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This topic comprises 5 pages: 1 2 3 4 5
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Author
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Topic: Another Employee Problem......and it wasn't my fault :)
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Richard Greco
Phenomenal Film Handler
Posts: 1180
From: Plant City, FL
Registered: Nov 2003
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posted 03-15-2005 11:53 PM
Ok, this one isn't my fault though.
We hired a new projectionist to assist and give me a few days off from work. I am the only one in the Tampa area qualified to train him, so he goes under my wing. For the first day he was kind of quiet. The second day however, he bagan to feel his oats. He was playing the video games on the clock while I was counting money. He picked up a game and dropped it because he lost a quarter in it.
He also was caught swinging on our fire sprinkler system piping in the kitchen. I told him on Friday that I wanted him at the theatre at 4pm Saturday. He whined to me asking why I couldn't make it 5pm because he needed his full 8 hours of sleep. I said, because you need to learn some things and I need the time to teach you. He asked for 4:30. I agreed.
I saw him on his phone numerous times throughout Saturday evening and found him in concession(I told him to help out for a while)with cell phone in hand. I told him to put it away. He said he was checking the sound. I told him to check it off the clock. He then told me "Well YOU use YOUR cell Phone!!". I have a company phone and I use it occasionally at work to handle an issue here and there with other management. I told him it was a company phone and that it was different.
Fast forward to today. As you can imagine, he isn't in my good graces. He comes in at 5, like I told him to and I give him a key to the booth and tell him to start threading. He walks upstairs and says that the key didn't work(The key was bent) I told him then to wait in the office for a few so I could finish with my new hire that started today.. He walked off and I shut the door.
I took the new hire into concession and started going over procedures for opening and prepping food. about 15 mins later, I hadn't seen my projectionist. I figure he should've asked me to open the door by now, but no sign of him. I walked outside and called his name. No answer. I walked over to my main booth to get some candy and saw him sitting on a picnic table on his cell phone..on the clock!! I told him, "Maybe I should adjust your clock in time to 5:15 since you havent been seen and have that phone glued to your ear" (he'd been warned before BTW)
He told me, "Excuse Me, This IS My Mother!!"
Me: "You need to get off that phone and get to work, you should've found me and asked what to do."
Him: "You need to stop your attitude to me, you slam a door in my face and are always around me, you need to stop your attitude, and frankly, I'm sick of it!"
Me(shocked): "You need to go home. Clock out and go home. I have plenty of people here tonight. Go Home"
Him: "NO!, I want to talk to the GM."
Me: "You need to go home now..."
Him: "No, I want to talk to the GM"
I call the GM and tell him what has happened and that I want him to go home. I could handle starting the show and he needed to go. The GM said that he wasn't going to handle it today as it was his day off, but to send the projectionist home and come in tomorrow to talk. I told the projectionist this and he said "Fine, I'll clock out, but I want the GM's number." The gM was ok with me giving the number. The projectionist then left...
I have seen that this guy (21 years old) is very intelligent. He can easily grasp the concept of the equipment. He just has horrible social skills. From my experience, you just don't tell your manage that he NEEDS to stop his attitude. He doesn't NEED to do anything.
I have noted to the GM what has been happening and also a 17 y/o female employee told me tonight that he was bumping into her and harassing her this past weekend.
I hope he gets fired. This is only his 4th day today and he is getting sent home early. Do you all agree.
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Monte L Fullmer
Film God
Posts: 8367
From: Nampa, Idaho, USA
Registered: Nov 2004
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posted 03-16-2005 01:05 AM
..kinda like a "spoon fed society" this is all turning out to be. Where's the good ol' "pride and dignity" nowdays? It's all being absorbed in drugs, rap/hate music, gang related atmospheres, et.al. ...
Fire is butt royally. Richard, you can find better employees who are willing to work.
If I was in your position, and no offense in how you handled this situation, I'd do one verbal, one written, and out the door.
