Werner works for a company, in sales. The company is looking for an additional salesperson, and Werver recommends someone–Heinz.
Werner and Heinz aren’t particularly successful as salespeople, but both manage to stay employed with the company for a few years. Heinz’s numbers are better than Werner’s.
The company’s sales are floundering, and Werner’s job is being cut. Werner complains violently that Heinz is bad for the company and wasteful and lazy and never does anything and is bad bad bad.
I ran across this situation recently and it got me wondering. What should I have expected from Werner re: Heinz given that Werner recommended Heinz for the job? What should Werner have done?
Oh, and am I justified in feeling that Werner is a complete jerk?
Does it matter if he’s telling the truth? He waited for a couple of years and Heinz’s bad behavior was fine, but when it starts to affect him, suddenly the bad behavior is important?
I guess that’s where I’m having difficulty. Say that Heinz is a bad egg. Should Werner have brought it up sooner, or is it really none of Werner’s business or what? Thoughts?
The thing is, Werner has crappy numbers. Which doesn’t put him in a choice spot to define who the bad eggs are.
In sales, it’s all about numbers. It’s easy to evaluate an employee, and it’s easy to rank employees. Everybody has a number, and higher numbers are better. Werner, by definition is a worse egg than Heinz.
(there are exceptions of course; an employee who brings moral down, or cheats customers or other things can be a bad egg even if he’s producing. But these are the exceptions).