People issues are the hardest to solve

I was having dinner with a client, and the owner of the company asks: "Francisco, you work at dozens of different companies. Tell me the truth. Are we the most dysfunctional company that you've come across?" I did not hesitate and answered "NO". He was taken aback by the quick answer, as well as "the" answer. "So you mean to tell me that there are worse companies than ours out there?" The answer was again, "NO". You see, many companies have people issues.

The last thing a company owner wants to do when he/she gets back to the office is listen to "petty" complaints. To hear that someone spends too much time in the bathroom, takes too many smoke breaks, constantly calling in sick, always on Facebook, snacking constantly, takes too many coffee breaks, answering personal cell phone, having an office romance, using the computer to run a home based business, talks all day and doesn't get any work done. You may laugh, but I've heard it all. Several times I've been told: "She must be banging him," referring to a co-worker who must be sleeping with the boss, as the only reasonable explanation for keeping their job. There's also the "he must have pictures, how else does he hang on to his job?"

Many owners choose to ignore the office shenanigans and let the environment simmer. It's not their expertise to deal with people. Remember, they are business people. They love business. They love to sell. They love to create new products and services. They love to wheel and deal. Cash the checks, as that's how they keep score. They are highly competitive and driven. The last thing they want to do is to reprimand an employee for spending too much time on the toilet. Keep in mind that when you fire someone, you then have to hire another person. You then have to train the new employee. The new employee will in turn take some time to get up to speed. It's easier to let the employee spend extra time on the phone, or take a longer lunch break. This leaves more time for selling, creating, competing, networking, etc.

Early in my professional career, I noticed this employee whom I believed did not do any work. Any attempt to discredit or point out his lack of contribution feel on deaf ears. Everyone else had already tried, and knew it was pointless. So I took notice of who he was and what he did. He generated organizational charts where he proclaimed to be the head of the department. He created several projects for which there were no budget or people to work on them. He was always in every meeting, at every break, and involved at every project adding his expertise. However, he never contributed to any project. None that I was involved in, nor anyone else that I knew of. He was really good at sniffing out meetings with food as he would walk out of them with hands full of whatever was available. He could be found speaking to the workers. He did it with me. Asked what I was working on. Seemed harmless, so I contributed to the conversation. He did it with everyone, it seemed. That was his job, to talk to people. Strange. Until one day, I finally figured out what he did. I was working in the lab, and was accidentally hidden in a corner of a large room. He and the owner of the company walked into the lab, sat nearby (without noticing me) and the owner said: "I want you to go down there [to a client,] and I want to know who's involved. I want to know their names and who they're working for. Don't come back until who know who the fuckers are." They did not know that I was there, or that conversation would have never taken place near me. But I had finally figured out what he did. He was a "spy." He spied on the competition, and he spied internally. He then had these meetings with the "boss" where he regurgitated the information he compiled.

So why is it that someone can spend countless time in the bathroom and nobody cares? Because she was "banging" somebody with clout. True story. Why did that person not get hired and the other person fired. A lunch relationship gone sour, where the bookkeeper decided, not based on merit, but rather on her soured relationship. True story. Why does this person get all the best/highest paying gigs, where she's a mediocre performer? The manager is her best friend from when they were in High School together. True story. Why did this person get hired when they were the least qualified of all who were interviewed? Someone's golf and drinking buddy. True story. I've seen more people get hired based on a relationship, rather than qualifications more times that I can count. While I know that it's "who you know, not what you know" that counts, in today's economic climate it's hard to "hand" someone a paycheck he is not earning. It's even harder to see the dysfunctional companies where employee productivity is non-existent due to employee "manager" relationships.

So the next time you see office politics, and you wonder why that person is allowed to continue with an unacceptable behavior, think of what you may not know, and that's likely to be the reason.