-Monte
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William Hooper
Phenomenal Film Handler
Posts: 1879
From: Mobile, AL USA
Registered: Jun 99
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posted 03-16-2005 02:37 AM
I'm reading social hostility & character assassination. Usually it's due to fear of losing social status. You pick it up from the ornamentation, which is not functional:
quote:
The second day however, he bagan to feel his oats.
[...]
He whined to me
[...]
Some other enployees say he acts like a girl.
And then you get these schematics showing a need to set up a relationship based on propping up a personal need for social status & perception of social superiority instead of functional managerial authority related to operations :
quote:
I told him it was a company phone and that it was different.
[...]
As you can imagine, he isn't in my good graces.
[...]
And a lot of digging comment & inconsiderate staement that doesn't even half-heartedly make much of an effort to mask itself as instruction but is mainly to impose social authority across a power differential; a long list of commands:
quote:
I told him to and I give him a key to the booth and tell him to start threading.
[...]
I told him, "Maybe I should adjust your clock in time to 5:15 since you havent been seen and have that phone glued to your ear"
[...]
I told him then to wait in the office for a few
[...]
And then just straight cribs from authoritarian figures that were found impressive at some time:
quote: Richard Greco
"You need to get off that phone and get to work, you should've found me and asked what to do
And then outrage of affronted ego & fear that the structure which props it up may be falling out from under:
quote: Richard Greco
you just don't tell your manage that he NEEDS to stop his attitude. He doesn't NEED to do anything.
When, in fact, managers need to do a lot of things. Work with people, figure out how different situations with different people are resolved & the work system made to work with people who have different things to learn.
quote: Richard Greco
He just has horrible social skills.
Young people have different areas of better & worse socialization, & I think this is a case of one party having worse social skills but needing to attribute the failure of being able to impose a complete social order to support himself outside the demands of the organizational function to the other person's not assuming an attitude of deference & subjugation.
The GM expects the folks under him to solve problems related to the company & make the system work, not use the environment as a mechanism to prop himself at the expense of the other parts of the system, i.e., the other workers. At those wages, technically astute workers are likely hard to find, & not unusual adaptations like not talking on the phone at work, horseplay (VERY mild in the case of some guy just swinging on a sprinkler pipe), etc. are part of the reason for the structure of the organization.
You're hired to solve problems & make things work, it's as technical with the people as it is the equipment. It's more stopping, thinking, seeing what's at hand & devising indivdual approaches & implementations because the problems, whether equipment or personnel, are rarely ever the same.
I think another indicator of deficiencies of social skills are reports of handling customers whose responses apparently were an offense to ego & received with hostility.
Performance is gauged against expense in business, & things get thrown out when they don't get better, they start costing too much in time or money, & basically become more trouble than they're worth, even if they're not costing a lot. The person who gets to gauge the 'more trouble than it's worth' is going to be different at each point in the chain, & although it's easier further down to just use personality-related critera, as it steps up, it's more business & functionality-related.
I think what you're trying to get out of that job is something besides a paycheck & a well run-theatre, & that the other social thing is more important to you. It's not to your boss. It's going to actually work against achieving a well-run theatre, & that's known to everybody.
Then you get a report.
quote:
"You need to stop your attitude to me, you slam a door in my face and are always around me, you need to stop your attitude, and frankly, I'm sick of it!"
This is probably not a problem to someone who is trying to actually create that as a display, as a matter of fact the report is gratifying. But to anybody else, it indicates something more than needing to run a business.
You can see design intentions in operations in more entrenched & developed systems, but things that are just ornamentation & display unrelated to functionality can be found more often in newer sytems that DON'T establish. That functionally-unrelated display is what EVERYONE notices & involuntarily places as to purpose.
You get the categories of people whose level of expertise or organizational position just allows them to say "Broke, can't be fixed", people who pull out the scematics & look at the operation to see how to get it together, & sometimes you find that the problem with something essential that's broken again is that somebody there with a problem is frustrated with it, not interested in fixing it, & is just kicking the shit out of it. That doesn't fix the problem, & there's only one way to fix that problem.
