Fire the Dead Wood!

I say fire the dead wood!


I never knew how much a team could be affected by the non-performance of just one member. And now that I am directly affected a.k.a. the scapegoat, I'm just really upset at how a person I thought was my friend could do something so selfish as this. Perhaps again I have fallen into the trap of treating my workmates as my friends. I keep telling myself to form boundaries, but they just dissolve when times are good and I let my guard down and get hurt in the end.

Every day I try to start out positive but inadvertently I'll revisit the thought of resigning and fantasise about throwing in the letter and seeing their reaction. But I know that the ones who would suffer would not be the dead wood, but my other team members who already have too much on their plates. Although I suspect that I would be worse off, I can't help feeling regret for turning down the other offer where I would have had a promotion in designation and pay.

So the question is, what are the bosses doing about this problem? It has been building up for more than a year and I am sure it is not a secret. The Senior GM is aware to a certain extent (I know this for a fact as he mentioned it in passing during my appraisal session last year) but no disciplinary action is being undertaken. The portfolio reshuffle has thrown everyone off course and given the dead wood another excuse to deflect work.

Watching the leadership shying away from their responsibility of implementing accountability on each member of the team is demotivating. Who then is going to champion fairness and justice for the rest of us? I thought in the private sector, rewards was directly proportional to performance. But apparently it isn't. The leadership is afraid of making the dead wood cry (literally), and so they continue to give undeserved rewards. Whereas the rest of us struggle to even breach the 'meet expectation' rating.

I'm sorry to say that within the past month I have transitioned to doing all this for the sake of my resume and not for the Company anymore. I no longer have an attachment to my portfolio and how the companies are performing. In short, I no longer have the desire to take ownership of what I'm working on because in a whim, the bosses can redesignate you to a different portfolio to clean up the mess others have made and let others enjoy the groundwork you have built for almost 2 years.

It irks me that I have to put on a counterfeit smile daily in addressing the dead wood. I have to, because I still need to know how deep is the shit. And I hate it when our business units start blaming me for unattended work that was before my time. I hate myself for hating someone this much and I really don't know how long more I can take it here. Outstanding work might iron out eventually but my respect and trust has been totally annihilated.

So I say "fire the dead wood" and save the rest of the team before we all start leaving too.