Sad Panda… :cry:
They make for excellent dates though (if you’re into that fury thing).
Moral question…
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Great comments from all of you. Â Thank you. :)
The worker in question’s level of competence was poor, but in -construction- that can often be construed as -acceptable-.
I wasn’t the only person who spoke to him - he just didn’t seem to care!
Written notice at that level just isn’t done in our line of work, because local labour laws leave a gaping loophole in our industry. Â Anyone paid by the hour can be layed off at anytime, for “shortage of work”. IE If you’re incompetent, or I don’t believe I have anything for you to do, you can be released with 15 minutes notice; conversly labourers are paid considerably well.
The concept of sending the individual home for this indescrition is great! I wish I had seen this issue with those glasses on. Â It’s common to send people home if they don’t bring the right tools, or safety equipment like boots etc to the job, because they’re not prepared to work.
The odour was just so intense… my mind and judgement were clouded! :p  Similar to the concept of trying to make decisions, and carry on conversation whilst enduring extreme pain/naseua.
Back to the written thing… can you imagine delivering someone a piece of paper on company letterhead that says they stink? LOL. Â Frimmel if you’re prepared to do just that, want a job? ;)
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Harassment.
Its actually better that you fired him rather than keep him on and everyone start teasing him about his odour because then that would be harassment. The fact that you used warnings of escalating intensity is important. However, you have to have documentation of the dates and times and nature of the warnings that preceded the public “you f’ing stink incident”, which could be construed as harassment.Yes he was harassed regularily… but it took time, like with me, to scale up.
There are two other trades on-site that actually documented this condition in their tool box safety minutes, to which I was required to respond via email that the issue was being dealt with. The second verbal warning is also noted in my daily safety inspection report. In retrospect I probably could have just printed those and handed them to the worker in question. But isn’t that a bit cruel? lol… I believe I did make it clear his employment was on the line, but from my notes it’s a bit ambiguous. “There have been several hygenic complaints about -Soandso-, he MUST improve his personal hygiene, and I spoke to him about it today.”
Cruel or not, I suppose forwarded paperwork is the better part of valor for next time (I’m hoping there won’t be one).
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When I’ve had to fire people it was a 3 step ‘official’ process. Dropping hints initially is important as it does not have to be documented. Once those steps fail then….
Step one. Verbal warning. This is of course documented prior to it being given and a note on how that went, dated and signed by yours truly. There should be the problem “You stink”, consequences as you can imagine them, and solution. Bathe.
Step two. Written warning, pretty much the same thing but this time the employee signs off, if they refuse which has happened to me, you document this too.
Step three. Preparation of termination pay and an escort off premises.
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Well written notice might have better sent the message that it was going to cost him his employment and this wasn’t a game. It is also department of CYA (cover your a**.) But if that sort of thing is not done well…
I’d think written would be far more preferable than any sort of private conversation in an enclosed space. :-)
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long sniff
Ahhhh…. Fresh Air. :)
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This topic has motivated me to keep discussing with my boys (age 9, 7 and 3) about cleaning themselves. My oldest is starting to smell and only wants to get wet in the shower.
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For those of you looking for an LOL this morning, I thought I’d resurrect this thread! :P
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Ha Ha! Hadn’t seen it
The only thing I would have done differently is fire him the second time. Never try and be nice to people when they’re just going to try and screw you over anyway. They’ll take it as a weakness and see how much they can get. Douchebags like that are a dime a dozen in the construction world.
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@ABWorsham:
This topic has motivated me to keep discussing with my boys (age 9, 7 and 3) about cleaning themselves. My oldest is starting to smell and only wants to get wet in the shower.
tell him he will get exponentially more positive lady attention and really good CLEAN and dirty action if he washes frequently.
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But to answer your question GARG, it is always good to let someone go, for any valid reason, a lesson a mentor taught me long ago. Everyone stands straighter afterwards or perhaps they use soap the next time they shower!
And it sounds like the general morale will improve once the “frenchie” is gone.
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AS i said before… if they smell send them home and require them to be odor free to work.
Then soon the problem fixes itself. Now since losing his job, he will never take a shower!
You just made the problem last longer.
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I recently got reviewed for my 2012 performance.
No raise :( .The performance review form allocated an area of team building that was worth 10% of my rating.
There was another 10% for considering how “savvy” I was in the comany culture and leveraging the brand.
I get to work from home alot, but I did shower before the in office days.Some corporations are even more ruthless; GE, during the Jack Welch heydey of the 90’s , would annually promte the 10% and also terminate the bottom 10% every year. Folks would shower often for those jobs.
