Why The Guilt?

I’m a Manager with a small team of three employees, that I supervise in an office environment.

One employee, is every Manager’s dream and has been with the Company for ten years now. I’ve only been employed with this Company for five years, so he’s been there twice as long. He does as he’s asked, he shows initiative, very accurate and enjoys his work. In the five years that I have worked with him, he has taken three hours sick leave and only because I told him to go home. Reliability is his middle name.

The second employee has been with the Company for almost three years. I was responsible for interviewing her and hiring her. She is what I would call a ‘normal’ employee. As in that she has her personal life overlap her work life at times, as we all do, and we need to juggle things to suit but all in all, the bulk of the time she is reasonable to manage.

Then we have the third employee and unfortunately she is extremely hard work. I have two issues working against me when it comes to this employee and how I handle her. Firstly, she has been with the Company for nine years and I inherited her. Secondly, she is a long term friend of my Supervisor. Long term as in thirty or more years. It is due to this reason alone that she was hired and is still employed.

It also means, as her Manager, if she doesn’t like what I say or knows I’ll say no, she’ll go over my head to my Supervisor and get what she wants every time.

Frustrating much?

This employee has no formal qualification, receives a good $10.00 an hour more than would normally be paid for her role and likes the workplace to revolve around her and her personal issues. Now I’m all for a work / life balance but there has to be give and take and sadly that’s not the case with this staff member.

As her role is a receptionist and general assistant to other staff, she cannot understand when I do not approve her working from home, unless we are in lock down. She cannot collect the mail, greet people as they enter the office or complete the tasks given to her by the Director, if she is working from home. However, she is very good at pushing the boundaries, little by little, until she gets what she wants.

For example, last Monday, she rang me, although neither of us work Monday’s, to explain she was looking after her dog this week, her ex boyfriend was currently in COVID isolation. He was testing negative but had to stay in isolation for another week. I don’t fully understand why this meant he couldn’t have his dog with him.

But I digress.

She went on to advise she could not leave the dog home alone all day, therefore wanted to know what her options were. I explained, once again, that her role was one that needed her in the office, especially as she had not been in the office the previous week, when we were all in lockdown.

She asked if she could work from home half the day and the other half in the office. I knew I had no choice but to agree, as she’d only go over my head anyway. We came to an agreement that she’d work at home in the morning and then in the office from 1pm to 5pm, with the understanding she use her lunch break to travel to the office.

I advised all staff members, via email, of this arrangement, stressing that she would not be in the office until 1pm each day.

As she only works Tuesday to Friday, it would only be four days that the other staff would need to cover for her during the mornings she wasn’t there. Four days, not too much drama can happen in four days, right?

Well unfortunately you don’t know this employee!

Tuesday went as planned as far as I knew. I was actually on annual leave so I wasn’t in the office myself.

Wednesday, I receive a telephone call at 12:45pm from this particular staff member, letting me know she wasn’t feeling very well and wouldn’t be able to go into the office that day as planned. In fact, she didn’t feel she could work at home for the rest of the day either.

I proceeded to email all staff that she was on sick leave for Wednesday afternoon.

Thursday. We process payroll on Thursday for the week that starts the previous Monday. Therefore, we pay three days in arrears and two days in advance. Staff need to estimate the hours they intend to work for Thursday and Friday of each week and if this changes, after payroll has been completed, adjustments would be made the following week.

So back to Thursday. I received this employee’s timesheet and it shows that she arrived at the office on Tuesday at 2pm and planned to arrive at the office at 2pm on both Thursday and Friday. Not what we agreed!

Without any approval whatsoever or taking into account the agreement we made, she decides to do her own thing. Mind you, this is a regular occurrence where she agrees with you and then does what suits her.

I contacted her, after receiving her timesheet, and reminded her she agreed to a 1pm start in the office. She explained that she couldn’t do so, she has had to organise for someone to come over to watch her dog while she was in the office and went on to explain she cannot control the time her friend gets there.

Sorry but this is getting a bit much and her employer should not need to cater to her to this extent. I’m happy to work with her to come to a compromise but this is getting a bit much.

I explained that I was very disappointed in that I do try to help her out, at times to the expense of other staff members, but that when I give her an inch she takes a mile. She always takes that little bit more.

Unbelievably she was shocked and couldn’t understand how I believed that. She defended herself by saying she put 2pm on her timesheet, as she knew she’d definitely be there at that time and was trying to be honest. She stipulated that she believes honesty was better than honouring the agreement we’d already made. She further explained, it takes longer than she thought to get her dog ready and was therefore taking an hour lunch each day. Her lunch is usually set for half an hour. On top of everything else she’d be working two hours less this week without approval.

I explained that I had let all staff know she would be in the office at 1pm each day, therefore staff would either need to wait until 1pm to have her do necessary tasks or do it themselves. By doing her own thing, she was letting those staff members down. She really couldn’t see that.

I also explained that I although I do appreciate her honesty, she cannot make changes to our agreement without discussing it with me and it puts me in a very difficult position with other staff members and the Director of the company.

Towards the end of this conversation she began to say that she was struggling to think straight at the moment or meet her obligations and this should be obvious to me, by the fact that she wasn’t honouring our agreement.

After that comment, I suggested she take annual leave for the rest of Thursday and all of Friday and hopefully, that would be enough time for her to feel fresh and relaxed, by next Tuesday morning. She agreed, which I was thankful for, as I wasn’t up to any further drama this week.

However, it’s now Friday night and I’m sitting here feeling guilty for everything that happened this week with this staff member. Why? I know I’ve done nothing wrong, except get very frustrated with her on Thursday. So why the guilt, because that’s my deep seated childhood trauma raising it’s ugly head, no matter how hard I’ve tried to fix that broken part of me.

I should mention that when I advised all staff, that this particular employee wasn’t able to come into the office for her normal hours this week, I received a response from the Director of the Company asking me to set up a management meeting on Tuesday and to put this employee and her inability to come into the office, on the agenda. It’s obvious he’s not happy and with good reason, he’s aware that most weeks there is some sort of drama with this employee that insures the inability to be in the office. Either sick, usually only on Friday’s or Tuesday’s, in tears or due to her dog, which she has shared custody with his ex boyfriend and his partner, as in this instance.

I know I should not feel guilt and ruin my Friday night and probably Saturday too, if I cannot find a way to distract myself from repeatedly rehashing the week. Broken much? Unfortunately I am!

Thank you for joining me, on my much needed rant and making it to the very end. Your support is very much appreciated.

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Originally posted on Medium