In this overly litigious day and age, there aren’t many workplace acts left that are so over the line that they qualify as drop-dead, you’re-fired-on-the-spot, no-additional-proof-needed offenses.
In fact, there’s only one that readily comes to mind as I think back over a long career of managing far too many people who seemed hellbent on doing something stupid that would get them canned. You know what I’m talking about—it’s taking a punch at someone while on the job.
Generally speaking, people who get physical with other people in the workplace lose their job, and usually pretty quickly. And, that’s what is probably going to happen at The Washington Post, where a longtime editor recently blew his cool over a story and came to blows with a reporter who called him something incredibly vulgar that I can’t repeat here.
According to Washingtonian.com, “Details are sketchy, but numerous witnesses report that veteran [Washington Post] feature editor Henry Allen punched out feature writer Manuel Roig-Franzia on Friday. The fracas took place in sight of Post executive editor Marcus Brauchli’s office. Brauchli rushed to separate the two. It should be noted that Allen is nearly 70, but he served in the Marines in Vietnam. He also won a Pulitzer Prize in 2000 for criticism. Both apparently came into play when Allen jumped Roig-Franzia.”
Gentle readers will need to read the Washingtonian version (or this report from the Washington City Paper) to get the full flavor of what was said and the circumstances that led up to the comment and fistfight, but it’s safe to say that the altercation is a reflection of the pressures people are feeling in their jobs during these uncertain times.
“Hooray that there is still enough passion left somewhere in a newsroom in America for violence to break out between colorful characters in disagreement over the quality of a story. … Newsrooms used to be places filled with interesting eccentrics driven by unreasonable passions—a situation thought of as ‘creative tension’ and often encouraged by management in eras when profits were high and arrogance was seen not as a flaw but a perquisite of being smart and right. Sadly, over the years newsrooms have come to resemble insurance offices peopled by the blanched and the pinched and the beetle-browed; lately, with layoffs thought to be on the horizon, everyone also behaves extra nicely to please the boss.”
I’m old enough to remember the era that Weingarten writes about. I experienced it as a very junior editor at the old Los Angeles Herald-Examiner, a long-dead Hearst newspaper that was well-known for such eccentric and passionate newsroom behavior.
I saw fistfights in the newsroom and at the watering hole we called a bar that was just across the street, people falling-down drunk on the copy desk, and all sorts of other behavior that was casually ignored back then but that would get you quickly canned now.
It was colorful, it was fun, but mostly, it was all fueled by the intense passion people had for their work. This is what Gene Weingarten remembers, and it is an era that, for better or for worse, is long gone.
Today, passion in the workplace is defined as work that you find incredibly meaningful or challenging (known now as employee engagement), and managers are all for more of that, but they tend to draw the line at having so much passion for the job that it pushes you to punch someone in the nose.
Back in the days that Weingarten and I remember, passionately defending your work was viewed as a good thing, not something that you worried about losing your job over. Managers back then were more concerned about channeling that passion back into improving the work, and HR was only consulted when the situation got so out of hand that the line manager couldn’t control it anymore.
So, there’s almost something retro to reading about fisticuffs taking place in a major American business over part of the job that people are passionate about. Unfortunately, passion like this gets you fired today, and HR is involved at the first hint of trouble and to make sure all the legal bases are covered so no one, least of all the company, gets sued.
So it goes in the American workplace, circa 2009. You be the judge of whether that’s good or bad.
Here’s a great example of what I’m talking about, courtesy of the San Jose Mercury-News: “One of the accounting tricks used to close [California’s] $26 billion budget deficit is increasing income tax withholding schedules by 10 percent. That is, whatever is withheld for state income tax from your paycheck today will increase by 10 percent come January; you’ll get back any excess payments when you file your tax return in early 2011.”
A spokesman for California’s state Finance Department notes that this “in no way changes any working Californian’s tax liability or taxes owed” and that workers can “increase their allowances to compensate—so long as they do not underpay overall.” But as the newspaper notes, by doing this the state is trying “to shoehorn an extra $1.7 billion of personal income tax receipts into the current 2009-10 fiscal year. Essentially, the state is looking for an interest-free loan from working Californians.”
No workers or taxpayers got a chance to question or challenge this action, although as the Los Angeles Times points out, “the 24-hour session leading up to final passage of the budget Friday afternoon turned into a slow-moving train wreck … lobbyists for major interest groups were present throughout the night, seeking to influence the process. With hundreds of pages of legislative language passed with little time available for review, few knew what the fine print might contain.”
