Bad Apple Employee? 3 Steps To Take

Anger is a useful emotion. I believe anger is not, by nature, always wrong or an emotion that should be suppressed.

Anger is a road map alerting us to danger during the journey. What's my particular danger as a business owner? Employees who do not do what they say they will do.

What is the biggest way my employees screw up? BY BEING LATE. Everything I do is time sensitive. I have contractual agreements with my clients, which are signed, sealed, and predetermined.

I have customers who expect service. If I have customers who expect service, and employees who can't, won't, and don't deliver- I've got a problem. I become very, very angry about that. Anger alerts me- hey chick? You've got a problem.

Here's what I'd like to do- but don't do.

Me: Listen you stupid ass idiot. I ain't playin' that game. I don't know who you think I am, but you've got me effing bent if you think you're going to tell me one thing- and then blow me off!
Employee: Uh... (Standing there with their mouth open because up till now they've mistakenly thought I was just soooo nice.)

Let me save you, entrepreneur/business owner- time. Here are the three steps:

(1) Get rid of them.
(2) Get rid of them.
(3) Get rid of them.

But to flesh this concept out of axing the bad seeds a bit more: why should you just get rid of them?

Because it's not your job, you who signs their paycheck, to be their therapist. You are their employer.

I am an adult and I demand to work with adults. I won't run a babysitting service.

A bad apple employee will insist you babysit them. "Now B.A.E., (Bad Apple Employee), I know you told me you'd meet me here at 3:00 p.m. today, but I'm just calling you to make sure you are still going to do that."

Want to know what B.A.E. did? He's supposed to be here at three. Guess when I heard from him? Five and a half hours later! This guy is not nineteen. This guy is thirty six years old! I thought I was hiring a certain level of maturity. I am learning that there are more responsible twelve year olds out there- and that age is not always a determiner of character.

As my company grows as prolifically as it has been and will be- some bad apples are going to get past me. It's a fact. I expect it. I am not God. I am not Omnipotent. I can't always tell, emphatically, about some one's core character.

But really, I don't have to have it all figured out. A bad apple will start stinking up the joint and dropping so many rotting seeds everywhere- they'll fire their own selves. I won't have to.