Employee up for a promotion reveals disturbing secret while drunk. What do you do?

In My Humble Opinion
1

Or, another Rhymer hypothetical.

Today’s tale stars Katina. Living in Atlanta, Georgia, Katina works in the family business, a chain of six dealerships all located in the South. She is the general manager of the oldest and largest store; nd when her father retires she will take over the company.

In Katina’s shop there is a certain standout employee, Anne. Anne started as a salesperson and quickly established herself as a star; she’s since been promoted to one of the three sales managers and is the best of the lot. The nearest thing Anne has to a fault is that she doesn’t party as hard as the rest of the sales team.

In the dealership’s hierarchy, the sales managers are two levels under Katina; in between is the sales director. Knowing that her father’s retirement is imminent, Katina’s been considering how to change things once she moves up. She’s torn between promoting the current sales director, Mike, into her job and making Anne the sales director, and outright promoting Anne to the general manager’s position. Her father’s in favor of the latter but says it is Katina’s call.

One day, part of that decision is taken out of Katina’s hands. Mike dies in a car crash–killed by a drunk driver. This tragedy hits the staff hard, as Mike was a good guy beloved by all. On the Saturday night after the funeral, the sales staff goes out drinking to mourn. For once Anne goes with them. She was particularly close to Mike, and his death hit her harder than anyone else.

For the first time in the five years Katina has known her, Anne gets drunk. Katina stays sober. At the end of the evening she drives Anne home. Anne sleeps most of the way, occasionally mumbling things Katina can’t quite make out Waking her when it’s time to go into the house, Katina is startled to hear Anne say nigger. She hates all niggers, Anne says, but especially the drunk nigger who killed Mike. Worse than that she hates the Jew lawyer who’ll probably get him off. America would be better if the blacks had stayed slaves, Anne says, just as the world would be better if Hitler had succeeded. Every time she has to be near a black or a Jew, Anne says, she has to fight the urge to vomit; she’d fire every minority working in the dealership if she could get away with it.

For obvious reasons Katina is repelled by this. She’s also shocked. Anne has never given any hint of being prejudiced before – much less of being filled with bile and hatred to the degree that she’s just shown. Shaken, she helps Anne into her house, drops her on her stomach on the sofa so she won’t choke if she vomits, and leaves.

The next morning, Katina’s father asks to talk to her. Mike’s death has shaken him; he doesn’t want to spend any more time working, so he’s going to go ahead and retire. Katina going to be in charge of the entire chain now, which means that she’ll need to pick the new general manager and sales director for her shop.

Should Katina promote Anne as she was planning before the drunken ramblings? Why or why not?

2

I’d ignore it. She was intoxicated, grieving and in the moment of a very stressful situation. It doesn’t excuse it, but it mitigates it in my opinion. How she reacted when she learned of what she’d done would determine the outcome of her promotion. (and of course, how genuine her remorse was if she expressed any)

3

Same here, Morgenstern. It’s a really awful thing to say but people can be racist and work to overcome those prejudices…but when you’re drunk/emotional, sometimes that stuff comes out. And I agree with looking at her reaction to what she did.

4

What if she doesn’t acknowledge what happened? What if she affects not to remember the incident?

Those are not rhetorical questions, by the way. I hardly ever get drunk so I can’t say how likely it is from my own knowledge, but if she got really, really drunk, would you believe her if she said she didn’t recall the incident?

5

She should be promoted (or passed over) strictly based on her job performance. Her drunken ramblings, no matter how repulsive, should not enter into the equation.

6

I’d just let it go, if she didn’t remember it. I don’t like hearing that stuff, and I’d probably want a long hot shower after hearing such ugliness. But I don’t like the idea of judging someone by what they do outside of work, and if they’ve never exhibited prejudice during the course of their work so far, then they probably are able to do their job well. If I notice any differences in the way she treats black customers, then I would address it, but if that’s never been an issue till now, it probably won’t be.

7

An employee who gets drunk at what for all intents and purposes is a company event and makes a bunch of wildly racists statements? Oh that sounds highly promotable.

Sorry, but I’m less inclined to let it slide. I want people in leadership positions who show actual leadership. Not someone who is going to act like a drunken sorority girl. If she’s a good salesperson let her stick to sales.

8

Skald, your question is multifaceted.
Has Anne ever expressed anything, or behaved in such a way (other than this incident) that would make me believe she wouldn’t give each employee a fair and equal chance? If she had, that would definitely be a factor against her being promoted.

If she had not, I would sit down with her and explain what the best interest of my business involved having a staff that worked well together, respected the rights of others, and accepted/respected the diversity of my workforce . I’d ask her point blank if she could accept this philosophy and if she’d help enforce it with respect to those under her.

Even in baseball, you’re not out after one strike.

9

If I was advising Katina directly, I’d say it like this:

These ugly thoughts came out during extreme stress and inebriation, granted. But they were there Long before. And new high level jobs are very stressful (especially in retail). And sometimes company personnel and or clients will/do go out for a drink.

Sometime in the future, this crap will come out of her again, either to a difficult customer, or to a client/supplier, or one of her colleagues. When it does, wouldn’t you want her to just be a salesperson who doesn’t represent your corporate culture? One you could just suspend or possibly give two weeks notice to and save the company reputation that your grandfather built?

Or would you want her to be a high level (officer level?) manager, where her opinions will seem to have the tacit consent and support of the entire company’s corporate culture?
Personally, I can’t think of a retail enterprise that could withstand boycotts and/or possible 7-day-a-week Nancy Grace style RO reporting. And if called for deposition on any potential lawsuit, a reasonable question to you might be “Has Anne ever made racist remarks in your presence?”

