Sometimes things simply don’t work out. You’ve done everything you can to solve a workplace problem as an employee, co-worker, or boss. As an employee, you’ve repeatedly tried to explain, open up channels of communication, apologize for perceived wrongs, clarify what your boss wants, or otherwise improve relationships. As a coworker, you’ve tried to meet another employee more than halfway, but still he or she disrupts your work and screams at you. As a boss, you’ve tried to be extra diplomatic in telling the employee what he or she did wrong and what you expect, and you’ve tried to be understanding in listening to problems, but the excuses continue. Thus, nothing seems to be working, no matter how many conflict resolution or problem solving strategies you try and you are facing a workplace that might be considered a hostile working environment or one that borders on harassment. So what then?
Unfortunately, there are times when you can’t work out problems through non-legal methods. Ideally, first do everything you can to reach an amicable solution, taking into account your concerns and those of the other party in the present situation. But after repeated failures, if you think the situation is hopeless and feel it’s time to give up, it may be time to go legal—and that means getting strategic and tough. As they say, "choose your battles" so you don’t end up fighting too much, particularly in hard to win situations. But once you decide to engage in a battle, do so to WIN—using the best strategy you can, whether you go it alone, turn to a union or trade association rep, or hire an attorney.
That’s what happened to one woman who wrote me—I’ll call her Doreen. She worked for a government agency and got promoted to another office, where her boss Teresa was missing a receptionist and under a lot of pressure. Doreen offered to help with that position as well as her own job, and Teresa was very appreciative. So the first months were fine.
But soon problems began mounting. Teresa would get off the phone with a client or even her husband and children and angrily slam the phone down. She frequently frowned at everyone, casting a pall of gloom over the office. She was also overly critical when Doreen had to take a week’s sick leave for an operation. Then tensions mounted even more when Teresa hired a long-time personal friend, Judy, to be the receptionist. Judy was often away from her desk and made personal calls on work time, yet Teresa looked the other way out of friendship. So one day, Doreen wrote Teresa a letter about how the office could better use Judy to get more work from her, including helping her, so she could better do her own job.
The letter was like lighting a match to kindling to start a fire. As much as Doreen saw the letter as a diplomatic gesture, Teresa saw it as a challenge to her authority and went ballistic—screaming at Doreen, and after that, making her job a "living hell," by continually criticizing her, yelling at her, checking up on her, and giving her extra grunt work. So what should Doreen do?
What Should Doreen Do?
Here are some possibilities. In Doreen’s place, what would you do and why? What do you think the outcomes of these different options would be?
- Send a more detailed letter to Theresa to explain the situation further and suggest some alternatives that might improve relationships and productivity in the office.
- Apologize again and show even more humility, to indicate how truly sorry you are and how much you want to work things out.
- Just work harder, even if it isn’t fair, since eventually your hard work and silence will pay off, especially if Teresa has to fire her childhood friend and needs someone else who can do the job.
- Recognize that this situation can’t be resolved easily, and start documenting all the ways in which Teresa mistreated you and Doreen messed up, so you can use this if you have to go legal.
- Find another colleague you feel close to, so you can share your concerns and feel more support to know someone else feels the same way.
- Other?
My first suggestions to her were to try a mix of understanding and diplomacy. Maybe her boss had changed because of pressures on or off the job, making her more difficult to work with. Maybe Teresa’s choice of hiring her childhood friend had backfired, putting her in a double bind of feeling loyalty to the friend, but finding her friend wasn’t doing a good job. So she was reluctant to discipline her friend like a regular employee, felt guilty about this, and was taking it out on Doreen.
Thus, I suggested assorted "let’s work it out" strategies, such as having a heart-to-heart discussion with her boss, during which Doreen might try to talk about what happened in a neutral conciliatory way to work things out. If it was hard to set up a meeting verbally, maybe Doreen could write a brief letter about how she hoped to work things out and point out how she and Teresa had once had a very good relationship.
Perhaps she could apologize if she had said some things she regretted or if there were lingering hard feelings about previous encounters. The discussion might also help clarify job responsibilities and expectations. Perhaps Doreen could talk to the receptionist who had been Teresa’s childhood friend to work out a fairer distribution of work to take some pressure off her boss. Or maybe Doreen might find a co-worker who had a good relationship with both her and her boss to act as a go-between. Then, too, she might prioritize how much she wanted to stay there and work things out versus finding another job. In short, there were all sorts of routes Doreen might try to achieve a resolution.
However, as it turned out, though Doreen tried all of these approaches, nothing seemed to work. Her boss didn’t want to talk about the problem; the receptionist wasn’t interested in working harder; and her boss kept yelling and insulting her, culminating in a big blow-up when Teresa returned from a trip to visit one of her children who was having personal problems. Teresa came back to the office stressed out and began a tirade against Doreen, at which point Doreen gave up, contacted her union rep who advised her she had a case against her boss for harassment and permitting a hostile work environment to continue. So she filed a complaint against her boss for these causes of action and turned the matter over to her union to handle as a legal case.
Unfortunately, sometimes you do have to take some legal or official action when nothing else works. If so, it’s a good idea to start preparing for this alternative once you think things might be hard to resolve, such as when your efforts to find an amicable resolution are continually rebuffed. Besides talking to a lawyer or union rep at some point if the problem continues, a key to this preparation is to document what has happened in an organized way, such as by keeping a daily dated chronology, in which you describe each incident in detail. This will help you both in presenting the situation to a legal adviser and to any legal action you may want to take down the road. Meanwhile, remain cool yourself to reduce any grounds for a legal counterattack. (After all, your adversary might be keeping a journal too.)
In the chronology, include the names of any witnesses to these events and contact numbers for easy follow-up. Any lawyer or grievance representative will ask you for such a chronology, and if you already have one prepared, this will help your case. At the same time, steel yourself so you are psychologically prepared to do battle, whether you remain on the job and fight it out there or you leave and afterwards seek compensation for damages. In addition, if this applies in your situation, look for other people who have been similarly affected, since they are potential witnesses or possibly victims in a multiple-plaintiff or class action suit.
Yet, even if you decide to go legal, it’s best not to threaten any legal action while you are still preparing and gathering evidence, since positions will usually harden and anger will increase, making it harder to work things out. But once you are ready to go the legal route, play your legal cards to win.
In short, the first step should be to work things out. But if your efforts repeatedly fail, consider going legal, and if so, fight to win by preparing yourself with the documents and winning attitude you need for victory.
Today’s Take-Aways:
- As in war, so in the workplace. Do all you can to stay out of the battle; but once you enter it, fight to win.
- Before you go into a legal battle, get prepared both legally andpsychologically—with documents and a positive "I’m going to win" attitude.
- As in poker, keep your plans to go legal to yourself until you are ready to act; then show your cards.