A Hopeless Employee

The 'Garvin Factor'
Garvin was the most incompetent employee in the whole organization. He once said help me create a resume and we create good resume for his future job. He had a pleasant demeanor, outwardly helpful, but left a trail of unfinished business and disasters behind him. Garvin had to go!

I first met Garvin when I took up a management role with a new employer. The usual first day introductions were barely complete before I got wind of the "Garvin" factor. The slightly longer than normal pauses when his name was mentioned, the pained smiles and the benevolent comments about Garvin "meaning well" sounded the alarm bells straight away.

Within the first week I had some further unwelcome insights into this new working relationship.

"Garvin, would you please prepare a briefing about the Carter account? I understand they are not happy with our service and are disputing our account. I’ll be meeting with them tomorrow at 2."

"No problems John" Garvin replied. "I’ll get right on it."

In the rush of activity that accompanies most new jobs, it wasn’t till the next morning I thought to ask about progress.

"Almost done." said Garvin. "I’ll bring it in when it’s finished."

Just before midday I noticed Garvin handing a document to my assistant. I finished my telephone call and went out to retrieve the briefing. The briefing was abysmal in the extreme. It contained basic data about Carter Enterprises and could have come straight from their "About Us" page on the Internet. Not a whisper about what services we provided or the circumstances surrounding the dispute. I went to find Garvin only to discover he had left for lunch. When the MD for Carter arrived for our meeting Garvin was still nowhere to be found. You can imagine my embarrassment at having to learn about the problem from an aggrieved client.

No amount of discussion, training or direct questioning would move Garvin to undertake anything in which he did not have a personal interest. His pleasant demeanor was like a waterproof skin that repelled even the most stormy debates. Before long, I resolved to "let Garvin go". Why this hadn’t happened before was anyone’s guess.

A colleague from another division met with me after I had been in the new job for several weeks. We finished discussing the relevant business before he asked with a wry grin "How’s Garvin going?" I took the opportunity to gather some first hand, unedited and very raw data!

It turned out that Garvin had been one of the leading lights in the organization until about 5 years previously. At the request of senior management he had undertaken a new role, widely regarded as a "poisoned chalice". Over a period of about 18 months he had broken down under the stress of constant conflict, arguing for resources and being "hung out to dry" by management when the project ultimately showed signs of failing. There was a period of unpaid leave, before he returned to the less prestigious position that he was now employed. Without going into detail, it became clear that he had been placed in a role for which he was inadequately prepared, and to add insult to injury, unjustly blamed for a system failure. The day to day stress of the role was compounded by a lack of management support. After his leave, his humiliation was completed by a "reassignment" to a lower level role.

I began to gain a new appreciation for Garvin’s apparent lack of identification with organizational goals and personnel. Not only was he carrying an unresolved grievance against management, he was also aware that the staff in general regarded him as a joke. The only thing between Garvin and unemployment was a subliminal kind of organizational guilt.

What was I to do? I could see the injustice of circumstances leading to Garvin’s current lack of performance, but I did not want to be part of the conspiracy to support its continuance. I already knew that the range of approaches I had taken so far, had failed to make a dent in Garvin’s armour.

My decision was to go with a "cruel to be kind" strategy. Garvin was astute enough to recognize the collective guilt that kept him in work and allowed him to wreak a sustained revenge on the organization. I resolved to make it clear that as a "newbie" I was not interested in wallowing in that same pool of "poor, hopeless Garvin" sentiment.