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ALWAYS Check Your Employee's Work: A Cautionary Tale

Testament

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Hey All,

Been a while. Hope everyone is doing well and totally killing it on their fastlane road to financial freedom!

Had a situation that came up over the last couple of days that has changed my life for the worse (temporarily) and I wanted to share it, in the hopes that someone else might benefit from my mistake.

So about 2 years ago, I got a job with a marketing agency taking care of their social media accounts (among various other things). I figured this was the easiest way to get around marketing masters and learn the profession for my future fastlane endeavors.

I was fairly decent at it and showed more than a bit of love for the company that had decided to take me in, so around this time last year I was promoted to a management position. I've had about 10 different people work under me since then, and each one has been pretty cool even though I've had a few unpleasant situations arise along the way.

My company's most recent hire though, turned out to be ripping off the company hard, and I'm now on the hook for the damage he's done.

So this employee - I'll call him “Johan,” - had been recommended as a hire by a close personal friend of our agency's CEO.

On our phone interview with him, this close personal friend (who was also on the interview with Johan) stopped short of fellating Johan – talking up every possible positive point you could imagine. Johan turned out to be quite the charismatic fellow – extremely so, charming everyone who met him.

Really, I've met very few people who were as outright charming and likeable as this guy.

My manager and I decided to hire him into the company as a social media account manager under my direct supervision. Johan was already trained up dealing with social media accounts, so he knew most of what I would've taught him. All I had to do was keep track of his progress and make sure all of our company's social media accounts were being updated every day.

Everything was fine for the first two months – Johan was doing quite well and seemed to be everything that the CEO's bestie described him as. And of course, he was ever so charming – charismatic as hell, this guy. After about 2 months of him working for us, I stopped regularly personally reviewing his work. I'd have daily standups with him to check on the progress of our social media accounts, but I took Johan at his word for the work he said he was doing each day. I foolishly decided that I was too busy to make a simple check on the status of the social media accounts he was in charge of.

Fast forward to a few days ago. I received a message from my manager randomly asking me to check on the status of a couple of our social media accounts. He informed me that the ones he was looking at had last been warmed up 2 months ago, in JUNE.

“What the HELL?” I could only confusedly reply. “June?! There MUST be some mistake!” because Johan was coming in every morning, going to work, and updating me on the status of the accounts that he was in charge of. Johan seemed to be diligently working, PAST normal hours and into overtime too, to make sure every account was taken care of with extra TLC. There MUST have been some sort of mistake...

I checked in on the accounts mentioned personally. It seemed that my manager was right...they were completely neglected. There were NO updates on ANY of them since early June. My heart sank. I immediately went to check up on the rest of Johan's accounts. NONE OF THEM HAD BEEN UPDATED SINCE EARLY JUNE!

Not. A. Single. One.

I sat aghast at this new information. I literally couldn't believe it. Johan had been coming in every day, telling me that he was working, when actually he had done NOTHING. And I was under the gun for it. I was his direct manager – and I was responsible for everything that he was or wasn't getting done.

Two FULL months of neglect lay on every account he was responsible for. I'm still in a bit of disbelief about it. All because I didn't make the simple act of checking on his work every day.

As you can imagine, my superiors in the company were about as far from pleased as you could picture.

They spoke to the CEO's close personal friend whom recommended and gave the glowing review to Johan, and guess what he had to say?

CEO's Bestie: "Wow that sucks, yeah he did the same thing to me while he was working on a similar project."

I absolutely shit you not. :headbanger:

Talk of terminating my contract was had. Luckily (I guess), they decided that they weren't going to fire me over the issue. Unluckily, they decided to demote me back to the same position that Johan had previously filled.

Whereas previously, I'd been a month away from being taken on full time as a social media marketer (which was my ultimate goal so I could learn from the masters how to advertise my fastlane projects), I'm now (according to my managers), at least 6 more months away from being considered for that position again, if they even want to.

