A Matter Of Attitude

I’m currently very displeased with a staff who reports to me on a project. He’s unhappy with the rating I gave him which I thought was a fair reflection of his work performance last year. So much so he demonstrated his sulking by wanting to quit and he took the easy way out by emailing everyone in the team yesterday, announcing he’s no longer in the project – without consulting the project managers or project champions. My first thought was what a quitter and what a loser he was. He did come to discuss his appraisal with me earlier and I thought he’d be open-minded but he refused to see reason and couldn’t accept my feedback and decided to take the easy way out.

Can one refuse work? If your boss or super-boss gives you work, you have to deliver it, like it or not, right? You don’t get to choose your work most of the time. What you can do is take it as a challenge, view it as opportunity to grow and learn. How could I give good rating if he didn’t perform? The quality of work was shoddy and I had to grit my teeth and redraft the work most of the time. That speaks volume about his sense of ownership and pride in his work. Don’t expect to get good rating if you could only perform the administrative part of the job: heck, anyone can do that. As it was, I had to carry the bulk of work for him and it was really draining on me. Not smart but the project wouldn’t progress otherwise.

After his email, a string of emails then flew back and forth between the two of us yesterday – I told him he couldn’t just quit like that and he should see the project through until he either leaves the department or the project is completed, whichever comes first. Anyone who is retiring or resigning (unless it’s a 24-hour resignation) would have to see through his terms and duration of employment until he retires/leaves, right. Anyway, it got nasty and towards the end bordered on insubordination: ‘I don’t want to be there if I’m not appreciated’, ‘I don’t want to be in the project anymore. I’m not interested’, ‘No one can push to do what I don’t want to do!’, etc. You won’t believe what else he wrote but he sure provided a clear insight as any to his true colours and attitude. I don’t want to work with anyone after knowing how reluctant that person is about performing but the bottom line is he can’t just quit like that. He must go through the right process and procedure and ensure a documented handover. That’s governance. The way he went about withdrawing himself from the project demonstrated a lack of respect to the other team members - especially the project champions and project managers - and selfishness and inconsideration to the other team members; total disregard of the disruption his action would have on the project; and suggested his immaturity and lack of professionalism. And if we do get a new team member, I won’t blame the new person for feeling resentful. I probably would feel the same too. And it would really set a bad precedent – everyone else would think they get to choose to do what they want or don’t want. That it’s OK to quit a project or reject an assignment. I was really seething yesterday and it affected my sleep.

My conscience is clear. I wouldn’t be honest if I rate him any higher. It’s not payback time but a fair reflection of the effort (not time) put in. With the new insight to his true behaviour, it won’t be a big loss if he leaves but it’s not the proper way of extricating himself of responsibility. I won’t rate someone higher just to have that person like me.

We don’t always agree with our bosses’ appraisal of ourselves because we don’t like to think we are lacking. We all like to think we have done our job well. But unfortunately, as Audrey put it, we must measure ourselves with our bosses’ ruler and question ourselves if we have done enough and if we have performed our tasks well enough. And yes, perhaps I didn’t coach him well enough, perhaps I lack in that area too and if so, I must find ways to correct myself. To me it’s OK to make mistakes – we are only human! – but we must learn from them and improve ourselves instead of refusing to accept our errors, weaknesses and shortcomings.

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And Arsenal did (seem to) learn from their mistakes. We were sloppy in the first half hour and trailed behind by two goals. Heck, we were trailing the leaders Chelshit by 11 points just 7.5 weeks ago. Did we give up our title race? Did we decide to resign to what looked like our fate then? No, we didn’t. As against Standard Liege, we came back from two goals down to win the match and top the table. We came back from two goals down to Blackburn and one goal at Anfield and won. We pushed hard to get an equaliser against a determined Everton side. In the FA Cup, we were lagging West Ham and yet managed to secure a win. It shows that the young squad is ready to fight back. Wenger had been labelled ludicrous and ridiculous but did he let that affect his faith in his players? And the team spirit is such that the captain who had earlier lost his passion now loves life at Arsenal. The whole team and gaffer deserve a credit for working hard although of course at times they are still capable of giving you the occasional heart attack.

As for Gallas, he escapes action as Wiley said he saw the incident as two players stretching for the ball. I don’t condone tackles like that, especially when a worse thing happened to Dudú but to be fair, Bolton didn’t stop play when one of their players went down because they had the ball then. Plus, the referee probably thought the player was slow in getting back to his feet as Bolton players are prone to doing – delaying goal kicks, throw ins, free kicks, substitution, etc.

In other not-so-good news, it looks like Gibbs will miss the rest of the season now too. And the next fifteen days/four matches will reveal our quest for the title and make or break us.

Oh and go here if you want to win a signed Arsenal shirt by the skipper himself (!). Contest ends on 19 February 2010.