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Are coworkers or office politics driving you nuts? Any good stories? Talk to me people! (And feel free to offer your thoughts on the failures of management and business development. I’ve got lots of questions about those.)


I’ll start with two burning questions I’ve had for a couple years now –


1. Why do companies expand their staff on the idea that they MIGHT get some new contracts? This seems to go against common sense to me. I would think you would keep a small staff until you were awarded the contracts, then move quickly to hire people after the fact. Anyone else experience this in their companies?

Our company keeps adding to its staff when we already have more than enough workers to do the job. Three of my friends have confided in me that they often have nothing to do. Like absolutely NOTHING to do and nothing to put on their timesheets. They are a little ticked about the new hires. Any business planners or bosses out there want to try to explain this strategy?


2. Changing topics, what’s the point of the performance review (or staff appraisals)? A lawyer friend of mine once told me that they can fire you at any time they want, and they don’t need to justify cause. He said that having a history of good performance reviews is pretty meaningless in the end. Does anyone else find the process a total waste of time?

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Katie, speaking as someone involved in hiring and firing issues a lot, I'd say that documenting cause even under "at will" employment arrangements is very important. You have no idea how common it is to get sued these days. Especially, unfortunately, by women claiming sexual harassment or minorities claiming discrimination. The degree to which it happens probably would sound pretty bizarre to people who didn't have to deal with it or with the threat of it.

Critically to the whole thing is that you do not have to have a good case at all. This is handled through insurance companies, who generally find it quicker and easier to just pay off claims. A quick 10 or 20 thousand paid to contain liability quickly is often much better to them than having open-ended liability that will only get resolved god-knows-when. After all, they can just raise your rates to compensate for it. As the business owner, there's not a lot you can do about it.

A business owner without, for whatever reason, insurance coverage in effect during the time of the claimed incident faces losing his whole business, sometimes a lifetime's worth of effort -- AND still having to pay his attorneys anyway.

Your lawyer friend told you what's pretty meaningless to him, because he doesn't see himself as the huge cost burden he is. That is, if he expends any significant number of hours but wins, in his mind, it's a win for the client. So it's close to a non-issue. For him. But he didn't really bear the risk, and he isn't paying his own bill, either.

For people bearing the risk and paying the bills, and reporting to their superiors about how they handled both and why this problem ever even arose, it's valuable to have things documented so the process never gets as far as a lawyer in the first place.