It has not been my favorite couple of days…

So I hope that you, fellow up-and-coming fastlane brethren out there, are able to take some sort of lesson from my carelessness.

Always… Always! ALWAYS!!! CHECK ON YOUR EMPLOYEE/CONTRACTOR/ETC.'S WORK!!!

No matter how much you like them.

No matter how charismatic they are.

No matter how trustworthy they've been in the past.


ALWAYS check to see that they've been doing everything they've been saying that they are. You will avoid much pain and delays in your millionaire progress this way.

Now, if you'll excuse me...I'm off to rebuild my express lane. :headbanger:
 
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Sen Payal

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It is always advisable to have a check for your employees work for good and bad as well. if they are doing good job then that needs to be appreciated and if not then they need to be rectified. As said by Varun Manian "Entrepreneurship is not only about making Profits". Employees play a major part in the development of any company and leader.
 

Random_0

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It seems like your superiors are dinosaurs. If you were good at your job and they demote you at your first mistake that seems pretty cold.
 

eTox

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That's a hard lesson. Thank you for sharing, that must have taken balls.

:tiphat:
 
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Fox

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I don't see how someone you directly managed didn't do work for two months in any form and you didn't notice.

I am surprised you still have a job.
 

Insaint

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It seems like your superiors are dinosaurs. If you were good at your job and they demote you at your first mistake that seems pretty cold.

Dinosaurs? He was supposed to manage a group of people and yet failed to check on one of them for 2 whole months. He's lucky he only got demoted. Most companies would have fired him on the spot.
 
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Random_0

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Dinosaurs? He was supposed to manage a group of people and yet failed to check on one of them for 2 whole months. He's lucky he only got demoted. Most companies would have fired him on the spot.

Yeah I get that, I suppose it depends on the company & maybe im too soft
 

codonnell

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Hey All,

Been a while. Hope everyone is doing well and totally killing it on their fastlane road to financial freedom!

Had a situation that came up over the last couple of days that has changed my life for the worse (temporarily) and I wanted to share it, in the hopes that someone else might benefit from my mistake.

So about 2 years ago, I got a job with a marketing agency taking care of their social media accounts (among various other things). I figured this was the easiest way to get around marketing masters and learn the profession for my future fastlane endeavors.

I was fairly decent at it and showed more than a bit of love for the company that had decided to take me in, so around this time last year I was promoted to a management position. I've had about 10 different people work under me since then, and each one has been pretty cool even though I've had a few unpleasant situations arise along the way.

My company's most recent hire though, turned out to be ripping off the company hard, and I'm now on the hook for the damage he's done.

So this employee - I'll call him “Johan,” - had been recommended as a hire by a close personal friend of our agency's CEO.

On our phone interview with him, this close personal friend (who was also on the interview with Johan) stopped short of fellating Johan – talking up every possible positive point you could imagine. Johan turned out to be quite the charismatic fellow – extremely so, charming everyone who met him.

Really, I've met very few people who were as outright charming and likeable as this guy.

My manager and I decided to hire him into the company as a social media account manager under my direct supervision. Johan was already trained up dealing with social media accounts, so he knew most of what I would've taught him. All I had to do was keep track of his progress and make sure all of our company's social media accounts were being updated every day.

Everything was fine for the first two months – Johan was doing quite well and seemed to be everything that the CEO's bestie described him as. And of course, he was ever so charming – charismatic as hell, this guy. After about 2 months of him working for us, I stopped regularly personally reviewing his work. I'd have daily standups with him to check on the progress of our social media accounts, but I took Johan at his word for the work he said he was doing each day. I foolishly decided that I was too busy to make a simple check on the status of the social media accounts he was in charge of.

Fast forward to a few days ago. I received a message from my manager randomly asking me to check on the status of a couple of our social media accounts. He informed me that the ones he was looking at had last been warmed up 2 months ago, in JUNE.

“What the HELL?” I could only confusedly reply. “June?! There MUST be some mistake!” because Johan was coming in every morning, going to work, and updating me on the status of the accounts that he was in charge of. Johan seemed to be diligently working, PAST normal hours and into overtime too, to make sure every account was taken care of with extra TLC. There MUST have been some sort of mistake...

