The following stories are presented as cautionary tales so that people can recognize the difference between pettiness and criminality.
Petty behaviors can quickly get out of hand and leap from ill-advised to illegal. Other behaviors appear to be petty at first, but on closer examination they reveal themselves to be much worse—unethical, immoral, or criminal.
Certain situations require intervention from higher authorities than your organization’s leaders, ranging from assault, stalking, and threats of violence to fraud, forgery, and embezzlement.
Know when it’s time to call the cops or seek advice of counsel to stop the behavior. Get help to deal with the aftermath. Find out whether to press charges or seek restitution or other punitive measures.
Preserving the peace and preventing harm to life and property are not petty matters.
Two newly hired workers were standing in line in the rain, waiting their turn at the food truck parked in the building’s outdoor lot. The taller employee was under an awning and the shorter employee bumped into her trying to squeeze in. They argued, called each other names, used profanity, and one physically threatened to slap the other. They continued yelling as they both headed to the security desk in the building lobby, where they were immediately removed from the premises. The fight lasted 15 minutes and the resulting investigation took a week, during which time witnesses, security personnel, and the employees were interviewed. They were both ultimately removed from their jobs, due to the egregious nature of their misconduct and the company’s concerns for workplace safety.
LESSON LEARNED: No food truck burrito is worth a slap in the face.
The perpetually angry CEO of a small business presided over an anxious workforce. Everyone walked on eggshells due to her unpredictable moods. She was never pleased with anyone’s work, treated people with disrespect, and rebuffed even upper management’s attempts to reason with her. She paid her staff competitive salaries, however, which made many employees feel they could not afford to quit. One day during the holiday season, the CEO screamed with anger at an employee for no apparent reason, threw a tabletop-sized Christmas tree at him, and told him to get out because he was fired. While the pine-needled victim was not badly injured, he never sought any level of recourse, then or since. He moved on with his life, but always thought he should have stood up to the CEO or left of his own accord before she became violent.
LESSON LEARNED: Ducking flying Christmas trees should be an Olympic event.
A cook and a server at a restaurant became romantically involved, but the relationship didn’t last. Tension between them began to build, making their fellow employees in the kitchen uneasy and uncomfortable. During the dinner shift one evening, the former couple got into a heated argument. Suddenly the cook seized a large, sharp 10-inch chef’s knife and threw it at the server, barely missing her face. Although the knife did not strike its intended target, police were called and they escorted the cook out of the workplace, and he was fired on the spot for his dangerous, unacceptable act. A few days later a no-trespass order was issued against the cook, which prevented him from entering the premises again. The incident put all staff on notice that the restaurant would protect the safety of its employees, insist on respectful behavior, and enforce its zero-tolerance policy on workplace violence.
LESSON LEARNED: Love cuts through all things, even pettiness.
A long-term employee, who was upset at being passed over twice for a promotion, got a friendly co-worker to delete important files from the firm’s computer system. The firm suspected the employee early on because her motive could easily be surmised (her disappointment over the promotion was well known). But the firm was initially unable to determine who was involved in deleting the files. There were no cameras working at the site. After the IT department found out that the friend had access to the documents at time of deletion, both accomplices were interviewed and their login histories examined. They were suspended while IT completed its research. The friend confessed first, which led the employee to confess as well, and they were terminated.
The first employee applied for unemployment, and a new wrinkle appeared. When she came to the firm years ago, she had not signed all her new hire documents, particularly the notice and agreement not to delete documents without a manager’s permission. She was able to get unemployment because she claimed not to know that she couldn’t delete files that she thought were unnecessary. The firm couldn’t prove she had been notified of the no-unauthorized-deletions policy since there was no signature.
The firm lost a significant amount of information in the files and lost the unemployment dispute as well. In response, it upgraded its file backup processes, changed its document access rules, enhanced its security camera system, and tightened its new hire procedures, especially as to policy notification.
LESSON LEARNED: Always dot your i’s and cross your t’s. It could save you a world of hurt in the end.
