The Good, The Bad, The Ugly: Part V
You’re reading Part Five of a series. For clarity and flow, start at the beginning. Names in this article have been changed.
She was my right-hand in business, and my best friend. When we spend too long denying what’s right in front of us, it makes it all the more difficult to separate the business from the pleasure.
In the first quarter of ‘07, Sue indicated that she had personal finance issues and was considering finding a second job. When another client - who also happened to be a great friend of mine - needed someone to help her for three hours a day, 2-3 days a week, I thought that if Sue was to do outside work, it would be good if I knew what the work was, and what the hours were. The two hit it off right away. Sue would work at the other office from 9 a.m. to noon three days a week. She’d make up the time with me in the evenings and on weekends. I didn’t care for the fact that she wasn’t always in the office, but my core concern was that the work got done. I actually felt good about doing a favor for two friends, and as Sue’s life at home was deteriorating, with the extra income she’d be able to find a decent apartment for her and her daughter.
Several weeks after adopting this new schedule, I realized that more and more work was not getting done. Staff members were sending business requrests via e-mail and all too often were not receiving responses until days later, if at all. I addressed the situation and Sue took offense at my concern that she might not be working her full hours. We’d always had a standing agreement that if she needed a day here and there, she’d make up for it later. She assured me that she was working, even sometimes late at night.
After a few more weeks I explained that the arrangement wasn’t working, because I really wanted to have contact with her in real time. If she was going to continue the outside work, I wanted her in by 1 o’clock, yet I’d often see that she hadn’t logged in to our system until sometimes 4 or 5 p.m.
I introduce personal issues here only because they did lend weight to how I functioned as a boss, and how I ultimately began to see the light. Despite my family and friends and business advisors constantly prying me to make Sue more accountable, I still wanted to believe that she was a loyal employee and even more, a loyal friend.
My other good friend, Tina, for whom Sue had been working, asked me to be the godmother of her child. It was a most exhilarating experience for me, and I was truly honored. Tina had been going through rough times, however. She was handicapped, with a newborn, and had many concerns. I’d spent many hours, at all times of the day and night, reassuring her of her abilities and devotion to being a great parent. Over time though, between Tina’s issues with the baby and Sue’s failing marriage, I found myself spending a vast amount of time on the phone with each of them, constantly listening to their problems. It was overload and at times I’d use light humor in the situation hoping to make all of our days just a bit easier. I found out later that any shift of focus or attention from them was offensive to both. One evening Sue and I were talking about Tina’s situation and we each expressed a few concerns about the new mother’s own doubts. For the first time, Sue expressed frustration over the working situation because she felt Tina was playing the disability card when it came to non-work tasks that she needed done - often when Sue was due to leave for the day. Sue’s lateness in returning to the office was often attributed to these last-minute things. Sue felt equally uncomfortable around Tina’s husband. I really didn’t know what to say, and didn’t seek to extend the conversation.
Three days later I received a truly demeaning email from Tina. It said I was selfish and bitter and nasty and opinionated. She no longer wanted me as her baby’s godmother, nor as a friend. I was devastated, and with a total lack of understanding. I attempted to call her, but never received a response. Having faced the most difficult rejection in my life, I called Sue, repeatedly, 17 times actually. I needed someone to talk to, as not even my husband nor his sister could calm me. Three hours later I finally got a return call. Sue explained that she had left the company cell phone in her vehicle, and that she would call me shortly, as she was out with her family.
After several hours in waiting, I sent her a text message in virtual desparation. Sue called shortly after explaining they had just arrived home. I read her the email I’d received and she was in total shock. In the days following, Sue expressed disgust and disdain for Tina’s actions, and told me if I wanted her to quit working for her, she would. Sue claimed that she wanted to quit, but needed the money. I really didn’t care, despite the fact it was imposing difficulties on her work with me; I told Sue that I would not hold it against her if she continued working for Tina.
Just weeks later I came to the realization that I was putting too much trust into my so-called best friend. The company cell phone records showed that not only had Sue been talking to Tina just before Tina’s email was sent; she was on another personal call the entire time I was trying to reach her. Remember, this was on the company cell phone - Sue knew that I was trying to reach her, and it could have been about something of significant importance businesswise. However, the hurt really came when I found that during the time she was “driving home” she was on the phone for 45 minutes with her boyfriend.
Call me selfish, but yes, I expected Sue to drop everything and be there for me, like I had been for her so many times in the past. It was apparent this was a give-and-take relationship. I gave, and Sue took. And, I didn’t understand why. We were friends, and worse yet, I’d just lent her a thousand dollars for a security deposit on her apartment. My concern was, if she was so willing to dupe me as a friend, how much had she taken advantage as an employee? It did not take long for me to find out.
I changed my “christening trip” to a business trip. I stayed with Sue (at her request) as we were to work on several issues, including repairing the company finances. I spent countless hours on her back porch, doing client work, waiting for her to perform her daily tasks then generate reports we could review. I peered in the office many times, only to find her playing Spider Solitaire and conversing on the phone with her boyfriend. And I wondered why she would do this right under my nose? The answer was simple - because she could. She’d gotten so used to manipulating me in all aspects, both business and personal, that she wasn’t concerned about anything.
I really don’t know what was worse during that trip to NY - the fact that at dinner with my sister, Sue followed her to the bathroom and opened a vile conversation about me (which my sister later relayed to me); perhaps it was the emails to her boyfriend about me, when I was sitting right next to her - proclaiming how desperately she wanted me to leave. Perhaps it was the fact she opted to attend the christening rather than the funeral of one of my family’s close friends, or that she used me to get information from her daughter to find out why she was so upset with Sue, then punished the teenager after I’d convinced her to open up.
I left New York with my head spinning and a heavy, dull pain deep in my gut.
I got some sound business advice and put key plans into place. The first was to make it a daily ritual to print out the user activity logs. I had looked at them before, but never to analyze closely. I ran through the previous six month’s worth of cell phone records and found that, on average, more than 1.5 hours was spent daily on personal calls, yet the time was logged as work.
I configured the mail server to dump incoming mail records to a mirrored account - an act that employers hate to do, yet is perfectly acceptable in the tracking of correspondence and business time spent on company mail accounts. I found that more than half the correspondence was personal - the account was used for Sue’s online shopping, mailing list signups, and emails to friends and family, a good handful encompassing my supposed backstabbing practices as a friend. I recognized immediately a pattern - Sue spent endless hours complaining to me about everyone around her, then complained to them about me. Her fictional tales of everyone’s downfalls was quite convincing to us all.
For some time, even my husband thought that Sue’s actions might be out of frustration of her own home life crumbling around her. But when I asked about the conversation she had with my sister, there was no apology. The only response was, “I thought I was having a private conversation.”
With a decent plan in place - a good running start on what I needed to analyze - I still had one obstacle to overcome. I’d written off the friendship at this point, but I had to find a way to separate the personal from the business, and approach it with a clear mind. I sat on everything for a few days, lest I act out of impulse.
Next Up: Tragedy hits Sue’s family, but there’s still a business to run. My morality is put to the test…
