Another "how do you handle this" question

[Apple]

Holy crap this is long, sorry... (eta: short version: ultra-beyond-crappy employee that will eventually get someone killed but acts like an entitled brat. Boss refuses to get rid of him, or even move him to the other location where he wants to be. How do you motivate them to do their job without tanking the motivation of your crew by rewarding him?)

So, there may be a promotion in my very near future (if the guy currently holding the position doesn't come back, and I get it--most people think I will, but with my boss you just never know). I've sat in before and it worked well, I know the crew, I know the project, I know the computer work and documenting, know the jobs that have to be done and how to do them efficiently. Know how to research a job, estimate man-hours and order parts. Know how to line up jobs with the other crews, keep my boss happy, keep the other foremen happy, keep people working when things are slow, etc. For the most part, I know how to handle the people. This crew has some great guys, some lazy guys, some trainees, and some in-between. And one dangerous, lazy, incompetent, entitled, confrontational, "I'll file a grievance over anything" guy. It's this last guy I'm lost on.

I'm a firm believer of "don't reward bad behavior". I think that doing so might motivate that person for a few hours, but has a huge negative impact on the motivation of the rest of the crew ("why should I work my butt off and not get any reward other than a steady paycheck, while that guy does worse than nothing and gets to go to school, gets the overtime, gets the gravy jobs, etc?") I'm also a believer in "you give the guy a couple chances, put him on probation, and get rid of him if he can't cut it" (I'd prefer to skip straight to the "warn him once, get rid of him" because I've rarely seen them turn around.

This guy has shown up drunk on overtime and demanded more overtime two weeks later (the boss gave it to him). He will take time off during the week and demand overtime (the boss caves again). He has nearly got people hurt (including myself, after I *finally* told my then-foreman that I was never cleaning up his mess again, I'd done it too many times after they gave him the OT or the good job, and he was going to get me killed). He has blown up equipment, more than once. He will walk up to a cabinet with 20 adjustment knobs, start randomly turning them to try to make something work, and not mark where they were originally set (so then, I'm sent to fix it and I can't even put it back to where it was).

He cusses at other guys on the crew, he shows no respect for anyone, he pencil-whips the paper work when you give him a job to do (marks down that he has done maintenance he hasn't). He will get on the computer and play around on the internet. He will bad mouth other people's near-perfect work (it looks nice and it works right the first time), while he himself is incapable of making anything look halfway nice OR getting it to work right (he has managed to mangle a two wire circuit). If you ask him a simple, inconsequential yes/no question, he will lie. You will waste days trouble-shooting because he lied about what he did.

I've documented, I've tried not to let him work OT (boss over-ruled me half the time because he went to him and whined). I've taken the good jobs away from him when he wouldn't go do them, I've made sure he was not one of the people who would inherit an easy, fun, but technical job (he is not technical). When he's had a good couple days, I try to make sure to say "thanks" and get him on the overtime list. The next week he is back to being horrible, and telling people he is going to f*** with me (because he thinks he should have got the foreman job).

While I sat in, the boss finally got in the "ok, let's take care of it, and if it continues, we'll get rid of him" mode. Then I had to give up the job (you can only hold it for 120 days unless they make it term, the boss had/has not made a decision yet on what he will do long-term). The guy after me had the same problems, but would not document or say anything because the boss "won't do anything about it anyway"--he was wrong, the boss WAS on that path at that time. Current temp foreman is now having the exact same problems with him I have. He's been a boss before and he is at a complete loss for how to motivate the guy without rewarding good behavior. He wants to get rid of him too.

Problem is, the boss has changed his mind. He doesn't want to fire the guy. I've asked the boss "how do we motivate him without rewarding him over the rest of the crew when they bust their asses, just to get him to do a tenth of the work?"

I think part of the problem is we don't have a long-term foreman right now, so he thinks if he makes the current one look bad, he'll get the job (he doesn't see it backfiring). He thinks his work is perfect. He thinks he's better than everyone, and he thinks this job "owes" him. He also thinks he should be foreman. Everyone wants him to go to the other crew, including him. Everyone but that other crew's foreman. He doesn't want him and the boss won't move him to that one. (I think he knows the other foreman will document and WILL get him fired, one way or another).

