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Alcoholic and Absentee
Dear Work Friend,
I’ve worked at a small company of 10 employees for nearly eight years. Overall, I work with great people and enjoy what I do. The pay is good, the hybrid schedule is flexible, the P.T.O. is generous.
The glaring issue is that the founder of the company is an alcoholic. For long stretches of time, he disappears completely from day-to-day work. He is essentially unreachable and does not carry out his responsibilities, leaving the rest of us to pick up the slack. If he were in any other role, he’d be fired, but since he’s the founder, and we have no formal human resources department or board, I fear there’s nothing I can do about it.
I’ve learned to work around him and don’t need him to review my work or be involved in meetings. But it’s taking a toll on morale. When he’s absent, it signals to us that our work is not important. Beyond finding a different job (easier said than done), is there any action you recommend?
— Anonymous
You’re a lot less powerless here than you seem to believe. You may not have a formal mechanism for accountability, but you have a practical one: You actually do your job.
As you acknowledge, your main problem is morale, since you’re able to keep the company running smoothly during your boss’s absences. The “signal” I’d pick up from that state of affairs isn’t that your work is unimportant, but that his is. The truth is, you and your co-workers are the key people, and he’s the minor figure.
I hope that makes you feel a little better. You deserve it! More important, I hope it makes you see your leverage. If you and your colleagues decided to stop covering for him for a week, could he pick up the slack? If you and even a handful of your co-workers agree that the situation is unsustainable and can band together, you suddenly have the means to effect change.
The question is, what changes do you seek? It seems clear from your letter that you’re not interested in tackling this problem on a personal level — staging an intervention or otherwise trying to get your boss help for his alcoholism. That’s understandable, but you may want to consider approaching someone he trusts outside of the business, as a group, to explain how his drinking problem has affected his work.
Depending on how his alcoholism manifests itself, other people in his life may not be aware of how bad the situation has gotten, and would appreciate a carefully communicated expression of your worries — especially if it’s understood as a collectively shared concern, and not the complaints of a single disgruntled employee.
That still leaves you with a workplace low on morale and high on frustration. The simplest and socially smoothest approach might be to raise the issue as a purely procedural matter. You can throw around phrases like “business-continuity issues” (i.e., “we’re running the business when you’re gone”) or “decision-making authority” (i.e., “we’re going to start signing off on work without you”). Most important, though, you should insist on fairer compensation for the extra work you’ve all taken on. If he can’t make you feel important with his presence, he can at least try to do so with his wallet.
If you’ve assembled a large enough group, you could press your demands much further. Remember, you and your co-workers effectively are the business, and he’d probably have a difficult time putting the company back together if most or all of you were to walk. (And wouldn’t it feel vindicating to see him try?) It would hardly be unprecedented to have a coalition of key employees approach a founder and demand that he formally cede some power and ownership — if not step aside entirely — to better reflect the practical reality of operations. It would be an uncomfortable and risky conversation. But it would be much harder to feel unimportant at a business that you earned a stake in — or one that you yourself run.
Out of the Mouths of Babes
Dear Work Friend,
My husband is the head of his department, and for several years we’ve hosted a social gathering every spring at our home. All are welcome, including children and spouses. The vibe is warm, familial and casual.
Recently, my husband has been experiencing some tension with subordinates — normal workplace stuff, but some folks take that tension home. I know this because of an odd conversation I had at the most recent gathering. One of the co-workers’ children came up to me and declared, with curious glee (as if to gauge my reaction?), “Today is a sad day!” The child had been running around quite happily, so I was puzzled. “Why is it a sad day?” I asked. “Because Charlie has the best parties, but we don’t like Charlie.” (Charlie is my husband.) Stunned, I replied, “Wow, that’s a really mean thing to say.” The child shrugged and said, “That’s what my mom said.” I dropped the subject and excused myself.
In retrospect, I’ve understood that this child was probably reporting a conversation his parents had in the car on the way to our home, i.e., it’s too bad that such a fun party is hosted by a person we despise (who also happens to be a person I love, of course). The interaction troubled me for a couple of days. In the end, I decided not to share it with my husband, nor did I reach out to the co-worker at the root of the interaction. I couldn’t see how either action would help, but the exchange has left a bad taste in my mouth.
Did I do the right thing by letting it drop?
— Socially Awkward
Kids say all kinds of rude and stupid things. When my 5-year-old tells me that he won’t invite me to his birthday party because I’ve gently suggested he eat one single bite of the plain quesadilla he demanded I make for him, I try to let it roll off my back. He doesn’t really know what’s going on, or what he’s talking about. By this principle, I’d like to think that, in the event a child at my home told me their parents hated my wife, I could shrug and open another beer.
Admittedly, it’s no fun to have your spouse vilified by someone who can’t even do long division. But it gives me pause that this conversation gave you so much pause. Why did this trouble you for days? Reading your letter, I’m having a hard time squaring the idea that the tension at your husband’s office is “normal workplace stuff” with the idea that his subordinates might “despise” him. If the trouble at work really is standard friction, I doubt your husband’s colleagues really hate him, and it’s much more likely you’re particularly sensitive to criticism of someone you love.
This is an admirable quality, and it probably makes you a sympathetic and supportive ear at home. But the fact that you were even considering the possibility of reaching out to his co-worker tells me that you need to recalibrate your sensitivity, for your husband’s sake as much as yours.
On the other hand, if his subordinates really do “despise” him, that implies something worse than “normal workplace” tension. If this is the case — and I’d trust your gut — then I think you do need to say something to him, less for the sake of snitching on your party guest and more because he may need to hear directly that the tensions he believes are ordinary have in fact metastasized.
You’ll have a better sense than I of the specific problems of his potential mismanagement, and of any mitigating circumstances — and most important, a better sense than a little brat of how to communicate the problem to him.
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