I can’t figure out why you keep ignoring the threat to Katina’s business. Why is Katina ethically obligated to keep on someone who is a threat to the very existence of her business? Is that “just” to her other employees? What is “unjust” about saying “You are dangerous to me, my business, and all of the employees I value”? What is “unjust” about saying, “You are a racist. I do not trust you. I do not like you. I choose to surround myself with people whom I trust and respect and you do not qualify”?
I’d not say I was ignoring the danger to the business. I’d put Anne on notice that her drunken actions had torpedoed her chance of a promotion and put her job in serious danger; she’s basically on her last strike. But I don’t believe that a person’s actions while drunk are necessarily representative of the person’s “true” self (whatever that means), far less being a good predictor for how that person will act while sober.
I’d want Anne gone. I just don’t think it’s right to fire her just yet.
And then, with her last strike, Anne does something illegal and suddenly Katina has to admit that she knew Anne’s intentions and didn’t do anything but yell at her. What then?
You needn’t try to convince me that your course is the safer one.
I should add that it’s incumbent upon Katina to look over Anne’s history and speak with the other employees and see if there’s any evidence of racist ACTIONS on her part.
So, if Anne makes a habit of “drunken” racist ramblings to other employees, is that ACTION?
If Anne makes a habit of “sober” racist ramblings to other employees, is that ACTION?
If Ann makes a habit of racist ramblings to customers, is that ACTION?
Where does speech become action?
If she has told her coworkers that if she gets a promotion she’s planning on firing all the minorities, is that ACTION?
No one gives a shit about Anne’s thoughts. If Anne had kept her disgusting little mind to herself then got promoted and one day did something nasty and illegal, the company could be flabbergasted and just fire her and claim they had no knowledge of it.
But Katina knows (and chances are others do, too. That’s the nature of racism). You’re saying Katina should acknowledge that she knows, that she should slap Anne on the wrist for threats to do illegal things, and then that’s just peachy keen.
What if Anne had said, “If I get the opportunity, I’m going to kill a Jew” or “If I get the opportunity, I’m going to swindle a black person” or “If I get the opportunity, I’m going to embezzle a million bucks”? If these differ, tell me in what way.
It’s explicit in the OP that none of those are the case. Anne does not party with the other employees, who party quite a bit; and since Katina has known and worked with her for some time and is surprised and repulsed by her racist remarks, it’s clear that Katina hasn’t heard 'em before.
Anyway, lunch is just about over, so I’ll have to respond to the rest of this later.
If speech, as you claim, isn’t action, then why did you build the hypothetical in such a way that it was only one incident of speech? Does speech become action if it’s repeated speech? Does speech become action if it’s sober speech? Does speech become action if it’s public speech? You apparently think there’s a point where it changes or you wouldn’t have been so specific about it being just the once, while drunk, with no witnesses.
So, when does it change?
See, this is not a “you people” kind of rant. I accept that most folks harbor some racism and alcohol might unearth it. But this is some pretty deep seated, fucked up stuff. I couldn’t have someone that felt this way, no matter how well he/she camouflaged it, working for me. What if she encounters an obstinate Black or Jewish customer? The damage from one of these rants is the sort of thing that can ruin your business.
She’s a ticking time bomb. The risk of her sharing her enlightened views at work, at a bar, or to a fellow employee that she might think is a confederate (heh, heh) is too great. I would explain why she was fired (lapse of judgment when inebriated) and let every employee know that lapses of judgment this great would be met with similar consequences.
At the same time, I would tell Anne that I hoped that she could find a way to rid herself of such hate, and if she found a way to do so, I’d want to talk to her about working for me in the future. But she has a long way to go.
Nonsense. Companies have formal and informal happy hours nd other events where alchohol is served all the time. Unfortunately, many employees (especially young ones) don’t seem to realize that they aren’t in a college dorm or frat house anymore and that this is not the time to get shitfaced on expense account booze. If you can’t have a couple of drinks without passing out after going off on a racial tirade like Mel Gibson, maybe you shouldn’t work at a company for adults.
Or stick with water or soda during the “free booze” because you know you become a terrible flirt (uncomfortable racist, blathering idiot, someone who tells TMI stories) when you drink.
Its ok to drink. Its ok to drink around your coworkers. It is NOT ok to loose control under the influence around your coworkers regardless of the motivation. If you know you are prone to that, don’t drink. If you aren’t sure, a work event isn’t the place to discover that when you are shitfaced you start telling people what you REALLY think of them. Its really not hard.
You have an employee that you were looking to promote two positions essentially to run the company. Obviously this is a good employee. If you fire her, you lose the benefits that this person has demonstrated on numerous occasions. That is the downside.
This attitude of passing along the problem interests me. What will you say when that next company calls to ask about the type of employee she was?
Are you going to explain the drunken ramblings resulting from the death of a valued co-worker? What are the legal consequences of doing that?
Or are you going to tell them she was an exceptional employee because, in fact, she was? Then why did you fire her?
You could say you don’t have a policy of giving recommendations, but is that truly fair to this previously valuable person who has not demonstrated any of the things they rambled on about?
This idea of just dumping people because of what they said one time under exceptional circumstances is somewhat disturbing. Almost as much as what was said, in fact.
She wasn’t an exceptional employee, she was a shitty employee and a huge liability.
She wasn’t as qualified as she seemed. Happens all the time. You thought you had a good employee then they demonstrate poor judgment and they get booted. It’s like showing up to work stoned, or calling the boss an asshole, or sending the bitchy email to the whole office instead of the one person you meant to send it to.