I checked in on the accounts mentioned personally. It seemed that my manager was right...they were completely neglected. There were NO updates on ANY of them since early June. My heart sank. I immediately went to check up on the rest of Johan's accounts. NONE OF THEM HAD BEEN UPDATED SINCE EARLY JUNE!

Not. A. Single. One.

I sat aghast at this new information. I literally couldn't believe it. Johan had been coming in every day, telling me that he was working, when actually he had done NOTHING. And I was under the gun for it. I was his direct manager – and I was responsible for everything that he was or wasn't getting done.

Two FULL months of neglect lay on every account he was responsible for. I'm still in a bit of disbelief about it. All because I didn't make the simple act of checking on his work every day.

As you can imagine, my superiors in the company were about as far from pleased as you could picture.

They spoke to the CEO's close personal friend whom recommended and gave the glowing review to Johan, and guess what he had to say?

CEO's Bestie: "Wow that sucks, yeah he did the same thing to me while he was working on a similar project."

I absolutely shit you not. :headbanger:

Talk of terminating my contract was had. Luckily (I guess), they decided that they weren't going to fire me over the issue. Unluckily, they decided to demote me back to the same position that Johan had previously filled.

Whereas previously, I'd been a month away from being taken on full time as a social media marketer (which was my ultimate goal so I could learn from the masters how to advertise my fastlane projects), I'm now (according to my managers), at least 6 more months away from being considered for that position again, if they even want to.

It has not been my favorite couple of days…

So I hope that you, fellow up-and-coming fastlane brethren out there, are able to take some sort of lesson from my carelessness.

Always… Always! ALWAYS!!! CHECK ON YOUR EMPLOYEE/CONTRACTOR/ETC.'S WORK!!!

No matter how much you like them.

No matter how charismatic they are.

No matter how trustworthy they've been in the past.


ALWAYS check to see that they've been doing everything they've been saying that they are. You will avoid much pain and delays in your millionaire progress this way.

Now, if you'll excuse me...I'm off to rebuild my express lane. :headbanger:
That sucks Man. A question for you? Would you really learn that much more in the promoted position? If you already supervising others perform the nitty gritty tasks, I would be surprised if you would learn heaps more in the new position. Particularly as you may know have a permanent black mark against your name, if you there is only 10 per cent more knowledge to gain and you have some savings, I would bounce now and start you FL business.
 

Get Right

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I've seen it before. Entrepreneurial skills and managerial skills can sometimes be quite opposite. We struggle to develop our entrepreneurial side so hard that sometimes the managerial side can get neglected. Usually this results in us hiring managers to run the day to day checks etc. (cause it bores us to death).

So in your case you were taken from an entrepreneurial job (one which you had somewhat control of) to a managerial one. Totally different skill set. As you build your own business you will struggle with it again. When scaling you must perform both tasks until you get big enough to hire a manager.

Some good resources to "fill out" that managerial side:

Anything by Peter Drucker
Good to Great
Anything by Jack Welch

You've encountered a significant wall. Breaking through this wall will make you stronger and a better entrepreneur. Many have come to this wall and stopped. I encourage you to shatter it...and reap the rewards. Good luck man!
 
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Testament

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Hey guys, thanks for all the responses.

@Sen Payal - That's a great point, I'll need to remember that for the future.

@Random_0 - I'm actually extremely surprised that they didn't fire me outright. It's not just a mistake, I couldn't think of a bigger mess up on my part that didn't involve malicious intent. I might as well have run over the CEO in the parking lot for all the bad vibes I'm getting.

@eTox - Thanks for the support man, it's very much appreciated.

@Fox - You and me both. I have no excuses, I should've been checking. But, nothing left to do now but learn from it and move on. Although I am a bit upset that the CEO's friend gave such a glowing review and failed to mention that the same issue had come up for him with "Johan". I feel like if I'd known that beforehand, I would've been on it and the only reason I gave the benefit of the doubt that he was doing work like that was due to that glowing recommendation in the first place.

