Workers and the general workforce SUCKS and are a freeloading bunch of layabouts.

For those who remembered my "going to fire my first employee" thread, well I finally got around to it.  I was 12 hours away in August (I think it was August) when Management informed me that I possibly couldn't rehire the position if I terminated the staffer--so I held off until after quarter end.  I finally -- after she dang near broke everything she did for the month-- decided that I didn't care.  I was tired of her doing a half-butt job, reading books and playing candy crush at her desk.  Of course, she was completely blindsided by the news.  I guess 6 months of nearly daily conversations about things she broke, terrible reviews, a performance plan and several emails about not reading books at your desk (or playing games) didn't clue her in.

Anyway, I received electronic access to her email system to set her out of office reply to "Hey XXXX doesn't work here any more, contact me for anything she would normally do".  I had no intentions of reading emails, I really didn't have time.  But the very first email in her inbox piqued my curiosity.  I began reading emails from my two bottom feeder employees talking back and forth (along with another person not even in my group).  Here's what I learned:

-This genius, who was read the very stark realities of the job when I hired her (frequent overtime, unexpected overtime, weird hours, special requirements, etc.) decided that everything I forced her to do was some passive aggressive way for me to make her stay late and ruin her life.
-I intentionally set up meetings to ruin work from home schedules and inconvenience people.
-If I let them go early to avoid traffic (when there were multiple events downtown) and expected them to hook up and finish the day at home, well I sucked because I should have just let them off the rest of the day.
-If I let them go early on a holiday, I should have done it 2, 3, 4 or 6 hours earlier than I did.
-If I finally DID get SOMETHING right then it wasn't my idea, it was one of the other Manager's ideas.
-If I gave them an extra work from home day, well that was regarded as some sort of penance for some other slight.
-I type too fast and too loudly.
-I clank my bowl with my fork when I eat at my desk--because I'm doing the fired person's job while she bitched about me on email.

It was eye opening that this group of people who I really, truly try to care about and treat like family are just a bunch of a-holes.  But oh well, one of the bottom performers was just terminated and the other participant in the conversations just lost my interest in developing him out of being my next lowest performer.  He was already on a performance improvement plan and I had entertained the idea of TRYING to breathe life into him, but after seeing that he spent 1/2 his time IM'ing and emailing poison around the office....nah not so much.  I think I'll let him develop a shadow in the unemployment line.  I expect a little of management hate, but some people really are poison to the well.

I remember my first job.

3 people on the same team on performance plan? Thats a leadership problem.

My business partner and I really need to hire at least one person, probably two, but I'm really not looking forward to it. This kind of bullshit is exactly what I fear, OP.

If it goes anything like our experience with subcontractors has gone, I expect to do as much firing as hiring.

My dad always said, "That princess had to kiss a bunch of frogs before she found her prince."

BTDT.  You need to be very smart.  Not sure if a small organization or large.  This matters.

Do not act or say anything about this until you get good advice.  Yes, it is satisfying to learn who the douchebags are but to properly achieve satisfaction make sure you play your cards right.  This can go very well or not depending on how you handle the information.

I don't have nearly enough information to comment intelligently, especially since I loath office work, but read this.

After I did when I was a Sergeant with some shit-ass soldiers, I made some changes in my priorities, and things improved.

So who is responsible for hiring all these losers?

Hope you mean to say leadership above OP...  like in many situations, he got dealt a crap hand and was tasked to 'make it work'.

OP, I feel for you.  Won't take your shoes, and made a conscious change in career recently to avoid it.  (at some detriment to my career trajectory, but stories like yours reaffirms that I chose more wisely than poorly)

Keep fighting the good fight, and 'do the needful'.

You should leverage synergistic operational efficiencies.

Nothing always. Some teams are just poisoned. The only way to go is to replace everyone.

I'm sure that you could some how say that you accidently came across a particular email from the next to be fired guy  that he sent to this chick that you came across as you were looking to a response to certain client or work team and get that on over to HR to monitor his electornic activity.  Let them do the fireing, I'm serious I see this happen all the time.  I'm not sure how they get on the HR watch list but once they do it doesn't take long for them to bend one of the many rules in the employee hand book and BAM they are gone the next day.  Maybe something to the effect that you suspect non work related activity is being performed a substantial rate during work hours.  

If you are a good manager with no issues then you need these people gone as they'll infect your whole team and kill your productivity.

Management are gods, how do you think they got into management in the first place.

lol

It's not a "leadership" problem; it's a hiring problem. Either wages are too low to attract decent resources, or the hiring process (and people associated with it) needs to be reviewed.

I often joke that I can f*** up a lot of things, but the one thing you've got to get right is staffing.

Yes, this...very much this.

I have seven people, four top performers who I love and HOPE are happy.  I do everything I can do to keep them happy.  The other three are degenerates.....one reported me to HR as racist because I told him to make sure he guarded his tone in a meeting (with people he has blown up at before), this lady who I fired for complete incompetence (she didn't know a balance sheet from an income statement), and one guy who is also incompetent.

