SuperManager Podcast: Office Horror Stories

Christine: You’re listening to SuperManager, the podcast for people who manage people and business, with ideas, trends, and expert interviews to help you be a SuperManager.

Sam: Hi, welcome to SuperManager podcast. This week I’m here with my HR Collaboration group and we’re talking about office horror stories. And with me today, I have Tara Gregor, Breakwell, workplace wellbeing; Rod Mccann, McCann consulting, pharmacy benefit management; Lisa Oxenhandler, Recruiting for Growth; Natalie Meyer, The Meyer Group, insurance and investments. Mary Kutheis, MCK Coaching, business coach and confidante; and Samantha Naes, CN Video Production, corporate video.

Sam: Awesome. Okay, so we’re talking about office horror stories. And Lisa, you brought up new employee thought that he didn’t need training.

Lisa: Oh yeah. He was in outside sales forever. And then they took a position which was supposed to be outside sales, but they didn’t really know how to train somebody. So they wanted him “in” more than he wanted to be. And so he just wouldn’t listen to them. He wouldn’t take any of their suggestions. He wouldn’t make calls first. He wanted to go knocking on doors and ultimately it just was not a good fit. Yeah. And that’s the abridged version, but he didn’t even last 60 days just because he was so headstrong on, he knew what he, he had been so independent. So long. Yeah. Like I don’t know how to do this. He didn’t know the product. He didn’t know their customer, he didn’t know anything. Well, not only that… except that he thought he knew. Not only that, but sales, the way people do sales changes. Right. And it sounds like the job, it wasn’t quite clear what it was, so it wasn’t a good fit perhaps from the start because maybe the company didn’t bring in the right kind of person. Um, a little bit of both. Yes, they do struggle. Both are to blame, if there’s a blame, because they want the person inside and yet they’re professing that this is an outside sales position, but they want them inside probably for a good six months to learn the product and who their customer is all those kinds of.. you’ve got to be up front about that. Yeah, absolutely. So it was learning for them and they still struggle and it was bad fit for him because… A little more backstory, he had just inherited some money and didn’t need to work. Didn’t need to stick around? Yeah, if it it just, you know, he’s not motivated… I don’t need you and your training, right? Yeah, exactly. This isn’t a perfect fit. I’m out. Yeah. So that seems like the guidelines and expectations though of the company maybe weren’t clear as well. Exactly. Is that something that they learned from moving forward with that? Exactly.

Natalie: I think that happens though with outside sales sometimes, you know, people immediately want to start making their own schedule as they please and they think, okay, that’s the way it is. And it’s like until we know that you can follow a routine, you can be on topic, you can’t, you know, you can stick with this, and we need to know that you’re going to show up and show us kind of who you are. Then we’ll let you go. Yeah. But at first you kind of got to establish, you know, hey, I’m responsible. I’m an on time person. And you know,

Sam: We have the same issue. It’s not just sales. We have the same issue with interns and video production. They have an expectation of… I’m going to come do this internship, I’m fresh out of college and you’re going to give me your expensive equipment, and I’m going to go out to clients and shoot video. [Right]. I’m always very, very, very upfront with them about, hey listen, you will get to shoot video, you will get to edit video, but initially you’ve got to go through some training on proper usage of the camera, proper care of the cameras, and uh, you know, making sure that you know how to communicate with clients and, and take care of the equipment. And even though you say that up front, and I’ll really say it over and over again, they’ll say, oh, I understand. I understand. And then they’re still, they’re not hearing it because it’s not what they want to hear.

Lisa: Exactly. Well, and you know, so many places, even if you’ve done the very same job at a different company, once you change companies, that doesn’t mean that they do it the same way. Right.

Rod: I’ve got a question though in the, in the interviewing process and I don’t know what they did. This personality that that he would have I would think would come through in a short amount of time with knowing what their expectations are, you know, questions that he would have or expectations that they would have. It seems like maybe there was a breakdown in communication or that they were not asking the right questions or interviewing correctly when they were looking at that candidate.

Lisa: You would think that, but they did several interviews with him. They did a DISC (assessment) with him, so I mean the whole shooting match. It was a long drawn out process before they finally said, we want you.

