L'enfer, c'est les autres

The naughty boy is back, oh yes he is.

You may remember that we had a naughty situation that I wrote about before, which led to disciplinary action after a long and tortuous conversation with the CEO. Last week it was roosting time at the turkey ranch.

I get a call from the naughty boy he wants to see me “off the record”. Now one - my door is always open, but two - there is no such thing as off the record. Not with naughty boys.

He comes and sits and tells me that his position has become untenable, that he can’t see anyway back and…..that he wants to come to an amicable arrangement. He continues to make his case. At the end I ask him, “are you saying that you are going to resign and claim constructive dismissal?” he answers that he wants to part amicably.

Now the issue here is that we don’t really want the old duffer to go. He has value, he has a contribution to make. He has just been a very naughty boy. And we certainly don’t want to pay him to go….that’s just counter intuitive.

I go back and tell him we want to work with him to rectify his behaviours, to facilitate a good working relationship.

The email I receive over the weekend is something to behold. The demand is we agree to …..remove the warning and pay him £100k to leave, by midday……OR……he is going to make a few calls and look for a new job.

Pause. Read that again. Look for the flaw in the negotiation strategy……Find it?

Oh Buddha……..he copied in CEO…….