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Chase Hanson
Expert Film Handler
Posts: 172
From: San Diego, CA
Registered: Oct 2004
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posted 03-16-2005 04:42 AM
Well I hate to steal Mr. Hoopers thunder but ill summerize the points that need "working on".
quote: Richard Greco
I have a company phone and I use it occasionally at work to handle an issue here and there with other management. I told him it was a company phone and that it was different.
Bad
Unless this phone is red, and sitting on a desk in an office somewhere...this is not the appropriate statement to make. It might be true, but its not appropriate. You've pretty much implicitely stated that there is NO phone call that he could EVER make on his cellphone that is of any value. Mom died? Tough shit; Dads in the ER? Fuck that! You're on the clock mister.
The ideal resolution would probably have been for you guys to sit down, review the companies policy reguarding Cellphone usage while on the clock. Explain how his actions are in violation to the policies that he agreed to abide by prior to starting his work there (if this is the case). After this would be the opportune time for you to open the discussion up to "negotiations" as to when and where he may operate his cellphone. Trying to meet him halfway on this demonstrates that you are sensitive to his needs as a person, and that you are willing to work with him in order to meet these needs.
quote: Richard Greco
I told him, "Maybe I should adjust your clock in time to 5:15 since you havent been seen and have that phone glued to your ear"
Bad
You just threatened your employee, and commited a Federal crime (see Fair Labor Act). Just simply avoid making comments about adjusting time cards in a threatening manner. Probably your best approach here would have been to give very explicite instructions to him. "Meet me in the Office in 10 minutes." "Why dont you go up to the office, if the doors is locked head to the breakroom ill come get you." This way nothing is ambiguous, he KNOWS where he was expected to be, instead of you ASSUMING hell be some place.
quote: Richard Greco
Me: "You need to get off that phone and get to work, you should've found me and asked what to do."
Bad
Try "Please get off your cellphone"
Try "Why didnt you tell me the office door was locked? I would have been happy to let you in."
quote: Richard Greco
Me(shocked): "You need to go home. Clock out and go home. I have plenty of people here tonight. Go Home"
Bad
First, being a manager is an evolutionary novelty...so you really must avoid acting on your instinctive reactions its usually not in your best interest. That being said, its not impossible that your calm, well rationalized action would have been to send him home. Reguardless of this fact you need to get into the habit of not acting on your instincts in scenarios like this because you might end up making a decision that is very costly to yourself and the company. Probably the best way to deal with this would be to partially explain to him "whats going on".
"Im sensing a lot of tension between us and its not very productive, I think we have enough staff on hand today that you could take the day off, why dont you come in tomorrow around 5 o'clock and we'll see how things go."
Those are some points in the scenario that probably could use some refining.
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Scott Norwood
Film God
Posts: 8146
From: Boston, MA. USA (1774.21 miles northeast of Dallas)
Registered: Jun 99
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posted 03-16-2005 08:02 AM
I'm surprised that no one has asked the ultimate question: is this guy competent (or will he soon be competent) to perform the tasks assigned to him?
I agree that his behavior sounds unprofessional, but the offenses are relatively minor, and I don't necessarily see any reason to fire the guy _if_ he does his job, does it well, and isn't causing any major problems (theft, equipment damage, acting unprofessionally in view of customers, etc.).
Think about it this way: if the guy is competent and you fire him, what will it cost and how long will it take to hire and train a replacement? Would it cost your employer more to do that than it would to keep this guy and deal with (and hopefully try to improve) his lack of social skills/work ethic?
Of course, if this behavior is leading to poor job performance, then I'd recommend canning him immediately. Assuming that he is an "at will" employee, you can fire him for any reason or no reason, as long as there is no discrimination with respect to certain categories (age, sex, race, etc.).
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