Mary: And the only thing I will say about that, is DISC is never enough. It’s a great baseline, but it doesn’t give you enough information about sales acumen, to be able to make a decision like that. I mean it helps a little, but there’s not a whole lot a DISC that will help a company recognize whether or not that’s going to be a fit in a sales position. There are other assessments that are much better for that. But it does sound like that in terms of horror stories that happened in the company, so many things could probably be prevented with setting expectations and more clarity and that kind of thing. And at least in what we’ve been talking about, that’s what’s created a communication breakdown. Yeah. Yeah.

Sam: Mary, you had brought up an interesting topic too about just inconsiderate behavior, kind of the little things. It’s not one big horror story, but a lot of little things that somebody can do.

Mary: Yeah. And what’s interesting is that you see, you know, somebody who always eats very pungent food at their desk, or people who never clean up after themselves in the company kitchen if it’s a responsibility of everyone. Or someone who always takes much longer for their break and so someone else has to cover phones, or you know, people who never hit the deadline. And I mean those are all very small things, but what I often see is that leadership doesn’t want to have that conversation. Right? I they, I, I’m making air quotes here that they don’t like confrontation, so they just let it go. But then it drives everyone crazy. Exactly. It’s hard to have these conversations. But you know, it doesn’t have to be, but I think when people go into it thinking it’s going to be a confrontation, that it’s going to be, I’m telling you how you’re bad or wrong, it just feels awkward. Instead of going into it with a, let’s have a conversation about what’s going on here, because you might not realize how it’s impacting other people and it gives the person a chance to say, oh gosh, I just had no idea. Or if they think, well, we have a lackadaisical office, so if I take an hour and 15 minutes for lunch instead of an hour, it doesn’t really matter. Well, maybe it does. But if no one ever tells them, again, it goes back to expectations. So those little things, if they never get addressed, other people say, well, if this person can do that and no one and gets away with it, then why should I? Why shouldn’t I do it?

Sam: Your topic actually reminded me of, it’s actually, it’s an amusing horror story to this day I don’t understand it. I was a manager for a larger company. I had a department and we brought a new person on board and this person was, I want to say a little bit odd, but for the type of work that we did, it’s not unusual for someone to be a little bit odd. I started getting complaints from other employees that he did things that were annoying, and the things that they cited were: he makes snorting noises, he chews loud, he eats at his desk and he chews loud. He makes, and it was mostly about weird noises and things like that. And it was coming from not just one employee but everybody that sat around him. So I did have to have the conversation with him and he was, oh I, you know, I had no idea on, and I didn’t know. It doesn’t stop there though. Oh, I thought that that, I thought that that fixed the problem. Well it didn’t, it continued. The responses I got from the other employees were that it’s gotten worse. [Interesting]. And so I thought I would kind of, instead of talking with them, kind of take a look at the situation and I couldn’t see any problem. And then the other employee started telling me, well he only does it when you’re not around. As soon as you leave the are… So it’s like deliverate, it’s not even like it… He was deliberately being annoying to other employees. I have no idea why it’s…

Natalie: We had a guy that came in and he would walk through the halls and he would bounce this ball. It’s like a little, and you tell he was like a nerve, you know, like he did. It was like an ADD type person, but it was so distracting. And then he was also would have calls and his calls, he leaves his door open and he would talk so loud that it was, I have no problem with, I mean I could be a loud talker myself, but it was to the point he had an office with a door that shuts. So why wouldn’t you just do that? And then a lack of self awareness. Yeah. And then he’d just walk around when he would get out of his desk or if his office and bounce his ball. And it’s that same thing. You don’t want to be rude, you don’t want to be like, hey, I’m not trying to shut you down, but this is something that’s kind of disruptive to, you know, other people.

Mary: And that’s the thing, approaching it saying I bet you don’t even realize this, right, that, that the bouncing the ball can, it can be so distracting. It’s a shared environment, yet an office just like… and some people just don’t have what you said, that self awareness, they just don’t have it. And with the guy that was passive aggressive then, when he was just doing it to be more obnoxious. I had that situation in an organization where I was doing some coaching and they had shared offices. So one of the guys did what’s kind of called my mom used to call diddly-deeing, you know, we’re just this mindless sort of humming or de diddly dee, you know, whatever that doesn’t really even really a song or anything. It’s just, or just noises, like [smacking noise], and I had to have a conversation with them because the other guys in the office were really distracted by it. But he was cool about it. He said, oh gosh, I didn’t even have any idea I was doing it. And then sometimes they need help stopping because it’s a habit. They didn’t realize they were doing it. And so then they would need the coworkers to give them a signal or something that says, you’re doing it. Stop. At least they were open to it, you know, like, yeah,