That’s how California workers got saddled with 10 percent more tax withholdings come January 1, and it shows just how dysfunctional the legislative process is out here in the Golden State. It also shows how now, days after the latest budget “fix” was approved, the impact of the middle-of-the-night budget-making finally becomes clear.
What can workers do about this? Nothing really, except fiddle their W-4 exemptions and tax withholdings to compensate for the extra 10 percent hit they’ll take next year. Of course, most people don’t do this, and the cynical part of this middle-of-the-night sausage-making is that no matter how riled up workers might get, few will actually follow through and take the time to do anything about it.
And, here’s the scary part of all of this: If the state of California can stick workers with a higher tax withholding in order to float the state a tax-free loan, what’s to stop other budget-challenged states from doing the same?
Nothing, of course, and I would be shocked if other states don’t look at this latest “trend” from out here on the Left Coast and decide, no matter how kooky it seems, that it makes a lot of sense for them to help balance their budgets on the backs of workers too.
There are lots of things they don’t teach you when you become a boss or a manager, and these are usually the highly unpleasant or unmentionable tasks that you only face when times get really tough.
Today’s lesson is about taking responsibility, accepting blame, doing what’s right for the greater good of the organization—in other words, knowing when to fall on your sword.
Although there is always a good time to leave a job (and knowing when the time is right), I’m not talking about simply leaving because you have done all you set out to do, or maybe because you have stayed on too long. No, I’m talking about falling on your sword and leaving in the classic and traditional business sense—because you are taking responsibility for something bad that happened on your watch, under your leadership, regardless of whether it was really your fault or not.
Why is Martin falling on his sword? According to The Lede blog in The New York Times, “The speaker had been widely criticized for his failure to respond appropriately to the revelation that many members of Parliament have been abusing their taxpayer-financed expense allowances for items like moat clearing and porn.”
And, according to the Times story, “For some, Martin was a scapegoat for the squirming embarrassment of legislators of all major [British] political parties caught in a cascade of disclosures in The Daily Telegraph newspaper about their spending under an official program that allows members of Parliament to defray the costs of maintaining homes in London and in their home districts. But for others he was held responsible for blocking disclosures of financial abuse and for stonewalling reforms from his leather chair dominating the benches of the House of Commons.”
Yes, Martin had to go, but some think that he might not have gone without a lot of political pressure being brought to bear from people like British Prime Minster Gordon Brown. Like so many American executives who also dug in their heels despite driving their organizations into the ground recently, Martin tried to avoid what was painfully obvious to everyone else—that only his going would truly help everyone to deal with the issue and get past the problem.
This is a hard concept for just about any manager or executive to accept, because most believe that their presence can greatly help to resolve whatever issue is on the table. It’s tough for anyone to believe that they are standing in the way of a solution—like former CEO Rick Wag0ner at General Motors—and that’s why it sometimes takes outside pressure before they can really see the light.
Yes, doing the right thing can be tough, but tougher yet is knowing WHEN to do the right thing and being willing to accept the consequences of falling on one’s sword.
Generally speaking, if you have to be told or urged to go, it’s probably too late.
Martin finally saw the light and did what he needed to do. He couldn’t lead anymore, and falling on his sword made sense, although it could have been worse.
As The Guardian newspaper noted: “It may be of some consolation to Martin that he will not face the fate of the seven speakers before 1560 who were beheaded. Another one was murdered.”
Yes, despite the rough-and-tumble world we live in, some business practices have improved over the past 450 years.
There should be no surprise that Solis is a hard-core supporter of organized labor, and by extension, the Employee Free Choice Act. According to Politico.com, “Solis came to Congress in 2000 in part thanks to organized labor. With financial and organizational support from unions, she knocked off a Democratic incumbent who had supported ‘fast-track’ trade authority in a heavily liberal Los Angeles-area district. An ally of her fellow Californian House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Solis serves on the influential House Energy and Commerce Committee. She rates a 97 percent lifetime AFL-CIO voting record.”
And as Mark Schoeff Jr. has written in his Workforce Washington blog, “In an Obama administration, the Department of Labor, along with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and the National Labor Relations Board, ‘will be emboldened (and further funded with bigger budgets) to pursue aggressive investigations against employers for wage and hour violations, unfair labor practice charges and charges of unlawful discrimination,’ ” according to Gerald L. Maatman Jr., a partner at Seyfarth Shaw in Chicago.