Any time there is a promotion actively open, he'll do a 180. He'll be pleasant to people, he'll go out of his way to help, he'll actually seek out work instead of trying to hide. So, we all know he has it in him to work (although quality will always be shoddy).

I know it's long, and I'm rambling (I do that when I'm tired ) but I really feel completely lost with this guy. I don't know how to handle him without the boss backing me up (he will just be the crappy-job guy as far as I'm concerned, won't put people to work with him, won't give him a trainee, etc) but the boss will keep giving him OT when he gets in his face, and he'll keep the bad attitude to everyone else.

How do you handle this/motivate him? I don't want to give him less work, but I already "forbid" him from certain jobs because they are ones we can't afford (for safety reasons) to let him touch.

I will continue to document whether I get the promotion or not. I will continue to speak with him about his work/attitude if I do get the promotion. I will continue to keep the boss updated on the major things.

One thing I am worried about is, if the boss won't fire him, he is going to kill someone (and sadly, that is not an exaggeration--this job is dangerous and people like him never kill themselves). The boss doesn't seem to get it--if you have all this documentation on someone showing how dangerous they are, and you don't get rid of them, how are you not liable/responsible?

Maybe all I can do is hope that in five years, when the current boss retires, that the new boss will fire him. And that no one has been seriously hurt or killed by him before then.

[Apple]

Oh, one more detail... The thing he always uses as a basis for his "grievance"... he's black. He's not the only black person here, there is another guy on our crew. The difference between the two is night and day. The other black guy is a hard worker, smart, pleasant, we WANT him to work with us (he is the most often requested when someone needs help with a job), we WANT him to work OT. The only reason I bring him us is that is is NOT because this guy is black. It's because he is an irresponsible, arrogant, lazy, incompetent, dangerous, prick.

When I got the temp promotion I found out he tried to grieve that too. I looked at the person who told me, and in my not-so-pc way I held out my hands, shook one and said "black", shook the other and said "no penis" (in a "man's world"). How on earth does he think he's got a case?

But, he always, and I mean ALWAYS, "plays that card". Even when he showed up drunk and got to keep his job he tried to blame having to get a drug test on being black (he's not the first guy to get tested, and at least one of the others lost their job immediately). So, I think the boss is scared of him. Another crew just demoted a female indian because she was incompetent and she's not near as bad as him, so it can be done.

I'm just frustrated and out of ideas.

[zibazinski]

You have a union, I'm assuming. What does the union person say to do?

[Apple]

After finding out what is really going on, our union rep will support the firing, as long as management does it "correctly" (documentation, written records of having talked to him, etc). The guy made a big mistake last week by lying to the union rep, union rep found out, so union rep is now pretty clear on the truth. So, the problem is solely the boss who won't pursue it. This guy is still on probation from showing up drunk, has violated safety procedures (provable), and continues to cause problems. It wouldn't take much, but the boss wants to be a "nice guy".

[happyhoix]

This is when you document everything - EVERYTHING so you can keep records of the type of job this guy is doing.

If he does some crappy work, photograph it, or have someone else re-do the work and then write up what he had to redo.

Keep a running list of all the re-work that had to be done, detail what the errors in the work were (to demonstrate the level of severity of the poor workmanship) and also document the times he vanished when he should have been working, or you found him sleeping in a closet or on his cell phone in the bathroom, etc.

You do this for two reasons - you want to cover your own ass and show that you were documenting his poor work and warning your boss, in case an accident happens, and you want to have a record you can pull out occasionally to continue to demonstrate to your boss that this guy isn't improving.

I don't have any suggestions to make this guy straighten up. There are probably some things that might help, but I have no patience to try them. If you want to be underhanded, look for an opening in someone else's department and see if you can shove him off onto someone else.

[Deleted]

Maybe talk to the boss and ask openly if he is not firing him because he is afraid this guy will cry discrimination.

[zibazinski]

That boss would be an idiot if he admitted it.

[Apple]

Thanks, it's a frustrating situation. This guy has a reputation so he'd have to go very far away to get hired anywhere with my agency--he had a term job at another location, and when it came time to hire someone permanent, they just hired someone else. They told him he didn't treat the interview professional enough. The real reason was that several people had reported him getting into the vanpool reeking of alcohol. So, nothing was done officially there either, and my boss hired him.