I SHOULD walk in and punch each of the other Managers in the mouth in the morning because when I was promoted to this Manager position, they cleaned out their problem children to make my team.  It's been a cluster from then on out with these three bottom performers and despite my sincere efforts to develop them, those efforts have failed.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ggFwV2SJS30



 

Oh believe me I have no intentions of telling anyone (but you guys) about finding these emails and instant messages.  To be honest, it felt somewhat sketchy to read them in the first place.  But I had to find one particular file my worker was working on.

It just opened my eyes how much poison was being spewed by these folks.  You would really have to work there to see how much sincere effort--because I really, truly do care and really want to be a great Manager--I have put forward to try and help them improve.  What was stark to me was how nothing I did was ever good enough.  I get it, I'm the man....I get paid to be the man.  But jeez, there's a line where class begins and hatred for the man ends.

It was productive though for two reasons:

1)  It really affected me (no matter how much she deserved it) to fire my first worker.  She's human.  I thought she was nice.  But whether she deserves it and whether she was a jerk, she is still a human and has feelings.  Well, the emails and IM's relieved me of that worry.

2)  It gave me a heads up that no degree of development or working with the other bottom tier employee will change him.  So any effort to develop him will just leave the poison in the system.  So I'll choose to spend my time interviewing his replacement rather than trying to help him improve.  I told this guy, during his performance review, "Hey XXXXX, you know you are really having continued problems delivering your work in this area.  Help me to help you, what can I do to help you succeed?  What is your plan to turn this around".  His comment was "no comments".  No comments? I asked?  No comments.

So now that I have the firing express moving on, time to add another person to it and make room for others.  I have a Marine intern who is outstanding that can take one of these roles.

I don't keep poor performers.  

G

What do you do ?  I am looking for a new gig and I can derail the best intentions

Did your team at least remember to charge for each additional McNugget sauce?

No, it isn't.  It's a sign of milennials.

LC

I agree.
Headed to my cabin for a month.

And from the other side of that situation...

Thats my question.



 

If you take care of your people, they will take care of you.

 

Yeah, hiring is part of managing.  


Sucks if you don't have control over it.  


Reminds me of the story of when Chuck Noll took over the Steelers.

I think it is a recruiting problem.
I don't see a problem with cleaning house now and again.  Especially those who don't try or are malcontents.

management are usually the people that could not perform.  I have an insane boss that has had me drug tested twice,  I do no drugs and hardly ever drink.  I found a microphone in my office.  I ask him and he said he did it as a joke.  Reading another persons emails are asking for trouble.  God I hate office work.  I have been an office worker since 1980.  I can kick the works ass but dealing with all the bullshit office politics is a pain in the ass.  You have a group of people trying to hammer out a product and 3 people telling you to hurry and reading your email.

I think you have some issues that are related to your management skills.

By the way, that is not uncommon griping from staff and I'm not sure why you are surprised and taking it personally (see management problems comment).

Groups have a tendency to form circles and a common theme is how dumb/mean/silly/crazy management is.  This is the case no matter how hard they laugh at your jokes, how many times they invite you to barbecues and weddings, and how many of their problems they tell you.  

It's just a thing that people do.  

I'm guessing you don't have a lot of management experience so take this as a learning moment.

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"There are no bad boat crews, only bad boat crew leaders."

It's been answered above.

I inherited this team.  They were pieced together from the bottom performers from several other Management teams.  They flushed the proverbial toilet and I got the remnant.

Here is an example of what I was talking about in my previous post.

Staff don't know what they don't know so stop taking this griping as a personal offense OP





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I recently held a Director's position where I supervised 23-25 people, depending on the time of year.  When I would move someone to a position where they had to work closely with me, they always told me how they didn't realize how many hours I put in, the stress, how difficult their co-workers were to manage, and all of the the other bullshit.  They said that other employees spoke how all I did was sit around and bark out orders.  The person who I moved close to me had a change of attitude upon realization of facts.

I think it is just the nature of business.

I find that middle management and the general workforce both suck.  I assume that senior management sucks too and that the organization is actually modeled on a top-down suck model but I wouldn't know because I'm so lowly as to never have met the senior management.  

Someday I would like to work at a place where my coworkers and managers actually give a shit about the business and strive to make grow it instead of just checking off the right boxes to cover their ass and punching the clock drawing a paycheck.


ETA:  Right now I'm at a government job and I have no doubt that if a private business operated like this it would not last long.

Don't treat people at work "like family." Your coworkers are NOT your family. They are there for money, and presumably so are you. The end.

Also, underlings bitching about management is as old as time and will continue to happen as long as people work together. The fact that you feel so betrayed by what sounds like perfectly commonplace bitching points back to point one: They are not your family, they work for you and you are their boss. As you point out, you have the power to fire them, which means there is a definite power imbalance between them and you. If you feel that upset by their bitching, you are probably investing too much emotional energy into how you think of them. You can get good results out of good people (not saying these are good people, just a general observation) without trying to act like you're family.

Few managers completely please their teams 100% of the time. The fact that you came to post about it on a public forum means you're feeling kinda butthurt about your team's complaints. I question your ability to remain impartial as a manager.

