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Problem with boss & coworkers

I’m the supervisor of 3 individuals who play on the Internet about 90% of the time and the company suffers as a result! I work in a financial company (stocks etc…) where mistakes are and have been costly to the clients. I have to correct 10-20 of their mistakes daily, which takes me away from my work, not to mention that I get yelled at each time a mistake is “costly.” My boss will not do anything to the women who keep going on the Internet. The only reason why my boss hasn’t fired them is because he stated “he didn’t want to go through the process of interviewing people again.” I simply can’t understand why people who show lack of interest for the business, consistently tardy and has no respect for my boss, or the business is still working at this place. I can’t understand why my boss is blind to all of this. I’m pretty sure a few new faces would improve the morale and the business. Any advice would be appreciated as I feel that I’m being taken advantage of by all. I await your response.
-Michelle

Hi Michelle.

Tough situation.

Let me ask a couple of questions first. If you are the supervisor of the three women, then why can’t you discipline them yourself? Are you the one who gives them their performance reviews? And would you be the one to head up the interview process if one of them left? My guess is that you are writing because you do not have the authority to write up or discipline the people you supervise. Am I correct?

As I see it, you have a few choices here.

You could do nothing and watch your stress level continue to rise. Probably not a good option.

You could ask if you and your boss could meet with these women individually in order to talk about your concerns (and hopefully his as well#. I like this option because you both are involved together in addressing this problem and it would not be a real stretch for your boss to participate.

You could go to HR to seek some advice on how to manage up in regards to your boss, since he is as much, if not more of the problem. HR could also suggest some ways to diplomatically address the Internet usage as well.

Another option is to tell your boss that you’d like the both of you to meet with his boss in order to discuss how best to deal with the problem. This shows respect #you are not secretly going above his head# and you are diplomatically saying that is both of your problems #instead of signaling him out). It will also show that you mean business.

The last option is to seek employment elsewhere.

Michelle, the bigger problem for you is finding support within the organization to address the inappropriate use of the Internet. Once you have that, the actual “addressing” the problem will be a lot easier. However, if you cannot get support to move forward on this, your hands will continue to be tied, leaving you with minimal options.

I personally like the second and fourth option as your first choices. Going to HR would be the back-up choice, followed by leaving the company.

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This entry was posted on Thursday, January 29th, 2009 at 2:39 pm and is filed under Problems with a Manager. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.

Problem with boss & coworkers

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