Liberal vs. Conservative Employees

A Tale of Two Employees​

I have this friend that works for the same organization that I do and we often commiserate about some of the people that work for us. My friend has two young men that have roughly the same educational level, they share an office, and have the same job title and are pretty much the same in many respects except that one of them is very politically conservative and one of them is very politically liberal. They match a lot of the stereotypes that people have about conservatives and liberals so they make a good case study of the differences, the similarities, and the roles people play in a work situation.
The liberal guy, we'll call him John, is openly gay, calls in sick constantly, is often late, has eye-rolling excuses, seeks out and surrounds himself with personal drama, is an excellent writer making his boss look good, and can produce high quality work in a crunch, and approaches assigned tasks by seeing the big picture. The conservative guy, we'll call him Alan, is very regimented, shows up on time, had a very traditional marriage until a recent divorce, produces work that is of lower quality but always on time, is very reliable, does his work very quickly but can't understand why tasks are necessary when they are assigned to him.
In many work situations, both John and Alan would be valuable assets and also pose some challenges for their supervisors. Okay, budget shortfalls dictate that one of the employees has to be let go. Which one do you fire and why?
BTW These are real people and these are exactly their traits. The only misrepresentation is that neither of them is really going to be fired.

 

I would put up with a lot of things when I was running a shop. Except for lateness and abuse of sick time. Probably my own personal bias as I have never been late for work my life and rarely need a sick day. So, while I love a guy who can perform in a crunch and quickly, it doesn't do a lot of good if he isn't there in the first place.

Of course, when I was a shop chief, I was also in the military...so I would have just beat the lateness and sickness out of the liberal guy and had the perfect worker.

 

Have to agree with Stu I would rather have the guy doing the ok work at least I know I could rely on him and possibly given some help he might well understand the why of it all.
The guy who is the star thats all well and good but Drama can spoil a working enviroment as for his abuse of sick time that is a no-no it leads to questioning others who might well be geniune and it can lead to a lowering of morral if he is seen to be getting away with it, same goes for time-keeping.
I have worked with a number of very flambyant gay people over the years but for the most part they have kept that part of themselfs for out of work hours.

 

I used to work for one of the most liberal companies in this country. They would without hesitation have fired John for his lateness/absences. That being said, I would guess your friend is the one I would fire.

BTW, just exactly what does this have to do with liberal and/or conservative?

 

Well let's see if I can rate them:

JOHN

Liberal - 0
Gay - 0
Calls in sick constantly - minus 5
Often late - minus 10
Has eye-rolling excuses - minus 1
Seeks out and surrounds himself with personal drama - 0
Excellent writer - plus 10
Makes his boss look good - 0
Produces high quality work in a crunch - plus 10
Approaches assigned tasks by seeing the big picture - plus 5
TOTAL: 9 POINTS

ALAN

Conservative - 0
Straight - 0
Very regimented - plus 2
Shows up on time - plus 10
Produces work of lower quality, but on time - minus 5
Very reliable - plus 5
Does his work quickly - plus 1
Can't understand why tasks are necessary when assigned to him - minus 5
TOTAL: 8 POINTS

JOHN WINS!!

 

Last Friday we had to let a guy go at work. We hired him initially becasue of his educational background & personality- he interviewed well. He was hired to fix a division within our company that was struggling. We explained this to him in great detail and set forth our vision- he assured us we were on the same page and that identifying & fixing the problems were within his skill set. After about 120 days we realized the guy was overmatched. He blew his budget, alienated customers & employees and always has excuses, usually claiming the problems were worse than he had anticipated and blaming previous management.
Now, I don't know what the guy's politics were but he sure did remind me of BO.

 

Sounds to me like some people (that have control over whom they hire and fire) made a bad decision and now regret it.
Perhaps upper management should be looking at them as well.

 

Indeed!

 

One thing that I learned a long time ago was that there are many different kinds of people with different talents, different abilities, and different work styles. There are the planners, the doers, and the concept people, etc., and they all have something to contribute to the mix. If I had an office full of either Johns or Alans, I'd never get much accomplished and I think that philosophy is sort of lost in this forum. There are many people here that would love to see everyone in this country behave, act, and believe as they do without actually considering what kind of country that would make us. We need the John-types not for their ability to be seated at their desks every morning exactly at 8:00 am but for their ability to expand the boundaries of what is normal and we also need the Alan-types that bring a sense of order to the chaos in a very predictable way.
I think about John and Alan working in the same office and what their interactions must be like. John is too busy injecting himself into drama to care much about what Alan does while Alan is constantly irritated buy John's lateness and use of sick time. Alan had everything under control until his wife of less than a year, without warning, served him divorce papers. John and his partner aren't without their own drama and it has affected his work on more than one occasion. What I find interesting is that the more you get to know about these two people the less and less they seem different. On the surface they seem like polar opposites but just under the surface they aren't really all that different. I keep wondering if they'll be friends one day.

 

Exactly! The parallels to BO are amazing...in this case the people who made the bad decision are the equivalent of the voting public- feeling mislead, second guessing their decision, etc.

 

You are really beginning to parallel Rudy Giuliani. I mean really, a noun, a verb, and Barack Obama.

 

Better Giuliani than Stuart Smalley.......

 

This thread had absolutely nothing to do with Barack Obama but for some fixated reason, both of your posts do. That says a lot more about you than anything else. It's alright to disagree or even hate things but when you become mired in the hatred, you simply lose any relevance to the topic at hand as you have clearly demonstrated here. You’ve become your pet cause’s own worst enemy.

 

Your thread was pretty stupid so I spiced it up a bit. Your welcome.

 

This thread also has (had?) nothing to do with liberal vs. conservative, but it seems someone here titled it as just because he is fixated on on that aspect.

 

So when I wrote, "...except that one of them is very politically conservative and one of them is very politically liberal." you interpreted that how?

 

Unlike the OP, I interpreted it as being totally immaterial to the question posed. Just look at my unedited post #4.

BTW, that is not what you you wrote in your OP until you edited it today, although it makes more sense edited.

 

Yeah I wrote "the" instead of "them". You caught me. Guilty! I should hang my head in shame. Oh whoa is me! Blah blah blah. You're a one trick pony and very boring.

Maybe for your next trick you could stay on topic for once. Now that would be novel.

 

Back to you OP - there remains only one person here who in any way tied liberal/conservative to job performance from your OP and that would be YOU. Just what do you really think it has to do with job performance? Or is that your prejudice showing again?

 

Well that's a funny statement given that you wrote, "I used to work for one of the most liberal companies in this country". Apparently you don't read your posts either.

Nobody else questioned the premise of the story nor did they question the details except for you. They simply gave their opinions on the situation as I laid it out but I forgot about your "unique" way of interpreting the English language. Maybe if you didn’t approach every thread with photon torpedoes armed, phasers locked, and shields up, you might actually be able to interpret something correctly for a change. Sorry for the Star Trek reference, you are just so out there.