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Wow, a thread twice resurrected… But because I didn’t get to comment the first time:
As a guy who literally got the stink talk directly from the one and only “Gargantua” on that same work-site: I can say this guy had fair warning and would still have a job today if he knew his armpit from a hole in the ground. Gargantua cares too much about getting the gad-damn job done to let a competent worker go without good cause and ample warning. Though I did like the “Clock out, and don’t come back until you have a shower and buy a speed-stick” idea. :-)
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Maybe I’m getting dimensia… but for whatever reason this morning, I’ve totally forgotten who this person was LOL! (name).
I mean, I do let people go every other month or two, but you would think it would stick with me!
Time to phone head office and find out… LOL… good thing I posted it on the forum so I have the date!
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- A week of -no change- and I said it out-loud to him in front of a group of people…
- Another week of -no change- and I simply dropped the bomb, you F’n STINK, and it still didn’t seem to register…
This is unconscionable behavior for anyone on a managerial or supervisory role. Public humiliation of an employee (regardless of the causal factors) is deplorable behavior. While it may have made you popular with the other employees in the short term and may have solved the immediate problem, you have probably done more long term damage to your credibility as a leader than anything else. And if you don’t get sued for discriminatory practices you should count yourself very lucky.
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- A week of -no change- and I said it out-loud to him in front of a group of people…
- Another week of -no change- and I simply dropped the bomb, you F’n STINK, and it still didn’t seem to register…
This is unconscionable behavior for anyone on a managerial or supervisory role.�  Public humiliation of an employee (regardless of the causal factors) is deplorable behavior.�  While it may have made you popular with the other employees in the short term and may have solved the immediate problem, you have probably done more long term damage to your credibility as a leader than anything else.�  And if you don’t get sued for discriminatory practices you should count yourself very lucky.�  � Â
If you stunk, I’d tell everybody too.
This personal was putting ALL of us at risk with poor hygiene.
It’s not discriminatory, when it’s an easily correctable behavioural issue, and it’s an important health matter.
I also would complain about people who don’t wash their hands after using the washroom. Especially if they were working in a KITCHEN.
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Garg, you have to admit construction types are a bit more accustomed to shall we say….blunt talk. I just came from a site with 4 guys working on a job for me, those MEN would not have a problem with being told they stunk if they stunk. Or were drunk when they were drunk or being a dick when they were being a dick, they call me out when it needs to be done. Maybe construction types are different elsewhere.
Now if the guy was in a ballet troupe or a lawyer…
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Well it’s obvious Heppsititus stinks up a government building.
However, I hope he realizes that the next step in this process, is that if the person doesn’t groom themselves that they’ll “get groomed”. In short order.
Perhaps I should argue that I saved this person and my company -that- fate.
There is no excuse for being regularily disgusting, and a “danger” to yourself and others.
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Garg, you have to admit construction types are a bit more accustomed to shall we say….blunt talk. Â I just came from a site with 4 guys working on a job for me, those MEN would not have a problem with being told they stunk if they stunk. Â Or were drunk when they were drunk or being a dick when they were being a dick, they call me out when it needs to be done. Â Maybe construction types are different elsewhere.
Now if the guy was in a ballet troupe or a lawyer…
I will agree that construction types are a bit of a holdout ;) Thank god…
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There is a vast difference between having justifiable grounds for dismissal and public belittlement of an employee.
I’m not saying that you didn’t in all probability have adequate grounds to terminate the employee. But on the flip side of the coin you didn’t mention in your initial post whether or not you discussed with the individual whether he had any medical or religious conditions/restrictions that may have been contributing to is apparent lack of hygiene. God forbid he does, because if he does and he is smarter than he is clean… you’ll rue the day you ever opened your mouth in front of your staff.
What I’m saying is that there is absolutely no justification under any circumstances to publicly belittle any employee in the workplace. Firstly it can have legal implications. Harassment can be used to define a broad range of behaviors in the workplace. And generally speaking the courts tend to favour plaintiffs in situations where managerial personnel are seen to exhibit discriminatory or abussive behavior. But more importantly is that as an employee I would be asking myself when will it be my turn for public humiliation. Furthermore what is stopping me as an employee from telling Jimmy that his Curry sticks up the lunch room, or that I hate Franks pink shirts, or to tell you you’re a shitty boss in front of everyone else for that matter. Because a pattern of saying whatever you want in front of whoever is around will foster that attitude in all your employees.
You have every right in your personal life to tell it like it is. I’m sure to you, your farts smell like roses and your breath is like rainbows to everyone around you. And if you want to walk around pointing out others short comings then that’s your prerogative. However the workplace is no place for it. If you need to address a situation in the workplace you do it in private.
All that being said I will acknowledge that tradesmen and construction sites can be less than professional workplaces.
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