I've been telling my boss for years how bad it is, and have stood my ground about not cleaning up his mistakes anymore. The other crews don't want him to do any work for them. Yes, he's been found sleeping and that's been reported as well. My boss's boss would like to see him fired, and the guy who fills in for my boss would like to see him fired. I am positive it will come to a head at some point where my boss can no longer hide his head in the sand, I just hope it doesn't have to be someone getting hurt (I try very, very hard to protect the rest of the crew from him, but sometimes I just don't have a choice and have to have other people work with him. They know to tell me the second they see him do something dangerous).

Still open to ideas on how to motivate, even though I think it's pretty hopeless (I've worked with him for years, he used to not be so bad--I mean, his work was crap and he was dangerous, but at least he wasn't an a-hole to everyone then). He was planning to pull some big crap on me but another guy very publicly beat him to it. He found out watching that that I may be quiet, gentle, caring, and laidback, but if you get in my face and try to "confront" me to get me to back down when you're very wrong, I have a whole 'nother personality that will come out--he had planned on me just backing down.

[thyme4change]

I would document everything - even if you are just a co-worker. I would just write a quick email or letter to the boss that says "I have some concerns about how {{co-worker}} did this particular job." And then describe the problems with his work. Keep copies of each one that you send. And then, if you do become the foreman, you can bring him in for a 90-day warning on your first day. And if he stays clean for 90 days, you have to re-set the clock. If, however, he continues to mess up work, then you are already half-way down the road.

[Tiny]

Just a thought... is the boss who won't do anything to get rid of the problem guy afriad of some violence or payback (damage to property) the problem guy will do? Does your Union/company/whatever have some sort of procedure/policy for handling scary employees (who may return to work to get revenge - which in their mind is 'justice'?)? Maybe the Boss has been threatened or feels physically threathened by Problem Guy and it's not the threat of a lawsuit/legal action that's keep the Boss from acting.

Maybe the Boss needs to be reminded of the procedures/policy whatever safety measures are in place to protect him(and all of you guys) from Problem Guy as the firing/removal process happens.

[zibazinski]

Also remind him that if a potential harm has been brought to his attention and he's done nothing about it, his ass can be in the can.

[Tennesseer]

You can document everything to your heart's content, but unless you are the employee's manager, your documentation will mean little. It is the employee's manager who has to do the documenting and prove his concerns were discussed with the employee.

Out of curiosity, does your company have an alcohol and drug-free workplace policy? And was the employee reporting for work with alcohol on his breath/drunk witnessed and noted by any managers?

[Apple]

Out of curiosity, does your company have an alcohol and drug-free workplace policy? And was the employee reporting for work with alcohol on his breath/drunk witnessed and noted by any managers?

We're federal, so yes. At his old job it was witnessed by several, but no one did anything. When he reported for work drunk here, my boss called his wife to come pick him up and take him home. It was actually a boss on a different crew who pushed the issue to get him drug tested. Four hours after he came to work, they drew his blood and his BAL was .15--yeah, almost twice the driving limit FOUR HOURS later. He is still on probation for this as it happened just over a year ago.

Sadly, the foreman position I'd have isn't allowed to fire, put people on probation, etc. It all has to be done by the boss. I can hope that he screws up big while the boss is on vacation, because the guy who fills in will do the paperwork in a heart beat.

I was heavily involved in getting another guy fired not long ago, but he had been there less than 3 months. It took a LOT to get the boss to do it.

[Apple]

Dec 6, 2012 11:01:33 GMT -5 zibazinski said:

Also remind him that if a potential harm has been brought to his attention and he's done nothing about it, his ass can be in the can.

If I get the promotion I'm thinking of reminding the boss that I've already refused to do the clean up myself, so I'm not going to put my guys in harm's way. So, from "now" on, he will only do x type of work even if he wants to do something more technical/high voltage. I'll also tell him that I'm making that decision because I'm afraid that if he hurts himself or someone else, I couldn't deal with the guilt of being responsible for it. I'm hoping that will get him thinking in that direction and then go into the "who's ass is it if we know now he's dangerous?"

I've already done this with another employee who is not an electrician, more of a grunt worker, but the last foreman would let him do journeyman work. The guy has no clue and was going to get himself killed. I put a stop to it, told him if he wanted to go do the journeyman work, he needed to put the effort in to doing the training and learning the job like everyone else. They had come close to just giving him the title without any training.

