A Call to Managers: Cut the Nonsense

What is it about human nature in the workplace that makes those who have a little power crap all over those who don’t?

And it isn’t just management that does this.

As the top editor at a now defunct Internet marketing publication, I received more than my share of crap sandwiches from people who reported to me.

Why? Because they could. During the late 90s, everyone who could possibly hold a job was employed. Hell, many who couldn’t hold a job were employed. For example, in our case, there was Sharon—names have been changed because I forgot them—who came on the job, planned her wedding on the phone for two weeks and then promptly disappeared. No phone call. No nothing.

Then there was Bob the random pill popper. Some days he’d show up late and brag to the other reporters about whatever it was he popped the night before. Other days, he wouldn’t show up at all. For reasons I can’t disclose, we couldn’t fire him.

My editor kept a running list on his bulletin board of all the people we had hired who quickly decided they didn’t want a job where they actually had to work.

Some days, I would go into his office and we’d reminisce about the substandard, couldn’t-write-if-their-lives-depended-on-it, lazy-assed “reporters” we had hired over the years simply because the pool of qualified candidates was too small for a trade publication.

Some incredibly talented, professional people were in that newsroom. But the lesser talents crapped all over us—and then left to go crap on some other employer.

Then in 2001 the music stopped. iMarketing News figuratively walked off a cliff and we went through three rounds of layoffs. The time for getting crapped on by substandard employees was over.

For some employers, the chance at revenge was apparently too tempting to pass up. At least one well-known trade publisher sent a mass e-mail to employees essentially telling them: “Break time’s over. Everyone back on their heads.” For those who don’t know, that’s the punch line to an old joke about a guy who is pleasantly surprised when he goes to hell and sees everyone up to their necks in crap drinking coffee.

Today, we’re apparently in an even worse situation than that of the 2001 recession and I’m beginning to hear tales from sources at various firms of management getting abusive. “Just be glad you have a job,” is the mentality.

Nonsense.

The reason those left have jobs is because they’re the company’s best and brightest and management damn well knows it. And if they don’t know it, they damn well better figure it out.

Here’s a message to those in management who are tempted to get abusive because they can:

Cut it out. With marketing budgets always the first to get cut, by now you’ve probably been through several rounds of layoffs. In the first round, you got rid of the people you’ve been looking for an excuse to dump for years. Good riddance.

Lately, though, you’ve had to decide which of the more talented people you must let go.

Don’t abuse the ones you’ve decided to keep. You’ve already decided they’re your most indispensable. But not only are they your most indispensable employees. They’re your most indispensable asset. They are the ones who will see you through this. Not you.

And if you abuse them, as soon as things turn around, they’re gone—most likely to your competition and gunning for you with the wrath that only an abused former employee can have.

Do you really want that?