I hired a new employee four months ago and I am still not sure of what to think of him. He seems to be very “needy”, constantly coming to me with one question or issue or another. He is by no means negative; simply spends a lot of time on details that really don’t matter in the big picture.
Today, however, he asked me two questions that annoyed me. Both were pretty cut and dry to me but I thought I would ask opinions here as to the second.
The first questions: “Even though I know it doesn’t comply with dress code, can I wear the new tennis shoes I bought to work from now on.”
A: “No.”
The second question: “My father has an executive high back chair he doesn’t need anymore, can I bring it in and use it.”
Q: “Do you have a medical problem?”
A: “No, I just like it”
A: “In that case, not unless you plan to get one for the two other people you share an office with because that really wouldn’t be fair.”
The chairs we provide are decent task chairs. The employees do not work at their desks all day but use their desks to collect and answer messages and do paperwork between patients.
So, I will put it out there… Would you have let the guy bring in his own executive chair?
If someone has their own office chair, I’d see no harm in letting them bring it into work, on the understanding that they are responsible for ensuring it complies with the occupational safety requirements in the area.
How laid-back is your office about personalization of office-space? (Do any co-workers have a cute-kitten-of-the-minute calendar, or a greenhouse’s worth of potted plants overflowing her desk or enough golfing tchotckes that you can’t tell there’s a desk under there?
Is there an office policy about staff-members providing their own office equipment (specifically one that explicitly forbids it)?
Would his executive office chair LOOK amazingly different from the other office chairs? (leather, heated seat, ass massagers, on rollers…)
If the answer to the first question is Very laid back, the answer to the second is No, and the answer to the third is No, then I’d actually consider it.
People are happier when they feel like they have control over their environment. If an office chair is all it takes to make this newbie feel established in his new job, and you don’t have an office culture where it would cause big problems, then go for it.
The only problem I have with someone bringing a personal chair in would be if someone else uses it and provoked a pissing contest. In places I’ve worked, people put their names on their work-provided office chairs - I assume because they got them adjusted just the way they wanted or they liked a particular chair or some such. In my last office, chairs had a way of migrating to other cubes when grabbed as guest chairs, especially when an employee was on vacation. It occasionally led to words - some people are very protective of “their” stuff, even if it’s not really theirs.
The other issue I’d see - what becomes of the original chair if he brings in his own? Is there space to store it that won’t be in the way?
I was never a boss, but it would irritate me when people would bring in their own microwaves, fridges, coffee makers, heaters, fans… Along with the fact that it’s got to run up the company’s electric bill, it seems really unprofessional to turn your work space into your own little home away from home. A few pictures and knick-knacks is one thing, refurnishing an entire office or cubicle is quite another, IMHO.
No. He uses the chair provided for him. And no tennis shoes either, if that is your policy. If you bend the rules for him, the other employees won’t be happy about it, and rightly so.
Laid back in the sense that they can bring photos? Yes. Desks covered with all sorts of junk wouldn’t go over though. We don’t have an office policy on chairs. We do on lap tops, cell phones and ipods which aren’t permitted. The chair would look very odd (if it even fits). There would no doubt be grumbling if the new guy was sitting in a big executive chair and they had their normal task chairs at their desk. No doubt in my mind.
Another issue with the chair is space. Executive chairs take up a bit more space than task chairs. Is there room in the office if everyone decides they want one?
Sounds like you might have a precious snowflake on your hands. Doesn’t want to follow the dress code, doesn’t want the same chair as everyone else…keep us posted.
It’s totally fair, it’s his chair, you didn’t provide it. But you do have to agree that all his peers can bring their own chairs too. If you can’t think of a reason why that’s a bad idea you don’t have a reason to disallow the chair.
Why would anyone want that? God forbid people be human.
I probably should have figured out how to make a poll.
I am not allowing the chair because not everyone has a daddy that can afford to give them a nice chair. I also want our office space to be uniform.
However, I was just thinking; could there be a liability issue with people bringing in their own office equipment? What if his chair falls apart under him, or gasp, falls apart if someone else that sits in it? I would assume I would still be responsible even though it isn’t the business’ chair.
I’d probably discourage the chair, unless the company culture specifically encourages individual freedom of expression and creativity. If you’ve got one guy sitting in a high-backed executive chair while everyone else has simple task chairs, I guarantee you that even if you make a big deal of pointing out that he brought it from home, the other employees are going to feel slighted and that you’re playing favorites. Even if they realize they can bring in their own stuff, it’ll still cause a bit of a headache for you to make sure nobody’s bringing in non-productive stuff, plus folks who have to spend their money on other things than high-quality chairs might still feel resentment.
