THAT’S IRRELEVANT

Steven Cesare, Ph.D.

An extremely detail-oriented business owner from Wisconsin called me the other day to express his frustration with his long-time Maintenance Manager. For many years, the Maintenance Manager was a solid performer, an insightful thought partner to the owner, and a symbol of the company culture. Said qualities underscored the company’s steady financial growth, increased efficiency, and stable employee retention, all of which positioned the company as the employer of choice in the local labor market.

Just when life is too good, when things are a little predictable and comfortable, something always changes.

You guessed it. In this case, it was the Maintenance Manager.

Whether it was the Maintenance Manager’s personal life, social relationships, or other extenuating circumstances, his heretofore effective job performance began to slide, suffer, and then fail. When asked for specifics, true to form, the business owner replied with confident exactitude. Over the past several months, inexplicably, the Maintenance Manager failed to do follow-up on Maintenance contract renewals, stopped contacting his customers, failed to complete required job report documentation, demonstrated an uncharacteristic lack of attention to detail in all of his administrative functions, violated a client’s “yellow tape” (i.e., do not touch these plants) policy, and consistently miscalculated labor estimates that routinely led to the damaging effects of overtime costs on numerous job sites across his entire work portfolio.

Concurrent with those performance failures, the astute business owner noticed a parallel change in the Manager’s behavior. Contrary to historical nature, the Manager became forgetful, expressed emotional outbursts due to his now short-tempered attitude, frequently yelled at clients and crew members, routinely left his post during his work shift, and showed weight loss. The sage Wisconsin owner finally reached his limit, and called me to discuss the option of a reasonable suspicion drug test, if not immediate termination.

As a capitalist, supported by the Wisconsin business owner’s fastidious and fulsome documentation, I suggested that he simply terminate the Maintenance Manager. That said, given the business owner’s preference for surplus information, I then suggested that he inform the Maintenance Manager that based on the points presented previously, he would be required to take a drug test; all the while knowing that, per the company’s employee handbook, if the Maintenance Manager refused to take the urinalysis test, he would necessarily resign his position. The business owner agreed with the plan.

Then, the business owner informed me that he was recently made aware of the fact that the Maintenance Manager was convicted of sex crimes with an under-age boy approximately 20 years ago.

I told him: “That’s irrelevant.”

He then told me several employees noticed drug paraphernalia in the Maintenance Manager’s apartment.

Again: “That’s irrelevant.”

He then said a former coworker as well as the Maintenance Manager‘s previous boyfriend had both recently told him that the Maintenance Manager was a current methamphetamine drug user.

“That’s irrelevant.”

The business owner then stated that Maintenance Manager had conveyed to him that he was experiencing ongoing difficulties getting payday loans to make payments to various debt collectors.

Say it. “That’s irrelevant.”

Ultimately, when presented with the extensive performance documentation and the drug test requirement, the Maintenance Manager refused to take the drug test, and in fact resigned his position.

That’s relevant.

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