Latest / Prayer Before Work / You Were Told to Go Easy on a Failing Employee - Prayer Before Work
Transcript
- Sean Graver: Well, there's a new hire on your team who doesn't do the work. But he earns what your best people earn. and he happens to be the son of someone very high up. And now you've been told to go easy on him. Well, my name is Sean, and welcome back to Prayer Before Work. So you're a newer manager, you love your work, you love your team, and then this guy shows up. He's twenty seven years old, he has no experience, placed there by his dad, supposedly to learn some discipline. Well, you gave him the simplest task you could think of, and it still didn't get done. And your team started handing his work to the new intern. So you finally sat him down and got firm with him. Within days, word came back down the ladder. Be patient. Help him. Don't be so hard on him. This could this kid could get you fired. And that one really hurts. It's hard to hear that the rules you've built your career on. just don't apply to certain people. But there's a passage in Ecclesiastes that I find helps here because it doesn't pretend that this thing kind of thing doesn't happen. instead in in Ecclesiastes five or excuse me, chapter ten, verses five and six it says, There is an evil that I have seen under the sun, as it were, an error proceeding from the ruler. Folly is set in many high places. And the rich sit in a low place. So the writer looked around and he saw people in positions they hadn't earned. And he didn't say it was good or okay. He called it really what it is, an error, something wrong under the sun. So you're not crazy. What you're seeing is unfair, and and scripture is willing to say so. But calling it out isn't the end of the story. There are still things that are in your hands. One is how you lead your team through this, because they're watching to see if you'll stand up for them, and they're also watching how you treat someone who's hard to respect. Another is how you see this young man. It's possible nobody has ever expected anything from him. And that doesn't make him easy to manage. But a person who's never been given real responsibility might also be a person Nobody has ever really believed in. So maybe it's worth asking yourself whether that sit-down meeting was about correcting him or about your frustration finally boiling over? Probably a little bit of both. I mean, most of us would be the same. But practically ask your superior a clear question. Something like, what does success look like for him? And what am I allowed to expect from him? If you can, get that answer in writing. That you know, protect your team from carrying as load as much as you can, and keep doing good work. And don't let one person push you out of a job you love unless you've really decided that's best. So let's pray. God, it's hard when unfairness comes with a title and then and a last name. keep us from growing bitter here. Give us patience we don't naturally have and and wisdom to protect people that we lead. And help us to see this young man the way that you see him, someone with a future that we can't see. And and and help steady our hearts about our own jobs, knowing that you see the work that we do even when others don't. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Go make today count.