You are their manager. Period. A lot is expected from management (which, sadly, too few managers can deliver upon) because you have power over other people's careers and lives. I hope you're able to develop some emotional distance between yourself and the people you work with.

Honestly im not saying you are wrong but you should not have read those emails. Sometimes the less you know; the better.

Definitely a learning moment, this is my first attempt leading a team this large.  However, I have plenty of management experience via other avenues.

As I said above, I totally expect griping about the man.  Everyone does it to some extent.  What was shocking to me was the level of hatred these folks have.  When you use your time and effort and give to a team and then they act like 5 year old spoiled children, it's crazy.

I guess it should also be noted that I am the Manager and my team Supervisor (the one who has accused everyone in the company of being racist) tried for my job.  We interviewed 4 different rounds with everyone from Management to HR and it was unanimously me.  He freaked out, threw a fit in the Staff VP's office, accused him of racism and rigging the decision and screamed at the Staff VP.  He then settled in as the Supervisor of the staff I Manage.  He is best friends with my other bottom performer and is, I think, the source of some of this hatred.  So I really am fighting a losing battle with these three.  But one down and one to go.  Then I hope this Supervisor posts out.

This guy was literally about 1 day away from posting out and the company hit us with a hiring freeze.

You've been doing it for 36 fucking years.. but you HATE it?  

Jeezus, you must be a real blast to work around. Why haven't you moved on?

Managers want highly trained, highly motivated go getters willing to give 110%, work extra as needed, pitch in, do it all for bottom dollar, and put company first.
Most employees just want a paycheck,, to not be hassled, and to occasionally be treated as more than a replaceable cog.

Hammer.  Nail.  Head.

I'm not butt hurt, just a little surprised.

But I do see how futile 'caring' actually is.  From now on it's unemotional grind, now I completely understand the opponent.  But it is sad, yet also a testament to playing the game.  I become an owner operator for every position I've ever had, from entry level to Management.  I treat my boss like we own the company, just the two of us and I act/react accordingly.  I guess that's why I've rose through the ranks so quickly and why others continue to be in the position they are in 5 years later.

Nailed it.

Current state of the business environment, unfortunately.

Sometimes you have to cut deeper than you through to cut out all the cancer.

Welcome to management. The only thing you can do is do your job, then treat people as personable and fairly as possible. Keep your side of the street clean and dont worry what the workforce says, we're a fickle bunch. And the last thing I'd do as a manager is ease drop or read personal emails. There's nothing to be gained.

The personal conversations over company email is cause to fire all of those involved.  Work email is for work only.  You shouldn't be using company email for personal conversations.  I've seen a few shown the door for similar.

Absolutely true. It was even true of me before I learned that the game was bigger than the base I was covering.

These kinds of threads make it readily apparent which people sign the fronts of the checks and which sign the backs.

Ok, OP let me help you out.  I work in the fortune 30 arena and shit like this will sink your career faster than you can imagine.  low performers MUST be purged or they will taint your brand and will cock block you from getting that Director, SRD, VP etc role.  If you value your career long term, you need to take this shit serous.  Consider yourself lucky that you wiki-leaked your way into seeing who the enemy of your advancement is.  You need to look through her emails and identify obvious violations by these 2 individuals and turn them over.  You, them, do not own the emails nor can expect any right to privacy.  This is no different than going to through her real mail box to find a client correspondence and finding violations there.  As far as HR is concerned is black & white.  If there's a violation of the code of conduct, it's instant termination to protect the company.  

Submit a request to HR for electronic monitoring as you suspect X is happening based on an email that was identified in fired girl's email as you were locating client correspondence.  If HR gave you access to her shit, then you have access to ALL of it. anything in there is then open / subject for review by management and HR.  Get on it while it's fresh and the sooner the better you can then build your own team before those low performers poison the high performers and cause them to jump to a competitor (my guess is they are already talking to recruiters),   Also anothe trick is to set your Microsoft instant messenger to show pop messages when these 2 low performers status changes.  record long periods of time and submit to HR for a violation, they will monitor and boom, your job is dont for you.  Also, if HR allows it, require everyone on your team to give you view access to their calendars in outlook so that you can be aware of all client meetings. its a dickish move but you gotta lock this shit down if you wanna survive.  Good luck and if you need any advise let me know.  

ill work for ya op. as long as i can work from home..

i know how ya feel. ive delt with co workers who were "friends with the big boss"  and it sucked because they could do nothing wrong(including wrecking stuff and causing $1000s in damages). .

You're only human; of course reading comments like that isn't pleasant, especially given how hard you say you've worked to enhance their working lives. This of course feeds into the surprise you feel. Keep in mind that you should try to be the best manager you can while remembering that your co-workers aren't family - even if you replace this bunch with a better bunch, they will still not be family and they will still bitch about you amongst themselves. It's difficult to strike a balance between caring about your team - after all, your team is comprised of human beings - but not putting them on the family pedestal. Somehow the best managers pull it off. Good luck.

I just inherited a position where the last two in my position quit and the turnover for the techs was 35 people in a department with less than 15 people total.  

I feel for the OP.

If my company offered me a management position I'd tell them they'd have to double my salary or else it wouldn't be worth it.