The judgement of people in management here really scares me.

[Phoenix84]

Apple. I'm not sure, but do you work for the government? The only reason I ask is because based on your description, it sounds almost exactly the work environment I had working at a navy shipyard. I used to supervise electricians working on radiological systems. I understand your concern and realize how dangerous a drydock and ship under construction can be.

I assume you have some type of lock out - tag out system to prevent him from messing with anything crucial?

If it's government, hard to say. There are specific things they have to do to get him fired. They have to put him on a performance improvement plan and cross and the i's and dot the t's. Even then he's likely to sue your employer for being racist, so they would need to have a well documented case. It will likely take a year or more.

Really, in the end I don't think there's much you can do except thoroughly document all the screw ups and pass it on to management. Take pictures of his shoddy work or blatant safety screwups. Get as many witnesses as possible.

Otherwise you'll just have to live with it until your management decides to do something about it. Maybe you can use what influence you can muster to ensure he doesn't hurt anyone else.

[Phoenix84]

Sorry, I didn't read that you were federal. I'm guessing you work for one of the navy shipyards in the northwest?

Basically what I said is true. At the federal level you can fire people, but the case has to be well documented and the employee has to be put on a performance improvement plan. Whoever does his performance evaluations should be noting the problems there too.

Here's an idea, if you're a major federal operation, you should have some type of safety office or safety professional on site. Are they aware of major safety issues? If they were, they could put pressure on management to do something about it. Everywhere I worked, management takes safety very seriously and if the safety office comes to you then you listen.

The same thing may go if you have a quality control office. Maybe rallying support from the quality control office or safety office may lend your pleas more credibility.

[Apple]

The safety officer might not be a bad idea, but he's deployed right now and the guy they put in there is a tool (and this guy's buddy--they are known as the two laziest people there--but no one else wanted the job).

I couldn't remember what it was called, but the boss won't broach a performance improvement plan. He knows there is a problem, he has asked a couple other people how to handle the problem, they've ALL told him to start the process and if he can't improve, fire him. Problem is, the boss crumbles under confrontation and will give in. This employee knows this so will confront/bully/intimidate to get what he wants (I do not know if the guy is the kind you have to worry about bringing a gun to work, I do know if he is, I'm the first to get shot). He got mad because someone said he wasn't a "team player" so he brought it up to the boss with "I'm a team player, aren't I!" (yeah, not as a question). The boss just danced around it and wouldn't answer. And that's a lot of the issue, the boss refuses to tell him what he does wrong and how it needs to improve.

His probation lasts for 3 years (from the drunk incident), so he's already on some kind of "program". I swear, if we had anyone else as our boss this would not be an issue.

Oh, and yes we have a lock-out tag-out procedure, so people are safe there. However, being electricians we still have to troubleshoot and do somethings hot. This is where he endangers other people--he's directly jumpered a positive wire to the negative wire on a dc system. It flashed on him, and he did it again two seconds later. We do have an arc flash program now, but clothes aren't meant to protect you from stupidity, they are meant for things that "just happen". When I sat in I kept him away from any job that HAD to be worked on or trouble-shot hot, unless it was very low voltage (phone system).

Right now he is pressuring the temp foreman to let him do a job that involves wiring a panel with hundreds of wires. He "got" to do it once before, caused problems plant wide for weeks because he grounded things and couldn't figure out where it was. I was the one who found it, it was another "positive wire tied to negative wire" issue, but not enough current to trip anything or even be a constant ground. In the end, it was such a bad job that they sent me to fix it. He took months to wire it up, relabeling wires in correctly, etc. I was told I had two weeks to fix it, get it all labeled correctly, and make it look nice. Still not sure how I made that deadline--there were more than 20 mistakes I found as I disassembled his work. The temp foreman so far is not giving him the job, but I'm afraid the boss is going to override him if he's not completely firm about it.

[Sum Dum Gai]

High stakes, but you can always let your boss know that since he's refusing to deal with a known safety hazard in the work place you're considering legal action to keep the rest of the team safe. You hate that it might have to come to this, but him letting somebody get seriously hurt or killed to spare the feelings of one guy that everyone knows is a total fuck up is completely unacceptable.