In three separate incidents over two months’ time in a hotel, in an area accessible only to employees, several leather chairs were slashed across their backs with a knife, ruining them. The chairs had to be replaced. The slashings happened when the chairs were in various spots not seen on camera and when witnesses were not around. There was much confusion and drama in the workplace.
Security staff were heavily involved in research, investigations and interviews. Various methods were used systematically to narrow down possible suspects, including viewing camera footage, analyzing employees’ schedules, keeping certain details confidential, and gauging people’s awareness of the incidents. Setting up additional hidden cameras was not viable because of the sporadic timeframe.
Clues pointed to a certain employee, but the hotel was unable to obtain any conclusive evidence proving he was the slasher. After the third incident, he was questioned; the incidents stopped; a few months later he resigned; the incidents did not happen again. But the hotel could never say for certain it was him.
LESSON LEARNED: Most organizations slash prices, but this gives a whole new meaning to loss prevention.
A sales team with the highest numbers for the quarter won an award of $1,000 to be shared among the 10 team members, with an additional $500 to go to the top performer; the cash vouchers were entrusted to their supervisor. The team would not know the exact dollar amounts until the award ceremony. On that day, the supervisor handed her team a total of $700 in vouchers, telling them the rest was to be used for teambuilding activities. The top performer was away on sick leave; when he returned the supervisor gave him $250. Although many team members knew the amounts were low, no one confronted their supervisor, knowing she probably wouldn’t take it well. (She was already on a final warning for negligence of duty.)
One team member checked with sales, who confirmed the $1,000 and $500 as the true award amounts; he then confronted the supervisor, who surprisingly took the rest of the cash vouchers from her bag and gave them out, claiming she had misplaced them. The team felt uneasy and immediately told the department head, who told HR. During an internal investigation the supervisor was reminded of her responsibility as a leader in the organization to ensure that all programs are to be properly implemented with the highest integrity, and she was directed to be transparent with her team to correct any misconception. The supervisor claimed to have had no malicious intent and showed no remorse; she was let go for habitual neglect of duty. Afterward, the sales department implemented procedures for better tracking of vouchers.
The company wanted to send a message to the entire organization that no one is above the law or company policy. Employees felt more respect for the processes followed, more empowered to report misbehavior, and more secure knowing there would be no retaliation for doing so.
The fired supervisor, in the meantime, told former associates her version of the story in an attempt to smear the department head. That incorrect perception was cleared later on.
LESSON LEARNED: Skimming off the top is never a good idea, especially when it costs you so dearly. Career? Arrest? Total ruin? Was it worthwhile?
Over a two-year period, neither the audit, finance, nor IT security departments of a bank had detected that the senior payroll officer of a bank was skimming. (She would keep open the accounts of payroll employees who retired or left for an additional month and divert that month’s salary to her own account.) When a newly appointed HR manager hired a fresh team of analysts and IT specialists for her own department, they found discrepancies that led to the discovery of skimming by the incumbent HRIS system administrator. The HR manager removed him, and she and her team dug more deeply into several years of payroll transactions. They discovered the senior officer’s scheme, to the tune of more than $20,000 in losses. The HR manager brought the foolproof evidence to the assistant general manager (AGM), but he did not believe it. The officer was the AGM’s “teacher’s pet.” The audit, IT, legal, and finance departments confirmed the evidence; the scheme was more than cause for the payroll officer’s termination—the bank could press charges.
The AGM agreed to inform the CEO, who lauded the discovery of the crime. The HR manager confronted the payroll officer (kept in the dark all this time), who denied any wrongdoing. She told the AGM she needed the money for her family. The AGM told the HR manager she had no right to terminate anyone, only the CEO could. The HR manager offered to terminate the officer without pressing legal charges so the AGM would not lose face. That’s when the AGM accused the HR manager of wrongdoing to the CEO! He was torn between a manager who did right versus his right-hand-man. His solution was to transfer the payroll officer to another department. The AGM remained close to the payroll officer and continued to resent the HR manager, who left the bank a year later for a better job. A year after that, the CEO told her that the payroll officer stole more than $250,000 over those two years. She was charged with grand theft and fled the country, whereabouts unknown. Her influence over the AGM clouded his judgment. Many years later, the AGM became the bank’s general manager and was himself involved in a huge financial scandal.
