Need Sage Advice

NaeNae55

Hello All

I have a weird situation.

History:
About 7-8 years ago I had an employee in my accounting department who was disliked by other employees. (Good employee but had no life, was very nosy, and was too different for other employees to like.) One of the other employees realized Nosy was not only keeping track of her own time in her calendar, but also keeping track of every other employee in the department (including managers). This even included breaks. I advised Nosy that this behavior was offensive to other employees and to stop. She agreed.

Employee eventually was transferred to other department, and shortly there-after we got new ownership and all started over as new employees.

Current:
Nosy's supervisor came to me with a problem today. Nosy was showing her calendar (her personal property) to an exempt employee from another dept who saw all the names and times written there. Exempt employee asked Nosy why she was keeping track. Nosy responded, "Well, what if someone asks me if I know when someone left?"

No complaints so far from Nosy's depatment co-workers, but it is only a matter of time. Besides, this is offensive behavior. My problem, dear Forumites, is that I can't figure out any real rules Nosy is breaking by doing this. Nosy is a good employee (except that she annoys others so often) and will respond immediately if we can just give her a reason to stop. Please help.

Don D

[font size="1" color="#FF0000"]LAST EDITED ON 04-26-04 AT 01:36PM (CST)[/font][br][br]So, are you complaining because she still has the diary or is she otherwise acting offensively? If the diary is that bothersome, I would confront her in my office this way: "I understand that you have some sort of diary that relates strictly to this business and that it lists activities of the employees of this company and that you keep it in your posession and are showing it around the company. Is that true? And what is the purpose for what you are doing? (nothing will suffice as a good reason) I will ask that you turn this diary over to me. (yes-end of saga) (no-Now, since you have declined my request to turn the diary containing company information (not questioning ownership) over to the company, let me make it very clear to you that if you continue what I consider to be disruptive behavior, we will have no choice other than to terminate your employment. Your note-taking regarding the activities and comings and goings of our employees is very disquieting to the employees. And let me make myself perfectly clear to you. This is a final warning, not one in a series of warnings to come."

She can certainly cite her rights to take notes and journal on her own time; however, she cannot cite a right to do that on company time. She is not employed as a time-keeper and she is not at liberty to make other employees uncomfortable with her journaling of their personal activities. Fire her is she continues and let the UI slide.

awilliams

I agree wholeheartedly with Don D. I would make clear to the employee that it is the supervisor's job to monitor the comings and goings of employees, and not hers. Let her know that continuing to do so will be considered insubordination which will be grounds for termination. If she comes back with the lame, "What if someone asks me when someone else left?" tell her to refer that person to the supervisor. If you don't nip this in the bud, you may have trouble.

We had a similar situation in one of my previous workplaces where a receptionist thought she ought to write down the comings and goings of the people in the office. People started entering and exiting the back door in order to befuddle her. Finally management asked her to stop.

Anne Williams
Attorney Editor
M. Lee Smith Publishers, LLC

National Guard

I'm curious what you would say (how you would phrase it) to an ee who responds that he/she is keeping track because he/she feels he is unfairly being targeted - that she is going to prove that plenty of other people are late more often than him and if management is going to reprimand him/her then they have to do the same with all the other late employees.
We had that situation a couple years ago in the place I used to work.
Just want to know how that should have been handled?

Cinderella

I would print this off and read it outloud exactly as Don has said it. Excellent advice.

Don, you seriously need to write a HR/management book and send me a FREE signed copy. x:)

LarryC

I learned from an employment law seminar I attended a few years ago that you certainly can discipline disruptive behavior, offensive behavior, and, yes, even bad attitudes. On your warning notice, write or state, "You are engaging in misconduct that disrupts the cooperative , harmonious teamwork environment this organization strives to promote."

NaeNae55

These are all great responses. I can't believe I missed the 'doing this on company time' angle!

Thank you. Thank you. THANK YOU!

Pork

NaeNae55: How about stealing company time required to monitor and write down all of this information pertaining to company business, for which she is not charged with the accountability of any of the information; what about insubordination for continuing to keep record of information not required of her position; what about behavior that is not in keeping with company attitudes and responsibilities!

PORK

NaeNae55

Nosy and her supervisor and I met this afternoon. Nosy said she didn't remember the problem we had before. To give her credit, it was a good 7 years ago and technically I shouldn't be allowed to bring it up at all as we were part of a different organization then (asset purchase, not company purchase). However, I was surprised she didn't remember (even our CEO remembers) and let her know that I will be even more concerned with her behavior in the future if she can't remember the 1st occassion.

Also, turns out on this occassion she was only writing names down (including mine) and not times. However, she didn't really have a reasonable explanation for any of it (though she tried a few). We confiscated the calendar. If she can't replace it with one she has at home we agreed to give her the unused part of it back for her to use in the future.

Interestingly enough, it turns out this all came up because the exempt employee was complaining to Nosy about another worker in Nosy's department who has been absent on Mondays alot lately. Nosy pulled out her calendar to defend her co-worker. Tomorrow I will talk with the exempt employee and suggest that those kinds of complaints should be directed to her supervisor or me, and not other employees.

I would never have dreamed that HR would be so different from accounting, and so full of dealing with little children. What an eye opener to the human race taking over this position has been!

Thanks everyone for the good advice.

rad

She says she doesn't remember the incident 7 years ago? She's lying. She can't very well say "Sure, I remember that but I decided I don't give a damn about what you have to say so I continued to behave in an in appropriate way". People like her are poison.

I'm really reaching with this but one thought that crossed my mind is that if she is "tracking" tardiness and time left early for exempts, could that leave you open to any problems?

NaeNae55

I am really confused about Nosy claiming that she doesn't remember. I have never had even a hint of a lie from her in the past. She is a very good and honest person, but a little weird. (I wonder if perhaps she was writing this stuff down because she has a compulsion to write stuff down?) On the other hand, she has an excellent memory so it is very odd that she would completely forget.

I think the exempts will be ok. Management has always stressed that exempt employees are paid for a job, not their time. Also, the exempts in Nosy's orbit tend to work the most hours here. So, for instance, if I come in 10 minutes late it doesn't matter as I will be here at least an hour after everyone else goes home. Nosy is very aware that her supervisor and I are always the last ones here.

In the meeting she did try to claim she had a business reason. She said she needed to know when others were off so she wouldn't try to schedule her own time off at the same time. I let her know immediately that I couldn't buy it. First, her time off doesn't have anything to do with my time off so why was my time written recorded? Second, why have the person who called in sick yesterday down on her calendar on yesterday's date? Third, this employee is ALWAYS here. She takes one week a year and other than that takes a day whenever she maxes on her accumulated accrued leave time. (I don't believe she has called in sick one single time since she started here nearly 10 years ago.) We let her know that coordinating time off was the supervisor's job. She came up with a few more lame excuses, but nothing even remotely acceptable. She is fairly intelligent, so I think she didn't know the reason herself.

Thanks!