Feedback from Reader "DK"
Another reader was concerned that David Lightman may have had some personal issues affecting his work and that we maybe acted too hastily. I noted that we didn't give too much background into why maybe David Lightman wasn't performing up to standards. I also explained that we have to cover these topics in about 700 words where to cover this situation it might have covered many pages to note all the issues. For instance David was also late at times, a trend increasing in his case, but not enough space to also toss that fact into the article. And I agreed with the reader that we often have to take into account who is the source of the complaint and what is going on with them at that time. For the article I tried to use this scenario of a more clear-cut example, which was the case. In the situation we had - David was not under some personal stress for instance. I am a bit worried that maybe the article came across that ACME is not concerned about employee welfare when I was trying to show that we took specific measures to ensure we did show concern.
I do personally keep things in mind such as you noted below. Meaning I have had to deal with employees who are suffering some personal setback outside of work and that can't help but affect their work, and I haven't held that against them and actually work to show that we support them. I try to know employees and their families both as a related matter.
Excerpts of Email from Reader DK:
Reading you article in the recent Network Computing issue reminded me at the lessons learned in a course at the university about human behaviour in complex organizations. During this class we were confronted with many scenarios of troubled workers or difficult situations in companies and we had to develop creative solutions. Anything was possible other than intentionally creating more work and firing anyone. The first few weeks were difficult and let both students and instructor in despair. But after a while of thinking we learned about "third heart" feelings, about emotions, about approaches that were so against the management 101 stuff.
In your article you mention that the employee David Lightman showed shortcomings in his work that reflected badly on him and on the department. Attempts were made to work with the employee to make him do the work he was hired for. It did not work out, so he got fired - end of story. Maybe some proceedings were omitted in this article, but it never ever even gives a hint that anyone tried to understand why Mr. Lightman's work did not meet the expectations. Who knows if he has a chronicly sick child at home, or his neighbour revs a compressor engine until early in the morning (my neighbour does that sometimes), or maybe he got some personal issues with Mr. Slick. Maybe Mr. Lightman has often migranes that make it difficult for him to even function, but he is to afraid of getting fired when admitting to this or calling out sick frequently.
Maybe Mr. Lightman was at the wrong spot within the company. Who knows if he would have been a tremendous help in marketing with his great idea, but did not have the credentials for such a position and had to settle for a helpdesk job. I used to do more software support for end-customers and are grateful that I now can hide in internal support. Helpdesk jobs are frustrating and thankless, it is a legitimized form of constant abuse. Nobody is happy, one can never get it right, one is always behind. Some people like this type of abuse, others don't. Helpdesk support is as important as any top notch sales rep, but helpdesk staff gets paid a fraction of the sales rep income. Developers and sales reps tend to think only on their terms knowing that there is always the helpdesk to put out
the fire.
