for his problems. I told him not long ago to close his mouth and open his ears and that lasted a day or so. He wonders why his elementary school daughters are often in trouble. I could hold the mirror up to him but he'd only see the fun-house curves and distortions. I just have no patience for someone who pays lip service about "wanting" to improve but resists any and all suggestions and plans to do so.
I think he's still angry that we fired his "work-spouse" last summer. There was a triad of employees who gossiped, used subterfuge and openly defied their manager and one of the three lost her job. She lost two formal appeals and has now resorted to sending management threatening letters. She continues to influence the other two of the three legged stool. We are not actively seeking to break up this group dynamic, but the remaining two, the character above and one other, are making it too easy for us.
Another employee got into a verbal altercation last weekend with three others. One of the three sent the first's manager an email outlining the altercation and making some other allegations of policy violations. The manager shared this email with me and I advised involving HR in an investigation. That wrapped up this week as well. Of course the employee denies doing anything wrong! He insists he's being set up because one of the three is dating someone from his community (immigrant) and outside of work he knows this guy and he's not very nice and is out to get him! (You can hear my eyes rolling from where you're sitting, right?) Suffice it to say, he will be getting a corrective action for violating our mutual respect policy. He's another one, like the character above, who always seems to find himself in the middle of conflict and has "who me?" eyes. Hmmm.
I always remind my managers that employees fire themselves, we just provide the paperwork.
Some weeks I remind myself that I love my job. I love my job. I love my job. Some weeks I have more success than others with this reminder.
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