My Wife works for a well known National-sized company and is an executive assistant for one of the really bigwigs. She consistently maxes out her performance reviews and merit raises. She is very highly thought of and her work is dead solid.
A co-worker of hers in off on a company paid trip to an exotic island, all expenses paid, probably a $10,000 award. If you’ve ever had the chance to do one of those, you know they are very well done.
Anyway, my Wife is covering some of her work and is finding all sorts of weird stuff. Nothing criminal, just reports that don’t tick an tie that and are putting out bad data. Plain old crappy work. Wife needed to vent, so we went over the situation and I don’t know what to make of it.
An awards program that rewards someone based purely on recommendations and not quality of work is terribly demoralizing for those who sweep up the mess while the awardee is chilling with an umbrella drink on the beach.
Obviously, Wife can’t just go in to big boss (really big kahuna) and whine, it would sound like jealousy. She can’t just pretend the shoddy work didn’t happen. I think the boss would expect her to say something. But she feels like crap knowing that the fruit of this crap work is a really nice trip for the offender and a broom and dustpan for her.
What say you all? How would you address this?
JB, you may not want your wife participating in the activities that her co-worker may be involved in that led to those rewards.
I've been there and the fall hurts.
There are always some fortunate sons that can wreck havoc across the company and beyond and always come away with a reward to appease their appetites.
The loyal and diligent employee, such as your wife, may not find any ears for her words to be heard, even from her most believed and admired fellow employees and top level executives.
It's a tightrope to walk on that level.
0.02
"Stars"..."Champions"..."Team Players". It's almost like an entire culture and mentality surrounding these type of folks.
Yea, this is a tough one. I certainly have seen it before. There are ways to appreciate employees that don't evoke the human nature part of the brain to be shady in what you do to get on the grid. There are always going to be dishonest folks. Most things come out in time. Its a pendulum. Being confident in ones self for honesty and integrity don't necessarily get you a trip to Hawaii but it sure pays off in the long run.
I've gotten a couple of awards. One of them happened because a coworker got tired of watching the political golden boys awarding themselves over and over so he brow beat management until they finally surrendered and gave me an award.
Another I got because I was simply doing my job in the right place and time.
I feel like the Doolittle raider who poo-pooed being called a hero. How said he had a job to do and did it. Meanwhile the millennial generation got an award every time they successfully went potty.