LESSON LEARNED: Good HR is hard to find as is solid leadership. There is no substitute for good judgment during trying times.
A teacher at a private school claimed that the principal directed her and other staff members to adjust students’ test scores to meet curriculum goals. She also accused the principal of having an inappropriate relationship with a subordinate. The teacher who admitted to altering scores was fired. The principal agreed to show up for an investigatory interview, but then drove off without further communication; he was placed on administrative leave and told not to contact any staff.
The school conducted an in-depth review of its test scores. The allegations were serious because the school was a federally funded Job Corps center and had a duty of compliance as a contractor. However, no evidence was found to support the accusation that the principal directed the alterations, so it was determined that only the fired teacher did it on her own. The principal, however, contacted staff in violation of his leave, and witnesses corroborated his inappropriate staff relationship, so he was fired. The staff member resigned. Employee morale suffered with the loss of three colleagues and the resulting staff shortage, but the terminations eliminated future issues with troublesome parties and allowed for a clean break to rebuild.
LESSON LEARNED: Corrosive culture is the bastard child of toxic leadership.
A high-level executive in a large national bank recommended a friend for a position reporting to her, and asked him to submit his CV and credentials to recruitment. When recruitment asked him for proof of the academic degrees on his CV, he responded that he recently moved and they were in the attic, but he would get them. He was hired anyway and placed on three months’ probation. Two months in, the heads of recruitment and personnel told the executive about the missing documentation. They thought she knew about his degrees because he was her friend. The executive said she did not know him in their youth nor had proof of his degrees. She had them contact the named universities so that she could make the right decision. Three weeks later, personnel told the executive that the employee was a fraud and did not have the degrees he claimed. The executive confronted him angrily about his betrayal of her trust and friendship, but did not ask him to resign. The executive consulted another director at the bank, who told her she was jealous of her friend’s success, academic degrees were not a prerequisite for the position, and the matter was trivial. The executive eventually left bank for this and other reasons, and never made the matter public. The executive believed that had she known of the fraud right away, the employee would not have had time to influence the director who now defended him. “Justice was not served,” she said. The former friend rose to become very successful at the bank. His two (fraudulent) degrees remain on his CV and online profile.
LESSON LEARNED: If you are willing to lie about your record, you will likely lie about anything else. #pathological
Two mailroom employees complained about their timesheets being altered. They did not feel safe talking to directly to their supervisor, so they asked an HR associate what to do. She gave them information on how to determine from the electronic time system who last made changes, but the matter was not resolved. They continued to have issues with the supervisor’s unprofessionalism and upper management’s lack of response to their concerns, and within a few months they both left the organization. Meanwhile, two other mailroom employees reported to management that the same supervisor was doing something suspicious with checks and charge codes, and he was out a lot on nonexistent “telework.” They waited for a response and then filed a formal complaint against him with HR. After lengthy delays and consultations involving HR, various other departments and several layers of management about what to do, a director had a desk for himself put in the supervisor’s office so he could observe firsthand what was going on. Eventually it was confirmed that the supervisor was responsible for checks being lost or late and items being charged to incorrect codes. Because management had not taken seriously the earlier complaints of four dedicated employees, the company suffered financial losses related to the timesheets and the checks, as well as the losses of two of the employees.
LESSON LEARNED: Maya Angelou once said, “Trust someone until you can’t.” Sounds like this sage advice could have saved this organization a lot of trouble.
