Sometimes, readers say the darndest things – like this: hey, enough about difficult managers already; what about problem employees?
Okay, I’ll admit that I write a lot about stupid and shortsighted management practices, mainly because I’ve seen so many of them. Yes, I’ve worked for some wonderfully smart and supportive bosses in my time (as my wife has been prodding me to point out), but I’ve also worked for many more who couldn’t manage a hot dog cart much less a staff of complex people.
So yes, there are bad managers in just about every organization, but there’s also something else that many HR professionals struggle with every single day: the chronically problematic employee.
You know what I’m talking about; it’s the person who constantly has issues with others, or skirts the line on company policies, or seems clueless when they overstep the bounds with their fellow workers. They eat up a huge amount of your energy, and time and again, seem to be just one infraction away from getting fired but are also just smart enough to avoid giving you the ammunition to do that.
Yes, when it comes to problem employees, we all have out own Paris Hilton (or Lindsay Lohan, if you prefer).
I was thinking about this while reading about the latest problem with the law Ms. Hilton had recently in Las Vegas.
Here’s how the Las Vegas Review-Journal described it:
After warning Paris Hilton that the Clark County Detention Center isn’t “the Waldorf-Astoria,” a Las Vegas justice of the peace sentenced the celebrity socialite Monday to a year of probation after she pleaded guilty to two misdemeanors.
Standing before Justice of the Peace Joe Bonaventure, Hilton admitted that both the 0.8 gram of cocaine and the Chanel handbag where it was found were hers and said she was guilty of misdemeanor drug possession and misdemeanor obstructing an officer…
Bonaventure sentenced Hilton to two consecutive six-month sentences in the county jail, which were suspended. Hilton was placed on a year of informal probation, meaning she will not have to report to a probation officer. According to the sentence, if Hilton is arrested during her probation, she will have to serve a full year in jail.
“The purpose of this, at this point, is that you change your conduct. If you’re not changing your conduct, the purpose then shifts simply to punishment,” Bonaventure told Hilton in front of a packed courtroom at the Clark County Regional Justice Center. “When you break the law here (in Clark County), there are consequences.”
Whenever I read about the latest legal problems for Paris Hilton, or Lindsay Lohan (who has new legal issues of her own), I flash back to every difficult employee I’ve had to deal with who sucked up huge amounts of time and psychic energy from me and everyone else around them.
Like the guy I had who kept wandering away from his desk to go sleep in his car in the parking lot (and didn’t see why that might be an issue), or the woman who constantly turned smoke breaks into two-hours of chatter on her cell phone (to the scorn of her non-smoking co-workers), the Paris Hiltons in our employ try our patience, our stamina, and our goodwill.
They suck up the life force of everyone around them, and their actions generate a never-ending flow of memos and paperwork that you spend far-too-much time having to track and worry about. Sometimes they go too far and get fired, but usually, they take their behavior right up to the line before they stop. Then they do whatever they have to do in order to keep from getting canned – that is, until the cost is clear and they start the process all over again.
I’m sure that Paris Hilton will successfully slide through her year of probation, because problem employees like her ALWAYS seem to be able to be able to do whatever it takes to buckle down and avoid the ultimate day of reckoning when they push things to the breaking point. She will take a slightly lower profile and probably avoid Vegas altogether until her probation runs out, and then she’ll start the cycle all over, again.
Is there a strategy for dealing with the time-sucking, life-draining problem employees? I wish I had one, but maybe you have some tips to share for dealing with the Paris Hiltons in your workplace. If you do, post them here (or e-mail me at john@tlnt.com) and I’ll share the best, because when it comes to chronically problematic employees, we can all use all the help we can get.