(The semi-funny thing is, the boss in our office has a habit of buying a round of new chairs every year or two for everyone in the office. About 5 years ago he bought some very nice task chairs, then after that started buying high-backed executive chairs for everyone. I insisted on keeping my task chair because it’s intensely comfortable and excellently manufactured, so now I’m the manager of a department where I have a small task chair and all my employees have these big manager-style chairs.)
There’s also the problem of office equipment safety and being liable for a potential injury in the workplace caused by a chair you didn’t buy yourself, but realistically that’s a minor consideration.
Really, though, the shoes are easier to come down on, since you have rules for that but not for the chair. You have a dress code, he understands it, there’s no reason you should make an exception for him. He can just cope.
It definitely points to a problematic trend of “The rules don’t apply to me,” or at least “I want this thing therefore I should have it.” Shoes and chair are relatively harmless requests, but later ones might not be.
Yes, I do think you are right. I had to fight the “what are you some kind of idiot” look when he asked to break dress code permanently for his new cool sneakers. Every employee in the clinic area wears the same non skid white tennis shoes. He was provided with the dress code before he even started. I can’t believe he actually asked the question.
I wouldn’t allow the chair. If his coworker sits in his chair is he going to throw a major bitch fit because his daddy bought it for him and him alone? Has that chair been sitting in a house filled with cats, cigar smoke, and other allergens that could annoy his coworkers? If you give on the chair is he going to throw it up in your face every time he wants something else, “Why can’t I do that? You let me bring in the chair!”
It’s also possible someone could slip and stab their eye on a photo frame of another employee’s family.
My vote is to let him keep the chair. Because I think when you accuse him of missing the big picture, I’d turn it around on you. You’re not cogs in a machine. You’re a four person office. It probably isn’t the worst thing to tell your employees you value their individuality and you may find they become more productive.
I looked over the OP and Foxy’s later posts and didn’t see anything about this? I see the new guy shares an office with two others, but that doesn’t mean there’s only those three and Foxy in the entire workplace. If it’s three guys in the same room, then I’d be even more concerned with space issues as well as fairness issues; multiple people in a single room need to get along or it’ll be a nightmare.
If it is only a four-person workplace, then I’d question the existence of a dress code too.
I don’t understand why you want people to be uncomfortable at work. Fans & heaters are because people are too hot or too cold. I have worked in offices where I literally wore gloves indoors all day long because the A/C ran so cold (and for various reasons there was no way to change it without making some other place too hot). Believe me, that’s less productive than a small underdesk heater that bothers no one.
Kind of reminds me of when I worked for the late, lamented Borders Group. They shoved the creative team into a dark, windowless found space, so our Director said we could select accent paint using only corporately approved colors in the Borders official in-store palette. When [del] giant douchebag[/del] marketing VP Mike Spinozzi saw it, he declared it to be “unprofessional” but had the grace to be embarassed when he found out the colors were corporate paint swatches used in all Borders stores. But underlying his complaint is the belief that any scenario in which the workplace fails to be completely soul-crushing is “unprofessional.” It seems some people just love for their employees to be as uncomfortable as possible. They, like Fairychatmom actively consider it a bad thing if employees regard their workspace with anything other than displeasure.
BTW I don’t think the OP’s new snowflake should be allowed to wear his sneakers if particular footwear is mandated, and I wouldn’t let him bring his own office equipment because of liability issues. And I’m not for office koosh basketball or anything. I am just responding to the idea that fans and heaters and coffee machines are assaults on workplace propriety. Personally I assume that anyone who tries to stop you from having those things is probably a petty tyrant, since, in my experience, every manager who has tried to stop employees from having things that add to their basic comfort was a petty tyrant.
Hello Again, that’s a pretty extreme reaction. The problem is that a workplace, barring individual cubicles or offices, is a shared environment. If you’ve got 15 people all trying to make that shared environment more like their own private environment, at best you’re going to have a lot of idiosyncrasies and, more likely, you’re going to wind up with interpersonal conflicts.
A certain level of conformity is good. Not to kill creativity and individuality, but to remove a lot of elements that could spur conflict, which is ultimately nonproductive. Naturally it can easily be taken too far, but the line gets pretty blurry.
It a chair. Unless you’re employing four-year-olds there’s no reason to worry about that.
Good. Why?
It’s a chair. It’s not a jacuzzi-toaster combination. Unless you’re going to give this just and serious consideration people will think you capricious and authoritarian.
So then the optimal solution is to create an environment that EVERYBODY hates, but hates equally?
Also, a chair pissing contest, really? I mean, if the company gave one person a nice chair I can understand the grumbling, but they bring in their own chair, so what? Do they grumble when someone drives a nice car to work?