@IrishSpring600 - I actually agree with you. I don't think my standing here is ever going to recover honestly.

@Insaint - 100% agreed.

@codonnell - No, I don't think I would learn that much more. I think I have everything I need to start off on my own, except the capital. I've just started up on my first legitimate business, and I still have to think about money for traffic & all the associated ecommerce costs. I'll shoot you back a question as well - what would you do in my situation? Try to ride it out and exit once I have a bit more capital saved up (that's if they don't still decide to fire me down the road), or try to exit now and self-fund in another way?

@Get Right - Thanks for the awesome suggestions, Get Right! I have a copy of Good to Great sitting on my shelf actually, though I've yet to crack it open. I'm actually curious on your thoughts about Jack Welch though, if you might indulge me. In training for management, I've mostly read books that recommend creating a positive environment for your employees, and making work feel less like work for them - Leaders Eat Last is a book I've read that comes to mind immediately that's from that school of thought. These books have really vilified Jack Welsh as being something of a monster, so I never really thought to explore any of his ideas before. What is it about his management style that you would say works well?
 

Jon L

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Hey guys, thanks for all the responses.

@Sen Payal - That's a great point, I'll need to remember that for the future.

@Random_0 - I'm actually extremely surprised that they didn't fire me outright. It's not just a mistake, I couldn't think of a bigger mess up on my part that didn't involve malicious intent. I might as well have run over the CEO in the parking lot for all the bad vibes I'm getting.

@eTox - Thanks for the support man, it's very much appreciated.

@Fox - You and me both. I have no excuses, I should've been checking. But, nothing left to do now but learn from it and move on. Although I am a bit upset that the CEO's friend gave such a glowing review and failed to mention that the same issue had come up for him with "Johan". I feel like if I'd known that beforehand, I would've been on it and the only reason I gave the benefit of the doubt that he was doing work like that was due to that glowing recommendation in the first place.

@IrishSpring600 - I actually agree with you. I don't think my standing here is ever going to recover honestly.

@Insaint - 100% agreed.

@codonnell - No, I don't think I would learn that much more. I think I have everything I need to start off on my own, except the capital. I've just started up on my first legitimate business, and I still have to think about money for traffic & all the associated ecommerce costs. I'll shoot you back a question as well - what would you do in my situation? Try to ride it out and exit once I have a bit more capital saved up (that's if they don't still decide to fire me down the road), or try to exit now and self-fund in another way?

@Get Right - Thanks for the awesome suggestions, Get Right! I have a copy of Good to Great sitting on my shelf actually, though I've yet to crack it open. I'm actually curious on your thoughts about Jack Welch though, if you might indulge me. In training for management, I've mostly read books that recommend creating a positive environment for your employees, and making work feel less like work for them - Leaders Eat Last is a book I've read that comes to mind immediately that's from that school of thought. These books have really vilified Jack Welsh as being something of a monster, so I never really thought to explore any of his ideas before. What is it about his management style that you would say works well?
One thing that Jack Welch gets right is his focus on 'candor.' He'd rather not spend months beating around the bush. Instead, he just lays his cards on the table.

On the 'firing the bottom 10%' (or whatever the percent is) each year: yeah, this isn't nice, and it probably makes for an uncomfortable working environment for some, but think about companies you've worked for: about 10% of the company isn't doing their jobs anyway...so why keep them around?
 

Fox

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@Testament

Check this out... http://themfceo.com/create-value-andy-frisella-mfceo87/

Just as businesses thrive on products that solve problems and bring value to customers, successful people are men and women who have learned how to provide value through who they are and what they do–no matter what it is. “No matter what job you’re working,” says Andy Frisella, “ultimately you always work for yourself.” Whether it is forming the habit of hard work or always seeing the bigger picture, there are practical steps anyone can take to become a truly valuable person.
 
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