Wednesday, November 16, 2011

Discipline: A Story By The Numbers



  1. End of his probationary period.


  2. He really didn't do that, did he?


  3. Perhaps he didn't know what he was doing.


  4. I'm sure it won't happen again.


  5. Do I have to explain why that's unacceptable?


  6. I'll send a memo to the entire staff saying that's unacceptable.


  7. People are grumbling.


  8. He did it again.


  9. I'll send everyone to training and make sure that issue is discussed.


  10. The entire team went to training. He called in sick.


  11. I'm sensing an air of hostility from some staff members.


  12. He's still doing it.


  13. I'll talk to him about it.


  14. He thinks I'm overreacting but promises he'll never do it again.


  15. He did it again.


  16. Perhaps he didn't do it again. After all, Ellen was the one who mentioned it and I think she hates him. I'll give him the benefit of the doubt.


  17. Nope, he's definitely doing it. I'll meet with him again.


  18. He said he vaguely recalls our first meeting but remembers that I was supposed to remind him not to do it. I tell him not to do it anymore.


  19. He did it again.


  20. We meet. He tells me he thinks I'm picking on him and says that it's hard for him to do the job when I'm always meeting with him. I give him a letter stating that he needs to improve and that his performance will be evaluated in 60 days. He grunts and storms out of the office.


  21. Five days pass. He does it again. I call him into my office and tell him that I'm going to have to let him go. He says I can't do that. I ask why. He says that I put him on a 60 day improvement program and he has 55 more days to go. I send him back to work and call HR.


  22. The HR person groans and asks why I didn't call earlier. I don't really know the answer to that. I guess I was busy.


  23. Whenever I walk through the office, I get death rays from the staff.


  24. He just filed an EEOC complaint. HR's flipping out.


  25. Why can't he just do his job?

3 comments:

Eclecticity said...

Sounds like you've been there, done that? All too often. Thanks so much for this. I'm going to use it in training. You soooooo good. E.

Anonymous said...

I am on a village commission in my home town and we just had a situation that is exactly like this. I shared this with another member of the commission and he said you could put a couple of names in there and the situation would match what we have gone through. What it came down to in our situation was that the manager didn't want to hurt the employees feelings and didn't want to be confrontational. In the end the manager just made his life more difficult.

Michael Wade said...

I've often seen this happen. As General Abrams once said, "Bad news is not like wine. It doesn't improve with age."

Catching and resolving the problem early prevents a lot of heartache.

Michael