It sounds like your boss wants to get rid of this guy, but is afraid of confrontation, doesn't want to fight the potential discrimination suit, and it isn't his ass on the line anyway so why risk it. If he's facing a potential lawsuit whether he keeps the guy or not, he might decide to sack up and can the idiot.

The problem of course is that it also labels you as a potential troublemaker, whiner, or whatever.

[deantrip]

Anonymous safety complaints with evidence directed to OSHA or the equivalent above your bosses head will get the attention, plus it takes the issue out of your bosses hands. I hate to do the whole behind the back thing with a boss, but safety is safety, I work in construction and you can't be too careful in some fields.

[Apple]

Thanks for all the tips, some I've done, some I'll add to my "last resort" list--I really do not want to see someone get hurt.

I'm pretty well known for being a pain in the ass when I take a hard stand on something, and the boss is very well aware of this. If I get the promotion (hell, maybe even if I don't), I will try to stress the safety/liability issue with him. It's not about being nice to the guy, it's about the safety of our crew (and I have refused to let my crew do certain jobs the way management wanted it done in the past. They either changed it to make it safe(r) or the job didn't get done. This is one of the reasons I have the respect of the guys--yeah, I know some would jump right in and do the job, but some because they are old-timers and that's just how they did things, with near-misses, in the past, and some just because they aren't knowledgable enough yet to recognize the danger--after I point it out to them their eyes get big...)

I hope it continues to work for me--he likes that I'm not a "yes man" but I still get everything done--I don't argue, but I question why or how and work with him to make it better. We'll see.

[cronewitch]

We have a white female who claims to be a Pacific Islander who is about as bad. The management didn't want to fire her because she is a minority and might sue for discrimination. She is a racist and seems to only be willing to work with men. I have wanted her gone for 10 year and kept complaining about her work and her attitude but they refused to do anything. She has said some hateful things to other women and had one on the verge of quitting. I stepped in and protected the woman from her by making sure they never had to be in the same place at the same time.

I started making noise to the bosses about her, saying she was causing a "hostile work environment" and we were going to lose good people over it. I also claimed she was sexually discriminating since she only said hateful things to women and was gushingly sweet to men and did whatever they asked her.

Since the woman I was protecting covered her lunch and had to give her papers everyday I covered the lunches and went down stairs to bring up the papers or had her bring them to me to hand her. After a week or so the boss asked why I was covering lunches and I explained until they solved the problem I was keeping them separated. They had already started an investigation calling each person who had been involved or heard anything about the latest blow up in to talk.

They would have let it drop but I wasn't letting work get back to normal so they wrote her up. But then called a meeting among the women and managers to talk to her. She was upset and promised not to behave badly but of course claims she never did. She also promised to do certain chores the way I wanted.

A couple of weeks later we had a blow up, I tried to tell her something and she demanded she was getting the boss to witness. So he was standing there while she was refusing to do what I wanted. I was mean and she ended up saying she was ready to retire, I said "good". She claimed she was too busy is why she didn't do what I wanted. The task could be done in under 30 seconds, so I explained she was on the internet half the day and checking personal email which was a fire-able offense. She kept saying but we are coworkers. She seemed to think I didn't have any right to tell her what to do. The boss informed her I am her supervisor and she is required to do what I tell her to the best of her ability. The guy who handles personnel issues is mad at her now because she was perfectly clear I was her supervisor a couple of weeks before.

So she doesn't like me . I am loading her down with work. She no longer has half the day to play on the internet. I gave her so much work she complained asking why someone else couldn't do it and I told her because she was the one with extra time. She still complains she is doing the work for someone else but we are swamped and everyone else is working overtime and can't keep up. We have a temp doing some work but she landed a real job so now we are looking for a new temp. We don't have time to allow her to sit idle because nobody wants to bother with her.

At least she is working now and I am less rude to her, told her this week I appreciate her hard work. Maybe now she is afraid of me she will shape up or quit. She promised once a week to ask someone for something, it has been more than 5 weeks and she hasn't done it except once. She won't ask so is using wrong information. Since she was specific that she would do this once a week I think it is time for a second warning. But they gave her a tiny raise this week so they are still unwilling to fire her.

If she continues to do all the work I give her I will let her keep working, otherwise I will find a way to make her quit. Maybe I will quit and sue them for her causing a hostile work environment. But that would make her happy, I don't want her happy.