A summary of the article is at the end of the text.
Lech is a great guy. Works well, executive, with ideas, promising. Did a couple of great projects with him. But he's running from paying child support from his first marriage. Straight comes and asks to somehow hide his income, and "pay her less."
Gena is a normal manager. Cheerful, talkative, without show-off. Indicators are normal. There are ideas for development and automation. But Gena is an alcoholic. Since Friday he is a different person. He thumps, beats his wife and children, drives drunk in a car around the city at night, periodically gets into boring stories.
Seryoga is a normal programmer. He sits quietly, works out. You can talk, he is quite an interesting interlocutor, you can feel a lot of life experience. As a developer, not bad, but not a star either. Solid middle man. But outside of work, he loves to humiliate people who, by virtue of their profession, cannot always answer him. Supermarket sellers, managers of household appliances stores, masters of official car services (those in suits, not overalls).
And when I find out all this, I think - fuck yours through the yoke, what for do I need this knowledge?
Valya is a bad employee. Stupid, quarrelsome, always trailing behind, but you can’t even talk about it with her - she’ll eat her whole brain. But Valya cannot be fired because she is a single mother. It's not sarcasm, I really think she shouldn't be fired.
Kolyan is dumb as a cork. Well, the truth is, he himself thinks so. And I always thought. But he has two children and two mortgages, one for himself and one for his disabled parents. Kolyan can neither be fired nor demoted, he can barely make ends meet anyway. You have to literally kick him to learn at least something new, so that there is at least some reason to raise his salary. He does not resist, but there is almost no sense either. Alas, Kolyan is stupid.
But Misha was fired. He always worked poorly, periodically disappeared somewhere - he said that he was busy with a very important and noble cause. It turned out that he is a member of the search squad, which digs up the remains of soldiers who died during the Great Patriotic War. It's probably a noble thing. However, Misha, for the sake of this business, scores not only for work, but also for his family. And in these campaigns, or projects, or outings, I don’t know what they are called, basically, it thumps.
No, you do not think, I'm not an idealist and not a saint. I myself have a lot of things in my personal life that it is better not to talk about. But I, over time, came to the conclusion that I do not want to know about the personal lives of colleagues and, moreover, subordinates.
Let the employee be a two-dimensional, cardboard character. So that only his professional qualities are visible - technical skills, developmental abilities, a desire to try new things and general adequacy. And let the cockroaches live with the skeletons where they are supposed to - in the closet.
Otherwise it turns out solid Dostoevsky. Any personality, if you learn a lot about it, becomes multifaceted, complex and incomprehensible. There is not a single person who is unambiguously good or bad. Behind each is a story, sometimes dramatic, sometimes comical, but more often simple, unsophisticated, worldly. And that's why - so close and understandable.
I draw a certain watershed on a simple basis: I want to know only about the problems of an employee, in the solution of which I can help. For example, if a person really does not have enough money.
And that's how it happens. The worker is mediocre. At the same time, the company has several quite understandable programs for advanced training, career or professional growth. And the employee does not use them.
Then he comes and says: I want to earn more money. Yes, for God's sake, who's stopping you. Look, study such and such topics, do tasks on them or pass certification, and you will receive more. Study the framework for which customers have needs, but there are no competencies in the company - all projects will be yours.
Agrees and leaves. Then, after half a year, he again declares - I want more money. You ask - how are you developing? Studied, or passed something new? No, he says. So what did you do then?
And then, damn it, it turns out. An emotional striptease begins, turning the soul inside out, touching stories about the “seven in the shops”, mortgages and lack of money for basic needs.
Yes, your leg, well ... Well, explain to me, my friend, why the hell did you sit for six months and pick your nose at a time when your children have nothing to eat? And now you’re dumping all this on me, as if it’s my fault that you can’t follow simple, understandable steps to improve your skills?
He starts whining that I supposedly kicked him badly, motivated him or something else. Don't hungry kids kick you? Not literally, but figuratively. Well, or in direct - it seems that it would not be superfluous.
Well, yes, probably, I would pay more attention to you if I knew right away that you not only want to earn more money, but stupidly do not have enough. This is a completely normal production, incl. - for dismissal. I myself did this when my wife did not work, I already had a child and there was still a mortgage.
But just because you told me this doesn't mean that I, or the company, are now in charge of your family. I just understand your motivation better. Believe me, I understand perfectly well what “no money” means. But there's one thing I don't understand: why the hell are you doing nothing.
There are other people, with exactly the same problems, who silently go and do it. They study, develop, earn more and more. And you just beg and whine.
In some methodology, problems are called monkeys around the neck. As long as you have a problem, the monkey sits on your neck. As soon as you puzzled someone with your problem, the monkey changes to another lucky one.
