Firing Bad Employees

I am currently in this very same situation, and I am looking for a way out aside from finding a new job. I love my job! But I work closely with a graphic designer (I am a writer) who hates his job; is waiting for the legalwork for his green card to be completed; sits in his cube and watched videos (a lot of porn) and IMs his friends in other countries; and tells everyone the boss treats him like a slave and he is underpaid. (He's paid very well.) On top of it, he is completely insolent to me. The boss tells me he is a "genius" and I need to accommodate his immature behavior because that's what you must do with "geniuses."

Well, I'm not impressed with this kid's work at all--as far as I can tell he is barely competent. He admits to me that he doesn't want to do any work, and that he hates it. Anytime I've tried to tell the boss, he doesn't get it. He thinks it's a cultural issue. It's NOT.

We don't have a HR department, unfortunately. IN any event, my miserable coworker has been promising to leave once he gets his GC, but it's been a year and a half now, and I'm getting tired of his shitty attitude and mediocre output. He doesn't know anything about design aside from how to use the software.

If anyone has any advice, please, please chime in.

Lisa

Gordon,

I certainy don't have any advice. I do have many, many observations. In the 1980's I had 38 subordinates in a factory setting. Being young and having a big head at the time it seems I didn't hesitate much at removing plugs from the neck of the bottle and had a repuatation for this. Not knowing at the time that this is not what I wanted to do, I moved into sales, completely changing my career and intended forever to remove myself from management if I could.

I am not in sales management for these reasons. I really have a hard time tolerating the bad employees. If I were in management, I believe I would sit them down and end the relationship as fast or faster then I used to, it's just I don't want to do this anymore.

I see management where I currently work retain people that do themselves such a disservice that it is embarassing. There are many where I work now, pretty much like everywhere, that do enough just to keep from getting fired and probably getting paid enough to keep from quitting. Many have an "entitlement" mentality which seems to be an epidemic. I don't know why our management puts up with them. If I know who they are I believe management knows who they are before I do. I have been asked many times to join in with the managment of the office. Each time declining, for the love of sales alone and due to my lack of tolerance for slothful petulance that feels entitled.

I know the companies may not want to deal with the hearings that can come from discharging these employees. I used to show up for these often, with my ducks in a clean row. This can be difficult for some managers perhaps. Perhaps it is just complacency on the part of many companies and their management to address issues head-on.

I am certain there are many reasons. I believe some believe that they can "manage" someone into improving. I have found that good people are found only and rarely if ever "managed" into improvment.

What do you think?

Lisa,

Thanks for you story. Your situation sucks (to be blunt).

This might be one of those situations where you redirect that energy into becoming an even more amazing employee than you already are. Think of new processes, programs, tools, etc., that you can proactively bring to the table that will "wow" your employer.

That approach will cause your stock to rise and probably distract you from the antics of this bad employee

In short--I think you are spot-on. Most managers, who arent trained or experts in such situations, feel compelled to somehow make it work. I dont know if there are actual stats, but I bet managers are successful in turning around a bad employee less than 5% of the time.

My Dad used to say, "cut your losses and run." He's probably right

When I was a manager at a public library, our policy was that we never fired anyone for any reason. The reasoning behind this was that if we fired someone, we got stuck for their unemployment benefits. (It sounded wrong to me then, but I never bothered to check to what extent that was true.) So we had a situation where two male employees had a fistfight in a public area, one of them injured the other, and we weren't allowed to fire either one!

The unofficial policy was that if you wanted to get rid of employees, you treated them so abominably that eventually they'd leave of their own volition. The director and the assistant director were misogynists, so this policy was applied only to women, and it was not applied only to bad employees.

Things have changed there, but I'm still glad I left.

CarolT

In my opinion, your former employer is a great example of what an organization should not do. Their approach says to me that they only want to be mediocre. Maybe it's just a by product of being a public entity (although I know numerous govt offices that are high=performing and do attract and retain the best)

GM

I think it's a reflection on the quality of managerial skills in Supervisors today. I've seen poor performers promoted by their Managers to get rid of some deadwood from their Departments. I've seen new young employees starting out with decent wages and acting like the world owes them a lot more. Then they find ways to perform as little work as possible and their Bosses look the other way because they don't want a confrontation with the unions.