Hypocrisy and Situational Ethics...

Every few years or so, we have a certain amount of turmoil relating to personnel matters.

We recently lost a long term employee, who left our employ without giving two weeks
notice, even though we provide insurance for him and he has worked here for over
5 and one half years.

Maybe I should have seen this coming, since his best friend also filed a phony work comp claim
that will cost the rest of the hard working employees, several extra thousand dollars in premium
for no good reason.

We tend to look beyond character issues in employment, as we strive to provide our customers
with excellent service and exceed their expectations each and every time we get an opportunity to do so. When we feel that people are doing a good job, we look the other way to be cool and accommodating, like when employees get drunk and arrested for assault against their friends. Like the employee who left without notice did. Or maybe, we should look the other way when he got his driver's license suspended for street racing, twice.

We thought he was a good employee, but he was not, and while he did do some good work, now and then, I read in the paper today that a professional baseball team, let a pitcher go who is under contract to earn 12 million to play 90 more days this year--they just let him go with pay.
This pitcher pitched a no hitter this year. Imagine that. His control or lack of control is what led
to his firing.

Imagine the parallel, here. A guy who we allowed to miss for mistakes made in his youth and who knows how many years it will be before, if at all, this kid grows up. Thankfully, he is someone else's problem now and the funny thing, is that the firm that hired him away is probably thinking they got me or better yet, got one of my better people.

Kids we can always get. Immature people without integrity, I have already had enough of these
and do not want anymore, thank you. What does bother me is that this kid, who we stuck with through thick and thin, good and bad, did not care to even tell us. Like we did something bad to deserve to get treated this way. When we called his mother to see if he was alright, and to hear lies, really rubs you the wrong way, since we were sincere.

I am not upset, and this is a classic case of taking your lemons and making lemonade by getting better. That is the challenge, to get better, and if we are guilty of anything it is just that we allowed for mediocrity. Besides, I have often heard that what comes around, goes around,
and maybe it does and maybe it doesn't, as challenges are good and that is what makes things
better for the rest of us, in the long run.

I can't to get even better staff, ones with heart and with true commitment to the customer, so we can move forward to an even higher level.