Okay, there are work problems. Throwing them off is a sacred thing. But why transplant personal problems? I will help you deal with the monkey, but do not think that I will drag it instead of you.
It seems to me that there are two normal scenarios.
First, keep your problems to yourself. I do it myself. This is not closeness or unfriendliness, but exactly the opposite - a normal attitude towards people who always have enough problems of their own.
The second - lay out, but be ready to change. Here you don’t have gatherings with relatives who will cry together over your problems, and then disperse. Are you saying you don't have enough money? Ok, here's a development plan for you, follow it and you'll get more. Here is a project for you, difficult, but money-making. Here's a new framework for you, in demand, but so complex that no one wants to take on it.
Do not want? Sorry. I understand that you want a raise for being in trouble. I want too. I have problems too. And Christina has problems, and Vlad, and Pasha. They just don't tell.
What will happen if people start to pay for the volume of personal difficulties? The motivation system would be funny. I think then there would be more known personal problems.
The exceptions, of course, are sudden difficulties. Not those that have been formed over the years with the help of laziness, lack of initiative and sloppiness. But this is no longer a question of raising salaries - this is force majeure, when help is needed here and now.
Well, when an employee came with problems himself, that's one thing. But what if you accidentally found out about him something like that?
For example, I found out that he thumps, beats his children and wife, and sometimes neighbors. How to treat it? Of course, he himself would never say such a thing. Although, it would probably be funny - give me a pay rise, because I beat my children.
Having learned such information, I, unfortunately, can no longer abstract from it. And, accordingly, I can not look at the employee in the same way as before. I understand that this is rather my shortcoming, but I can’t help myself.
There are fellow managers who do not avoid such information, but exactly the opposite - they try to pick it up more. And then they manipulate, use for their own purposes, knowing the employees as flaky. I do not know if they are right or not, but this approach is not close to me.
And it happens that you learn something about an employee that makes your heart ache. But what to do with it is also unclear. You know he needs money. You begin to pay more attention to him, to slip tasks and projects for less money, to send him to courses. And he wanted to shit on it.
Not in the sense that I need some kind of gratitude. I wholeheartedly pretend that I do not know about his problems. I just give, as a matter of priority, out of competition, opportunities that would help him solve personal problems. But he does not take advantage of these opportunities.
He is so normal. He even likes his problems. He sometimes bathes in them and enjoys them. And I, like a fool, try to help him. Well, I feel like an idiot.
In general, I decided for myself a long time ago: well, fuck him. I do not want to know anything about the personal lives of colleagues, subordinates and superiors. Therefore, for many years I do not go to corporate parties, outings and gatherings.
People in a non-working atmosphere, especially under alcohol, are certainly drawn to intimate conversations, and you can learn a lot of superfluous things. A person may not mean anything, he tells without a second thought, but I, due to excessive impressionability, will not be able to ignore this information in the future.
At work, I try to avoid long conversations in the corporate kitchen, especially with gossipers. Alas, this sort of people is still common. Do not feed them bread, let them ask something, and then tell them. They do this without malicious intent, it just makes fun of them. And what for me? Sit then and worry? To see in the character not a first-rate programmer, but a Multifaceted Personality? No thanks.
If someone has a problem that I can help solve as part of my professional duties, I will help. Yes, and not within the framework of help. Anything can happen - borrow money there until payday, light a car, give a book to read, help in a difficult situation. Often they ask to let go early, or let go - for example, to pick up a child from a speech therapy kindergarten, which, for some reason, is open until 17-00. There are no problems with this at all, I myself periodically leave. There are objective indicators, and they do not require being at work from 8 to 17.
I'm trying to help. But not diving. Help and forget. Do not climb into the soul, do not demand gratitude and reciprocal help. And if a person starts to tell something all the same, I stop it, if possible. You asked for a thousand before Monday - here's a thousand for you until Monday. Why, why is none of my business. Return only.
For my part, I act like a mirror - I don’t talk about my personal life that could interfere with my work. I do not transplant my monkeys onto other people's shoulders, because it is not fair.
And how are you with this?
Summary of the article
It is better not to know about the personal lives of employees. If you don’t know, then you see only the “working” side of employees. If you know, then employees become multifaceted, complex, and many factors have to be taken into account when working with them.
Accordingly, it is also better not to talk about your personal life. Blaming your problems on colleagues and bosses is not very fair.
At the same time, if professional activity can help in solving personal problems, then such information can be shared. In response, they can provide not money, but opportunities. But these opportunities must be taken advantage of.
If you are not ready to take advantage, do not load your problems.
Source: habr.com