Rod: Well there’s been situations where people have allergies or whatever. So you know, when they’ve eaten and right after they’ve eaten, they will cough they will have a lot of volume and the coughing and doing that. And if you’re around or even if you’re talking to them on the telephone, you know, it’s just, it’s very distracting. And, and that one, I don’t know how you would deal with that being as it’s, it’s a physical reaction or it could be, uh, you know, but it’s, it’s something that comes always after eating and you know, and if I’m on the phone with this person, I know that they just got through eating because of the coughing and it’s, I don’t know what you do in that situation, especially when you’re, if you’re in the office and sitting near them, that would really be very, very distracting. How do you deal with that?

Sam: We had a similar situation in a, in a larger office, and those of us that could wear headphones while it was going on would wear headphones and then also this person was a lucky beneficiary of a private office with a door. Yeah.

Natalie: So I think a good question becomes, you know, depending on how big the organization is… You know, if you sit next to someone and maybe we’re both in sales or something and it’s bothering me. So personally I think it’s up to that person to say, hey, but you know in other organizations people take it to HR and want them to deal it. And then I think that’s when it, it becomes a little bit, you know, cause now you’re the tattle tale. Now it’s like it’s maybe, maybe it’s even embarrassing to them. I’m not saying it’s wrong to do it that way. I’m just saying I think that that becomes a question of how…

Sam: Which is probably why this guy got worse after right after I talked to him. But he was probably mad that nobody said anything to him directly. Exactly.

Mary: And what I would do is encourage the person to talk to someone who can help them come up with the language to have the conversation themselves. Right. Not to, to, to completely abdicate the responsibility of the conversation. Because how many times in life do you need to have those kinds of conversations and if you can learn it and get better at it, what a great skill. And the other piece of it is that you think about how much of the onus is on the person with the unfortunate but chronic difficult behavior like the person who after they ate and they had the allergy, what would be really nice for that person because they know what happens to them is to say, here’s my situation, I know this can be disruptive. Let me know what I might be able to do if this is creating a problem for you. If you’re going to have a phone call at this time, I can go work in the break room or something. Because once, once you’ve, once you’ve owned up to the challenging behavior, you’ve made it much easier for people to talk to you about it because it’s not this elephant in the room. Right.

Sam: Another probably a good opener for some fabulous horror stories is high drama. Has anybody ever worked in a high drama office?

Mary: Yes. How many of us?… That’s why we have our own companies now?

Sam: All hands are going up.

Lisa: As a matter of fact, after working on my own for a little while, you know, it’s such a, an adjustment. Oh, somebody coughed in the other room, I better run and see what happened. Oh, the dog needs to go out. I better go… But once all that is finished. And you’re not around that high drama. It’s like… Wow. It’s almost like an awakening. You’re just so used to it…

Natalie: And the productivity level too, you know? Yeah. You’re like, wow. You know, it’s amazing that if you have those days where you’re like, okay, you know, I went in, actually, on New Year’s Eve, uh, our office because technically closed, but I went in that day just cause I was like, no one’s there. I got some stuff done, you know, and you kind of just work the way I needed to work to just, you know, not having people coming in and our offices isn’t high drama by any means. But nonetheless, you still, the more people, the more chaos there is going to be naturally, so…

Sam: I worked in an office that was so high drama that in the mornings, this is how I knew it was time to go. Well, I knew it was time to go when my doctor told me I needed to eliminate whatever stress was causing medical issues. It was that high drama, but on my way to work, I would actually have pep talks with myself while I was driving and I’d say, “don’t let it get to you no matter what’s going on, no matter what people are saying, no matter what they’re doing and who’s stabbing who in the back, just ignore it and do your job.” And every evening on the way back from that job, I would be clenching, steering wheel in tears going, why do I let it get to me? Why does it bother me so much? Why can’t I just block it and… And do my job? And that the stress from the drama and I… Granted some people deal with drama better than I do. I’m just not… I’m not very tolerant of that type of behavior, but the stress got to be so bad that I was having stomach pains. And my doctor actually said, you’re either going to have to take medication or you have to get away from whatever’s causing the stress. And once I got away from that job, I noticed a few months later, hair started growing back. Wow. That I didn’t even notice was, was missing. So I mean it was just… Really just people judging and comments and blaming and trying to make other people look bad and, you know, just things going on.