Who better to lead the charge in an aggressive, employer-hostile Labor Department than someone like Solis, a woman who “sits on the board of American Rights at Work, an organization backed by a broad swath of unions that pushes workplace issues, especially legislation to ease union organizing,” according to the Journal. It’s difficult to think of anyone worse for the job.
What fascinates me about the Solis choice for the Labor Department is that she is virtually invisible here in Southern California, where the Workforce Management world headquarters is located.
Although you can make the case that many members of the House aren’t all that prominent, particularly compared with U.S. senators, Solis is someone who even flies below the radar with well-informed Californians who live in her general geographic area.
It will be interesting to see how that lack of name recognition plays out in Washington. But really, I wish that Obama had named someone with a little higher political profile as labor secretary instead of the little-known Solis. After eight years of the do-nothing, empty-suit reign of Elaine Chao at the Labor Department, it would have been nice to have gotten a bigger player in this key Cabinet post, even if it wasn’t someone I don’t particularly agree with politically.
As much as I detest the Employee Free Choice Act and its frighteningly wrongheaded notion that the secret ballot, a pillar of our democracy, is somehow good for electing presidents but flawed when it comes to union organizing, I’m willing to give Hilda Solis a chance. After all, can she be any worse than Chao, a woman who can’t point to a single accomplishment except serving in Bush’s Cabinet longer than anyone else?
For my money, Chao is the worst secretary of labor since the department was split off from the Commerce Department in 1913. And, both she and Solis pale in comparison to some of people who have held the post in the past—such as Francis Perkins, George Shultz, Robert Reich and Elizabeth Dole.
So vaya con dios, Hilda Solis. I’m praying that, somehow, you will find a way not to do the obvious and will instead surprise the hell out of me at the Labor Department.
Verbal abuse has no place in any workplace, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t happen—and it happens a lot.
I’ve never understood how anyone with a half a brain could think that boorish, abusive language and behavior would motivate people or get them to work harder, but unfortunately, it is all too common in today’s workplace. Some companies have even institutionalized it as a workforce strategy, an approach that makes me wonder how an organization like that stays in business.
That’s something that is really hard to do in California’s grossly gerrymandered legislative districts—and her term is winding down. She’ll be gone in November.
Migden has had a number of problems, “including a $350,000 fine from state political ethics regulators and probation for reckless driving,” according to the Los Angeles Times. She’s probably a little testy, given all her troubles. So how does she deal with it? By some reports, she verbally abuses her legislative staff.
In fact, last week Migden was so abusive to the people working for her that the director of personnel for the California state Senate had to send her staff home for the rest of the week. You read that right—the state of California dealt with an abusive boss by sending her staff home.
According to a story in the Sacramento Bee, “Enedina Hidalgo, the director of personnel for the state Senate, was in the hallway when she heard Migden screaming at the staff, according to a witness to the event. The source said Hidalgo later entered the office while the senator was not present on Thursday, informing the staff of their rights. Soon after, Hidalgo returned to Migden’s office with Tony Beard Jr., the chief sergeant-at-arms of the state Senate. They told staff members to pack up their belongings and then helped them out of the building, the witness said.”
The newspaper also notes that, “It was the latest transgression for Migden, whose decade in the Capitol has been marked by controversy, volatile behavior and high staff turnover amid complaints that she is unreasonably demanding and verbally abusive.”
Migden denies that her staff was sent home, just as she has previously denied that her behavior is problematic. As the Sacramento Bee’s Capitol Alert blog noted, “Migden admitted during the primary that her curt demeanor sometimes rubbed associates the wrong way. But she was unapologetic. ‘I make no apologies that sometimes it’s a tough arena,’ she said at the time.”
Politics and government is a tough arena, but tough or not, verbal abuse has no place in any workplace, whether it be public, private or anything else. Fortunately, voters in San Francisco have already dealt with Migden’s behavior, but my experience is that people who are such out-and-out jerks rarely change their ways, even when confronted with their over-the-top behavior.
My guess is that Migden will land on her feet after she leaves office. She’ll get some plum political appointment to a state commission or board that pays a big salary for very little work. And, unfortunately, she’ll probably continue to verbally abuse those who work for her. Good people will be forced to deal with her bad behavior. Like any kind of abuse, the pattern will continue until the abuser is ultimately forced to own up to her actions.
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