I want a shot at redemption.

[constance]

This week's been a tough one, in terms of the human side of human resources. I don't have to deal with the human side so very often; my company is smallish, and turnover is fairly low (especially for a construction company, whose workforce is notably peripatetic). Mostly I deal with computer stuff, push paperwork, make sure we're compliant on all employee-related fronts. Sometimes I deal with men whose hours were somehow shorted. Occasionally I'm called on to listen sympathetically or help arbitrate a complaint or a worry. I take the employee pictures.

This week, though. I've never sat across from a fiftyish ex-addict (who has slipped out of ex-dom and solidly back into addiction) while he shakes and cries; he doesn't want to go back to prison but he can't help doing all the things that put him there in the first place and he can't work but can't be trusted not to use while he's not working. I've never had a teleconference with a parole officer before.

I've never had to fire a worker who's been on a week-long bender and only came back to the office in the first place to pick up his paycheck so he could go back to the liquor store, sitting in the conference room so drunk he could barely speak, too drunk to remember his own phone number, far too drunk to understand his 401(k) options or the information on his separation notice, and everyone loves him when he's sober but he's sober only when he doesn't have the money to spare.

I am worried about these guys. I sit across from them and want to hug them, or, better, make their lives easier in some unspecified way, but. It's clear they have maybe not the worst lives imaginable but bad ones, it's clear they don't have the resources to navigate their own personal nightmares, and I sit at that table and turn them out. I have to, because it's my job to protect the rest of the company from the damage they can do. But I turn them out, and then the only people left for them to damage are themselves and they're so incredibly good at that. And I've (or in the first instance, the company vice-president has) made it clear that there's a place for them if they can stay clean and sober, but I'm not sure what the odds are that they'll make it back under those terms. I think they're probably running pretty high against.

I've been thinking about a line from a film this week as I've floundered. Am I up to remembering that we live in the same world? I thought I was, in theory, before. And now I know I am. I know that there are men older than I am who make more money than I do who don't have bank accounts and live in single rooms and drink themselves blind every day of their lives, and I definitely have it in me to keep their particular hells in mind when I'm sitting across from them in the conference room. And when they're out in the world as well.

I don't know what to do now that I know I'm up to remembering, though. I wish I did.

Comments

[imkalena.livejournal.com]

GOD. I'm so sorry. That's just awful -- for them, and for you.

But just so you know, there's something worse than protecting your company by letting go of people who don't have the inner resources to either help themselves or use help that's offered, and it's called "enabling."

I'm not sure that's directly connected in the way I think it is, but if you could hang onto them despite their active addictions, that's what it would be.

[saekokato.livejournal.com]

I think the only thing I can say to that is good for you and *hugs*. Most definately *hugs*.

[dahlia-777.livejournal.com]

I'm sorry, T. I'm sure you are ultra-sympathetic in these situations, way beyond "just doing your job". And that means something and must come across, even if in the end you can't offer any direct help. I think addicts need professionals more than caring colleagues, but having the latter is still a good thing.

Also, I've worked with alcoholics - my very first boss was an alcoholic - and unfortunately they are an absolute liability in the workplace

[laurelwood.livejournal.com]

What dahlia_777 said. There are so many people out there who just go through the motions of caring about people (if they even bother to do that) so having that quality plus a solid core of knowing what's ultimately the right thing to do is really something. (Something that makes you feel awful at times like these!) I hope those guys get the help they need.

Hats off to you; if every HR department could have someone just like you, the world would be a better place.

[tofty.livejournal.com]

That is definitely true. And since we're talking about construction workers, here, it's not only enabling, but potentially dangerous from both physical and legal points of view. I mean, we simply cannot let men under the influence onto a jobsite; there's far too much to lose.

Still feel badly about it, though. :/

[tofty.livejournal.com]

*hugs back gratefully*

[tofty.livejournal.com]

an absolute liability in the workplace

In the case of this particular field, that is quite literally true. Keeping a drunk on the payroll would cost us a mint if anything were to happen and he were found to be working under the influence, not only for the inevitable lawsuits he would generate, but for the insurance and worker's comp fines and penalties, not to mention the eventual rate raises.

From a practical point of view, this is absolutely true and I have no trouble understanding and toeing the line. But still.

[tofty.livejournal.com]

Aw, shucks. :D I thank you -- and have been wondering this week if I'm not going to be a little too softhearted to be effective at this end of things. But then again. My father, a cynic to the bone, told me that it would get easier and easier to sit down and fire someone; and when he told me that, all I could think was, God, I hope not. I don't really want to become hardened to people, you know?

I hope these guys get the help they need, too. I have hopes for the first guy, but the second, I just don't know.