A director reported to an abusive and manipulative department head, who influenced the CEO against him. As the abuse escalated and rumors of his termination spread, the director’s stress levels put him in the hospital. Yet he felt that he could not afford to resign for financial reasons. After he was away on vacation for a week, he found sealed envelopes on his desk. They were notices of employee pay increases co-signed by the employees’ managers and HR, that were normally approved by himself and the head of operations. He had indeed sent in his recommendations for the increases before his vacation, but he had not signed his approvals; the envelopes should not have been sealed. He opened one and saw that his signature had been forged and the amount of the increase was changed; clearly the head of operations did this. He alerted HR, who advised him to use the document as a negotiation tool in case there was a plan to terminate him. He also called his lawyer. Forgery was a crime subject to imprisonment, the lawyer said, but since no harm had been done to anyone except himself, he could keep the information confidential to use at the right time. HR urged the director to inform the CEO of the forgery, but he has been unable to decide what to do. The director is afraid of hurting people, even though he has been hurt. He has secured the papers in a safe place and may yet go to court, or at least seek a large settlement or severance agreement. “Abusers make you feel guilty and cheap,” the director observed.
LESSON LEARNED: Investing a good lock for your doors can keep the creepers away.
An employee received incessant calls at home at odd hours in the evening from an anonymous caller purporting to make romantic advances. The caller used a company number, but the extension could not be identified. This went on for three months before the employee reported the issue and made a formal complaint. The company’s primary concern was the employee’s safety and protection. They were unable to pinpoint the calls originating inside, but as soon as the caller used his private phone, his identity was traced in one day. He was revealed to be a respected senior security contractor who had been with the company since its founding 10 years earlier. He knew every employee well, handled a lot of administrative responsibilities, and trained other security staff.
People were shocked and found it difficult to believe. Following an investigation, the contractor’s dismissal was immediate. His defense was that the employee reciprocated his advances during work hours, which she and other witnesses denied. The contractor was found to be frequently under the influence of alcohol when the calls were made. He probably targeted the employee because she was quiet, reserved, and unlikely to report the calls, so that he would get away with it. Afterward the company made efforts to safeguard the employee from retaliation and any other contact with the contractor. Employees were reminded of the importance of their duty to promptly report breaches of privacy and security, as well as observations of inappropriate behavior. The contracting agency was ordered to have more regular staff interaction, training and character checks. (For reasons that are unclear, a police report of the incident was not made.)
LESSON LEARNED: It is hard to argue with good selection procedures like character checks, integrity testing, and personality assessments, especially after you experience this level of unease.
The sole on-site manager at a small office worksite noticed the volatile, disruptive behavior of an administrative assistant (who did not report to him). One day the admin was yelling, cursing, and hovering over his own employee, and he felt he couldn’t wait for her off-site supervisor to do something; he ended the disruption and called her supervisor. Two weeks later the off-site department head called the manager to inform him that he was about to fire the admin (over the phone) for her ongoing disruptions. That afternoon the manager was in a conference room with his staff when the enraged admin charged in and leaped over the desk to attack him. An employee pulled her off and called the police. Next the admin was seen sitting in her car in the parking lot, robocalling the office phones to leave obscene messages; then she logged into the system and changed the outgoing office message to an obscenity, along with the department head’s private number. The manager learned that the company had long been aware of the admin’s behavior but her off-site supervisors ignored it, never even speaking to her about it, so that it escalated out of control. The manager thought the someone should have addressed the admin’s issues sooner and in person to minimize her disruptive behavior. (He also thought her firing should have been done in person, not over the phone.)
LESSON LEARNED: Craziness can be pettiness’ distant cousin. Let’s hope none of us ever deal with this sort of crazy again.
Every three or four weeks over a six-month period, a long-term service representative would lash out verbally and on social media, wish violence on co-workers and customers, and threaten suicide. The organization offered different avenues for support (internal counseling, employee assistance program, suicide hotline, unpaid leaves of absence), all of which she declined. During the last incident, she loudly and aggressively threatened to murder someone and pantomimed doing so; managers, staff and customers became frightened and concerned for their safety and hers. After reinvestigating that and every prior incident, HR determined that the rep should be terminated for severely violating the institution’s workplace violence policy. The organization had considered its offers of assistance, previous written warnings, the severity of the threats, and the possibility of an undiagnosed psychological condition, and concluded that she presented too great a risk to the safety and security of herself and others to remain employed there.
LESSON LEARNED: You can only help those who want to help themselves. Otherwise, cutting the cord is your only recourse. #safetyfirst
