Stop Pissing Me Off What to Do When the People You Work with Drive You Crazy (5 page)

relationship toolbox

How to Move froM PiSSed off to Powerful

PiSSed off

Powerful

Finding differences difficult

Analyzing who or what you find difficult

Attacking the person

Separating the person from the behavior

Assuming that others should act Recognizing that many clashes are like you

“matching” problems

Ignoring your stress level

Counting up your own life stress events

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03.

YOur WOrKErS’ BiLL Of riGHTS

You do know that bra-snapping is not okay,

right?

Doris, an HR director at a high-tech company, strolled down a well-lit hallway at work, minding her own business, thinking about the meeting of HR directors she was about to attend. Unbeknownst to her, Ed Idiot, executive vice president of operations, walked behind her. Ed’s reputation as a joker in the company preceded him. While some people found his practical jokes hysterical, most employees doubted the sanity of those at the top who had elevated someone with such a sophomoric sense of fun.

As Ed sauntered up behind Doris, he noticed that one of the buttons running down her back was unbuttoned, right where the bra strap ran across her back. To most people, the commonsense options might include continuing to walk to the meeting and politely ignoring the open button, or discreetly telling Doris about the situation. But for reasons that will remain a mystery, Ed regressed to junior high. Yes, he did it: He snapped the bra strap!

I wish I were making this up, but it actually did happen. I was amazed that an EVP of operations didn’t understand

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what was and was not appropriate in the workplace. Sadly, situations such as this still are all too common.

what’s out of Bounds

In this chapter, we’ll address behavior that’s not just difficult or eccentric, but clearly out of bounds. While who or what you think is difficult can be a matter of your own perspective, as we discussed in Chapter 2, some people travel way over the line. Before you deal with the more subtle kinds of liars, tyrants, and boors, you really need to understand when a colleague’s behavior violates company policy, your values, or the law. (I am indebted to Rita Risser for this law/policy/value distinction, and have adapted this discussion with her permission.) If there is a legal or policy violation, you’ll have to use one of the techniques in the upcoming chapters to confront the bad actor. If that doesn’t work, proceed directly to complaints in Chapter 16.
understanding legal, policy, or values violations

When is behavior not just difficult but a violation of law, policy, or your organization’s values? It’s seems clear that harassing, retaliatory, threatening, or violent behavior is disrespectful, inappropriate, and potentially dangerous. What I’ve found, however, is that there’s confusion about what those terms mean.
know your rights

Many people seem to believe that anything that offends them, or offends someone they work with, is problem behavior.

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  Your Workers’ Bill of Rights

Not true. We’ve had about twenty years’ worth of confusion about that in the workplace, resulting in management paranoia, confusing conflicts, and frivolous claims and lawsuits. It helps to know your rights. One thing I know is that everyone wants to be treated with respect. However, instead of concerning yourself with who is or is not offended by certain behavior in the workplace, consider the following model: Is the behavior a violation of the law, your organization’s policy, or your organization’s stated values? Believe it or not, there are objective guidelines for what kinds of complaints fit into each of those categories. If behavior doesn’t fit in one of those categories but merely happens to be something that offends
you
, you must find a way to negotiate your values. There are many techniques in the following chapters that will help you do just that.

The problem is that because of our increasingly diverse workplace, we’re seeing people come into the workplace with conflicting values. Can people with different values work well together? Yes—if they respect the values of those with whom they work without trying to convert them, and if the organization itself has a clear values statement and helps people walk the talk, meaning that they have taken the time to educate people about what those values actually mean.

a conflict of values

One of the stranger workplace conflicts I’ve been called in to resolve involved whether it was appropriate for a woman to take time out of the middle of the day to get her nails done. This was not extra time away from work: She worked long hours and made up the time but the president’s secretary did not like her, labeled her as “difficult,” and objected to this “off

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work” time. The Nail Offender’s immediate supervisor let her off the hook because she was a good worker. The secretary did not think this was “right,” and thus ensued years of petty fighting between the two of them.

Believe it or not, I was called in to negotiate when the conflict had reached the stage at which the two workers refused to speak to each other and their problems interfered with their ability to get work done. Ironically, neither the president of the company nor the HR director wanted to get in the middle of the dispute.

What this boiled down to was a conflict of values. We all have different values. No problem there. The problem comes in when our values are in conflict and the organization has not made it clear where it stands on these values issues. In this case the conflict was over whether it was appropriate to take time off in the middle of the day for an undertaking that appears frivolous to others.

The real weenie here, of course, was the president, who had not made it clear what his (and the organization’s) values and polices were about flextime, use of personal time out of the office, and so on. He really thought that everyone should be in the office from 8:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. unless they were bleeding, but over time he had succumbed to popular demand for a quasi flextime policy that had merely left everyone confused. The Nail Standoff was simply the symptom of a larger issue—

the fact that the company had not explicitly and consistently stated a policy on flextime and workplace hours. Thus, the conflict was beyond the ability of the two employees to solve. The company had to put a stated policy in place.