Sure that’s a worst case scenario, but as the responsible head of a large company, can you afford to gamble with the lives and livelihoods of all your employees and/or stock holders because of it?

10

Continuing my tradition of arguing both sides of every argument…

Part of anybody’s job performance is getting along with the boss, and also the boss’s boss. What if Katina is so skeeved out by the racist ramblings that she can’t look at Anne without remembering them?

This was not a company event. It wasn’t held on company property; its explicit purpose was to mourn by drinking. It’s unreasonable for Katina to criticize Anne for drinking. I see nothing in the OP that implies that the dealership paid for the booze, and certainly I didn’t conceive such when I wrote it. I’ve worked in jobs where we went out drinking after work, and nobody thought of it as a company event. In my experience, when it IS a genuine company event, the company doesn’t encourage drinking.

Except that Anne will no longer be under Katina’s direct supervision. No matter what happens, Katina is not going to be at that particular shop nearly as much as in the past. And Anne is going to have a lot more leeway in the way she treats customers – and employees – in either the sales director or general manager’s job.

(Admittedly the GM job is not going to involve extensive customer contact. When I was in car sales, I don’t recall ever seeing my GM talk to a customer he didn’t already know.)

Nitpick: it’s a family-owned business. I imagine the stockholders being Katina and her father.

11

Katina has to be aware of Anne’s potential liability to her company should she actually act on any of the statements made while intoxicated. “I’d fire all minorities if I could”? Well, if she is promoted into a position where she is able to make those kinds of decisions, she very well may attempt to do that, or at least make her prejudices relevant in her managerial decisions. Anyone who has worked in management long enough knows there are ways to get people terminated if you really want them gone. Anne is a liability to Katina’s company, whether it be through biased and bigoted personnel decisions or simply by opening her up to a lawsuit. Katina may not be the only individual who is aware of Anne’s feelings, and this may one day come out in court.

If she has any reason to feel that Anne may potentially harm her sales force or the future profitability or liability of her company, it is completely her decision to make. Nobody said that the person who is promoted into the role has to be promoted based on strict numbers, promotions take other things into consideration all the time in determining who is the best and most well-rounded candidate for potential profitability and has the ability to make sound management decisions.

12

As long as she keeps her views to herself and acts like a professional, I see no reason to fire her.

13

How will Anne’s biases affect the business (future hiring/ firing/ discipline)? Does Katrina believe she can trust Anne to be fair and professional under pressure? Katrina should think of the business first, that includes employees and customers past and future.

14

My first impulse would be to fire her ass before she even sobered up. My second impulse would be to check with the corporate attorney, and get rid of her as quickly as possible without exposing my company to legal liability. I could never trust that Anne’s business decisions were not tainted by these views.

I don’t think alcohol makes one a different person. I think alcohol makes one less able to cover up the person one is. Anne has just had a massive cover-self failure, but I’m going to thank Og that she had it before I promoted her, and get her off my payroll. And no, I’m not talking about thought-police here. Anne has the legal right to her opinion, just as anyone else does. That doesn’t give her a legal right to work at my company or have me as a friend or even acquaintance.

The reason I would give her would reflect my attorney’s counsel, but if not constrained legally, I’d tell her the truth, and explain that not only would retaining her risk the possibility of legal liability in the future (per Count Blucher’s post), but that I personally found her views distasteful (to put it mildly). I would give other people the usual “she went to pursue other opportunities” or, better yet, the absolutely true “differing philosophies of business” line.

15

Anne shouldn’t be in a role where she makes personnel decisions, or one where she represents the company to vendors or regulators. I would never trust her take some corporate reps out to dinner or an evening’s entertainment, for instance.

So no, I wouldn’t give her that job.

And I’'d start looking for evidence that she was acting on her prejudices at work. Has she been screwing minority customers? If she’s a sales manager, she probably has some supervisory responsibilities – has she been down-rating minority sales staff, or giving them unfavorable work schedules?

You can’t un-ring a bell.

I would also sit down and discuss this with her, and see how she reacts. I’m not sure what I would do based on her reaction, though.

16

I forgot to mention in my earlier post that I don’t believe she should be terminated, but I don’t believe she should be promoted to either higher managerial position based on her actions and statements.

17

What actions?

18

In vino veritas.

Anne is only hiding who she is, and it will come out, even if only in little ways, when sober. Giving her more power/responsibility is a liability.

19

This could be a repeat because I didn’t read all the posts, however…

This woman, I’m sure, doesn’t remember saying what she said because the alcohol at some point shuts off the memory process in the brain. This is a known fact. It sounds like she was way past that point. However, a drunk person’s words are a sober person’s thoughts. I would give very careful thought to promoting someone who is so horrendously prejudiced. Not good for business and actually not good for anything. Prejudice is ALWAYS counterproductive. Unless she admitted her prejudice while she was sober, it would be a difficult thing to prove. That’s the downside of the whole matter.

20

Getting uncontrollably drunk with coworkers (regardless of the situation) to the point where you reveal deeply held bigotry in the company of your superior does not indicate a finely tuned sense of good judgment to me, even if it was the first time. Doubly so that she says her intentions of firing all minorities if she could. Just because she hates minorities isn’t that shocking, the fact that she would take steps to terminate them from her employment if she were able to do so indicates that she is willing to act on her prejudices.