Lisa: And that’s a dreadful and hard situation to be in. That’s your livelihood, you know, you rely on that paycheck to eat, so…

Mary: That’s leader- That’s leadership’s fault.

Natalie: Yeah. Well you’re going to have such high turnover too because you’re just going to, you know…

Mary: I mean it’s people who love drama, who love to watch people battle it out and compete. And if that environment is good for a person, great. But what’s the Gallup statistic? 82% or something of people are either disengaged or actively disengaged at work. One of the reasons why, in my belief, is that they are a poor cultural fit and probably what you would have had to do to survive there is just completely shut down… Is just stop caring completely because as long as you cared it was going to get to you and then you have an actively disengaged employee who’s phoning it in, doing whatever they have to just to get by. But knowing that they’re just trapped in a really horrible environment.

Tara: But don’t you think companies then lose the really good talent? Absolutely. Yes.

Mary: Yes. When people know they can go somewhere else. Yes indeed. Especially with an economy like now when people couldn’t leave because jobs were scarce, it was different. Right? Um, but now people will just go.

Sam: We’re actually here at CN Video, we’re thinking about trying something new. I’ve been listening to these audio books and they were talking about office drama and people backstabbing and probably the, when you say office drama, the biggest piece of that is just people talking behind other people’s backs. And she made an interesting recommendation and it was about, it was kind of like team building sort of thing, but what she recommended was allow people to have these conversations with each other on a more personal level. So on Monday mornings when we do our regular, you know, what are you working on, what are our priority projects we’re going to throw in for each person, “how are you?” Just a, how are you and give each person a few minutes to say, you know, “oh I had a great Christmas…”

Natalie: Are you going to put a timer on it cause you never know…

Sam: Yeah. I kind of hope that people will write if somebody attends to talk a little bit longer than maybe that time they can, but if it gets to be a habit then we have that uncomfortable conversation you talked about. But I think just allowing people to talk about like in their personal life and in the office, you know what’s going on with you, how are you doing and just giving people a few minutes, no judgment.

Mary: A little humanity in the place.

Sam: Yeah.

Natalie: I think it’s good too because if they are maybe struggling with something at work and you’re like, oh my gosh, I had no idea you were going through this. Right. You know, personal thing at home, right… I’m not saying have to go deep into it, but give some, shed some light on your personal life so that way people can, you know, maybe go, “okay, you know, maybe I can help you here. Oh, I understand if you can’t or if you’re struggling here.” I think it’s makes everyone work better. Or maybe in the coughing situation though, “I have this, I have this, allergies are driving me nuts or, you know. Something that someone goes, oh, she’s not just doing-

Sam: It’s amazing how less annoying it is when you realize that it’s a medical condition or some reason why.

Mary: Then there’s compassion as opposed to annoyance.

Sam: Right.

Natalie: Yeah. In general, more understanding I think is key to a better work environment, So I think that’s a great idea, Sam.

Mary: I’ve gone into a couple of organizations and one of the exercises I’ve had people do is to write down and then share the thing I like best about my job and the thing that’s most difficult about my job, because sometimes the thing that makes their job the most difficult, or things that other people could do differently. An example that I could give is that it, there was somebody who was in charge of ordering office supplies, and when people would just come take things and never tell that they took the last one. Or would they, would they just go into his desk and take forms or whatever and not know that they were gone. So it made it his job really hard to be prepared for everybody else because people were working around him. And once everybody knew what a challenge that was, then it was, “oh, well let’s do this. Let’s, let’s figure it out. And instead of just going into your drawer and taking a form that I know is there, I’ll ask you for it or I’ll tell you I took one or something.” So sometimes it’s a little thing that could make someone’s job a little bit less annoying.

Lisa: And no matter how much you try to quote, leave it at the door unquote. There are just some things you cannot… Yeah… In your personal life.

Mary: Yeah. We’re not different people at work and at home.

Lisa: Right.

Mary: We… Same brain, same issues. You’re focusing on different things, but they’re still there.

Christine: Thanks for listening to SuperManager by CN Video Production. Visit our website@cn-video.com for additional episodes and lots of SuperManager resources, or give us a call at 314 VIDEO ME.