One way to deal with a values conflict is to analyze the issue and then discuss the clash with the other person or group. (Sometimes, if the situation has gone on too long, you may need a facilitator to accomplish this.) If you can move your

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own understanding beyond “right” versus “wrong” and recognize that you simply have different values, the situation may become easier to bear. Then it becomes a matter of deciding whether one person’s values are in conflict with the organization’s stated values. If so, you need to resort to a complaint to a higher authority, as outlined in later chapters. Before doing so, however, I’d caution you to consider that all-important question: “How important is this
really?
” If neither party’s values are inconsistent with the organization’s stated values, you need to negotiate a resolution of the values clash that you can both live with—perhaps with the help of an intermediary. They are many negotiation and conflict management tips in later chapters of this book.

illegal harassment and discrimination:

true legal violations

By far the most frequent claim of unacceptable workplace behavior that crosses the legal line remains harassment and/or discrimination. When I wrote my first book on harassment in 1992, I would have assumed that we’d be finished with this topic by now. Unfortunately, that doesn’t seem to be the case. Thanks, in part, to bra-snapping EVPs, these claims remain prevalent and real.

But what constitutes illegal harassment and discrimination seems to be the subject of endless workplace confusion. This is because the law sets a floor for your behavior. I call it the

“red zone.” Most organizations have a policy that is stricter than the law requires. Further, every court in the country has held that companies can have a stricter policy and can discipline people who violate that policy even if the behavior in no way violates the law. Behavior that merely “offends” someone,

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 Pissing Me Off!

however, is not a legal problem. Much different standards than that must be met before it qualifies as such.

harassMent and discriMination legal standards

Federal laws prohibit discrimination, harassment, and retaliation based on:

n Sex or gender

n Age (40 or over; age discrimination)

n Race and color

n Religion

n National origin

n Citizenship

n Physical disability (this may include emotional or mental disabilities)

n Pregnancy

n Veteran/military status

n Family and medical leave

These are often referred to as “protected characteristics.”

Harassment based on sex includes:

n Sexual harassment

n Gender harassment

n Same-sex harassment

n Harassment based on pregnancy

If you live in California, you have some additional protection. California has perhaps the strictest laws in the country on these issues and also prohibits discrimination, harassment, and retaliation based on:

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n Status as domestic violence victim

n Medical condition or genetic characteristic

n Ancestry

n Marital status

n Sexual orientation

n Childbirth and related medical conditions

Many people are confused about the difference between harassment, discrimination, and retaliation. Harassment is not, in fact, based on a new law but is a concept that has been around since the 1964 Civil Rights Act. It is one kind of discrimination. Discrimination is an adverse job action taken by a supervisor because of the individual’s protected characteristics (as explained in the preceding lists). Adverse job actions include failure to hire or promote; firing or a layoff; cuts in pay; a denial of salary increase; and changing other terms or conditions of employment such as hours or vacation time because of a protected characteristic.

Retaliation is an action taken against someone for protesting, complaining, or cooperating in the investigation of discrimination or harassment. This action can include any adverse job action or physical retaliation such as physical threats, assault or battery, destruction of personal property, or stalking.

types oF harassMent

Harassment can be an adverse job action or physical, visual, or verbal action. In the “red zone,” there is true illegal harassment, known as
quid pro quo
(“this for that”). This takes the form of “you have to date me to get this job” or “you have to have sex with me to get this promotion.” This type of harassment

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usually involves a colleague or superior leveraging job favors for sexual favors. The harasser is someone who actually has the power to grant such favors, either by express or implied threats. Quid pro quo can also be implied by repeated propositions. As the one who was harassed, you must, however, show that the harassment had some impact on your job; for instance, that you were denied an annual pay increase, laid off, or forced to quit.

Illegal Retaliation

Illegal retaliation is another type of harassment. In this action you are retaliated against by a supervisor, peer, subordinate, or outsiders for refusing sexual advances, for complaining about harassment or discrimination, or assisting in a claim. This retaliation can take many forms, such as demotion, poor performance appraisals, bad job assignments, termination, threats, or violence. For example, one investigation I was asked to conduct on a retaliation claim involved an employee at a high-tech company. He alleged that he was retaliated against because he had testified as a witness in a racial discrimination case. He claimed that the VP involved in the case “belittled” him in meetings after he testified. While this might have been a good claim of retaliation, my investigation revealed that this particular VP treated other employees exactly the same way and that the employee himself had been treated in the same manner
before
the lawsuit.
Sexual Favoritism

Another type of illegal harassment is illegal sexual favoritism. If it’s isolated instances of management giving favorable treatment to paramours, in most cases it isn’t illegal, although it probably violates your organization’s policy. It is illegal if sexual favoritism is widespread in the company.

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hostile environMent

Last, but not least, is an illegal hostile environment. This is the accusation that many people hurl around carelessly. Many people seem to think that they are in a hostile environment if someone’s behavior offends them. Not true. In order to prove a true hostile environment you have to show that the behavior was discriminating or sexually harassing in tone and nature. This means that it was based on one of the protected characteristics listed earlier. In other words, it’s not just that someone is harassing you, but that he or she is harassing you specifically because of your sex, race, color, religion, and so on. Contrary to popular belief, in most states, there’s no such thing as illegal “general” harassment. If it’s not tied to one of these protected classifications, it is not illegal. However, general harassment may violate criminal laws (assault, stalking, and threats among them) if it is severe enough.