Stop Pissing Me Off What to Do When the People You Work with Drive You Crazy by Lynne Eisaguirre
Authors: Lynne Eisaguirre
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treated differently than were the men in the department, who were allowed to work flexible hours and were held to different (lower) standards of productivity.
The main example of the different treatment was an attorney I’ll call Bob. When I dug under the surface, it turned out that while working at the office late at night, Bob terrified one of the women (“Mary”) by having a complete breakdown:
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stop Pissing Me Off!
throwing things, screaming, talking about suicide. She was understandably terrified. She left the office and complained to the company’s general counsel the next day.
Mary knew that Bob had been given time off to recuperate, a decision with which she agreed; clearly he needed a time-out!
Yet when he returned to work, he was also allowed a flexible schedule and permitted to work at home even though Mary, who had a new baby, had been denied such perks. Also, she and other women attorneys believed that Bob was not held to the same high performance standards that they were. To top it off, they all chorused in when I interviewed them, he was a lousy attorney.
Discrimination, they claimed.
My investigation revealed that they were being treated differently, but not because of sex. Bob had been diagnosed as bipolar and his doctor had suggested the reduced and work-athome schedule. Medical matters and accommodations for mental disabilities such as this must be kept confidential by the employer, so no one could tell the women why Bob was being allowed the flexible schedule. I found no discrimination in this case, even though I did recommend to the general counsel that even with accommodation for disabilities, he needed to make sure Bob was meeting performance standards. The women, of course, were disappointed in my finding, and I regretted that I could not reveal the underlying issue. Unfortunately, examples such as this are incredibly common.
Another situation I mediated involved a large trade association. The head meeting planner was labeled as “difficult”
by many of her coworkers. She’d worked for an authoritarian, structured government agency before being hired by the trade association, which had a relaxed style. Clashes were common.
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05. Are They Doing It Just to Piss You Off?
Her personality style didn’t help: She tended to have poor people skills, failed to develop rapport with her coworkers, and snapped at them when she was under stress. In fact, she yelled so loudly that one woman filed a claim under the organization’s policy about threats and violence. When I investigated, I found that the meeting planner was being treated for hepatitis C with a new experimental drug. I happened to know from another client investigation that such drugs cause mood swings and temper tantrums, even though they are lifesaving.
Theoretically, I should not have advised my client about this potential issue, but I knew the drug was impacting the meeting planner’s mood and performance. Yet even if they knew why she acted the way she did, they could not discipline or fire her because of the disability issue.
Last but not least, I was brought in to resolve a discrimination complaint among a group of utility construction workers. When I interviewed these large, tough men, they had no interest in talking about the claim. What they wanted to discuss was “Scotty,” a coworker they’d toiled with for years who had undergone a dramatic personality change in the past few months. They were afraid he would “go postal,” but none of their supervisors would listen to them.
Scotty’s wife had left him, and his oldest son was in jail on drunk-driving charges. Not only that; he revealed, when I talked with him, that his much-beloved dog had just died. Talk about a plot for a bad country song!
It turned out that the executive vice president would not listen to me either when I counseled him that he should have a medical evaluation done for Scotty. I had to pull
The main example of the different treatment was an attorney I’ll call Bob. When I dug under the surface, it turned out that while working at the office late at night, Bob terrified one of the women (“Mary”) by having a complete breakdown:
| 71 |
stop Pissing Me Off!
throwing things, screaming, talking about suicide. She was understandably terrified. She left the office and complained to the company’s general counsel the next day.
Mary knew that Bob had been given time off to recuperate, a decision with which she agreed; clearly he needed a time-out!
Yet when he returned to work, he was also allowed a flexible schedule and permitted to work at home even though Mary, who had a new baby, had been denied such perks. Also, she and other women attorneys believed that Bob was not held to the same high performance standards that they were. To top it off, they all chorused in when I interviewed them, he was a lousy attorney.
Discrimination, they claimed.
My investigation revealed that they were being treated differently, but not because of sex. Bob had been diagnosed as bipolar and his doctor had suggested the reduced and work-athome schedule. Medical matters and accommodations for mental disabilities such as this must be kept confidential by the employer, so no one could tell the women why Bob was being allowed the flexible schedule. I found no discrimination in this case, even though I did recommend to the general counsel that even with accommodation for disabilities, he needed to make sure Bob was meeting performance standards. The women, of course, were disappointed in my finding, and I regretted that I could not reveal the underlying issue. Unfortunately, examples such as this are incredibly common.
Another situation I mediated involved a large trade association. The head meeting planner was labeled as “difficult”
by many of her coworkers. She’d worked for an authoritarian, structured government agency before being hired by the trade association, which had a relaxed style. Clashes were common.
| 72 |
05. Are They Doing It Just to Piss You Off?
Her personality style didn’t help: She tended to have poor people skills, failed to develop rapport with her coworkers, and snapped at them when she was under stress. In fact, she yelled so loudly that one woman filed a claim under the organization’s policy about threats and violence. When I investigated, I found that the meeting planner was being treated for hepatitis C with a new experimental drug. I happened to know from another client investigation that such drugs cause mood swings and temper tantrums, even though they are lifesaving.
Theoretically, I should not have advised my client about this potential issue, but I knew the drug was impacting the meeting planner’s mood and performance. Yet even if they knew why she acted the way she did, they could not discipline or fire her because of the disability issue.
Last but not least, I was brought in to resolve a discrimination complaint among a group of utility construction workers. When I interviewed these large, tough men, they had no interest in talking about the claim. What they wanted to discuss was “Scotty,” a coworker they’d toiled with for years who had undergone a dramatic personality change in the past few months. They were afraid he would “go postal,” but none of their supervisors would listen to them.
Scotty’s wife had left him, and his oldest son was in jail on drunk-driving charges. Not only that; he revealed, when I talked with him, that his much-beloved dog had just died. Talk about a plot for a bad country song!
It turned out that the executive vice president would not listen to me either when I counseled him that he should have a medical evaluation done for Scotty. I had to pull
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