People do not have an obligation to keep you employed once you demonstrate you are suspect in the judgment or ethics department.
I think I know the perfect solution. Go ahead and promote her, but to the sales director position.
Recruit the general manager from outside the company, and make sure it’s a black guy.
Watch hilarity ensue.
Of course she was. There was nothing anyone could have pointed to at work that demonstrated otherwise. She might well have been a vile human being, but that is another matter entirely and up until this point hadn’t been evident in any way at all.
Yesterday she was a good employee, today she is a vile person. Does being a vile person make a bad employee when it isn’t in any way evident in her work, but only when she drinks to the point of passing out after a loved colleague dies?
And when she goes to that other company and never has a drink again avoiding showing her ‘true’ colors, would she be a bad employee for them, too?
I picked the first option. To those saying that there’s a risk in promoting her, well, that’s true, but then, there’s a risk in promoting anyone. Someone’s going to end up in that general manager position, and whoever it is might end up saying something hateful when drunk. Maybe Katina just hasn’t seen that person drunk enough or emotional enough yet. But what we do know is that Anne is an excellent salesperson, and is able to keep her personal prejudices under control in all but the most extreme circumstances, and the hypothetical seems to make it pretty clear that there’s no one else who has near the job performance that Anne does. Given a choice between someone who does an excellent job but who has an ugly secret she keeps tightly under control, and someone who does a merely OK job and who still might have an ugly secret anyway, I choose the former.
So I see the problem this way:
You can’t just assume that the drunken words represented Anne’s true feelings. She could be repeating things she’d heard recently, or from long ago. Her true feelings may be hatred for the guy who killed Mike, and lacking words to express that, she is parroting other peoples words.
Another problem might be that Anne has these feelings inside of her at some emotional level due to her upbringing, and even though she rationally does not believe those things, or want to believe those things, she can’t remove them from the depths of her psyche. She may even have avoided drinking to keep these feelings from surfacing. Remember that this is not just a drunken rant, she may have been seriously shaken by Mike’s death. Maybe they were hooking up on the down low and couldn’t let that be known.
The missing choice in the poll was Katina talking to Anne before making her decision. We would presume that Katina knows Anne fairly well by now, given that she was being considered for the GM position. Katina could have evaluated the discussion before making a decision. She could have made counseling and sobriety a requirement for the job.
Finally, the factor of Anne’s job performance had to be considered as part of any decision. Katina has a responsibility to herself, her family, the employees, and others invested in the business to make the best decision without regard to her own feelings. I say that with equivocation, because it is a family business, and the personal fit of employees within the organization is a big factor as well. But Anne had never given any indication that whatever caused her to speak those words would surface in the course of her job.
So if I were in Katina’s shoes, my feet would probably hurt. But if I had to make the decision, I’d talk to Anne, evaluate her responses, and if they did not disqualify her outright, possibly discuss the matter withing the family, and barring no other serious objections, set up some ground rules, and promote her.
I also find it odd that in a chain of six car dealerships, with sales staff, mechanics, and encountering many and varied customers, that the type of remarks Anne made would have been all that shocking and unusual. Not necessarily prevalent, but existent. If Anne had to fire every employee, or boot every uncouth customer, she would have a hard time maintaining the business. If Anne could conform to the expected standard of behavior for other employees, she shouldn’t be treated any differently than the rest.
This. I have a friend whose brother recently died. Unfortunately, this friend posted a number of Facebook updates expressing extremely hurtful things about his brother and his family- really, really bad stuff. It kills me that these things were able to be broadcast so widely and so permanently- I have no doubts he was just saying the worst things he could think of to try to deal with the pain, and he should never be judged for these things.
For all we know, Anne’s father was killed in a similar manner by a black driver when she was young. Or whatever. There could be some kind of unprocessed pain that is coming out in strange ways.
Grief, guilt, and other emotions can have a far more radical effect on people than alcohol. When people recognize someone as being in physical pain, they readily forgive any lashing out, recognizing it as a coping mechanism. It’s not as well recognized in people experiencing that same level of emotional pain.
Modern communications are making the problem worse, as you’ve noticed. The case in the OP was just about a situation between two people. Katina would never be able to promote Anne had she tweeted her remarks. She might have had no choice but to fire her for the sake of the business.
Other: If I’m Katina, I don’t think I can know what to do with Anne until I know who I’m going to hire in her place.
Of the top three at the company, one of us is dead, one of us promoted - if I fire her, who’s left in the senior staff? Is the #4 guy competent and ready to step up to the manager role? Am I looking at bringing in a whole new top management team?
If I can replace her and the dead guy without tanking my bottom line too badly, then I do so. I’m not the Justice League - I’m a business woman. I’m responsible for running the company and Anne is a time bomb. I may need to tell Dad to sit on it until I have the new management team in place. I can do that, even though I really I want to be president. But the company needs a solid team at its flagship store more than I need a new job title.
I’m not discounting that Anne’s remarks may have been the grief speaking. Grief does bad things to people. But in dealing with my employees, I’m always the boss, drunk or sober.
If I need to keep Anne on the job for now, I’ll do that too. But I’ll talk to legal and hr - let them know my concerns about Anne’s racist remarks. Then I tell Dad to suck it up for six months and keep my current position where I can observe Anne closely. Then I promote Anne to Sales Manager under our new “Have a little more rope, dear” management policy.
She’ll either blow herself up, or she’ll do the job.