TAN 113 TANtamount to Anarchy (Page 30)

How many people here in TAN are Managers over others?  I've got a question and didn't really feel like opening it up to CoJ.

How many people here in TAN are Managers over others?  I've got a question and didn't really feel like opening it up to CoJ.

How many people here in TAN are Managers over others?  I've got a question and didn't really feel like opening it up to CoJ.

How many people here in TAN are Managers over others?  I've got a question and didn't really feel like opening it up to CoJ.

You can call me extension cord, you know when you need something longer

Alright, so here is the situation.

We are in a cube maze.  Two of my employees' cubes are open to each other.  One employee (V) has been with the group quite a while, but can be a bit of a space case and is ultimately starting to bump up to retirement in the next 3-5 years and has little to no ambition to advance. In other words, she is happy doing what she is doing.  The other (M) has her moments but is probably going to be my Star Employee.  She has been doing what she is doing for a while (4-5 years) and is ambitious to advance and learn more and take on more responsibility.

So now that that has been established about their background, V has gotten into a horrible habit lately of just turning in her cube and asking M questions on how to do something and or where something is saved on the Shared Drive.  Some of her questions are about things that she has actually trained M on to begin with.  The constant interruptions have been getting frustrating for M and sometimes she is in the middle of something and when she comes back to it, she has either done something wrong and will need to fix it, or it takes her a while to get back into the thought process she was in.  So it is inefficient.  My initial recommendation to M was to tell V that she would have to wait while she finished what she was working on and it would take 5 or 10 or 15 minutes.  My thought was that V would then get fed up with waiting and jsut do it herself. 

Unfortunately, that isn't working.  Now V is not only waiting for M to tell her what to do when if she were to do it on her own it would take her MUCH less time than waiting.  Sometimes, she is actually just sitting there watching M do her task instead of doing something else, which is awkward for anyone. 

Yesterday it became readily apparent that V is just lazy.  M sent her an email, and V printed it off and then took it over to M and asked "what does this say?".  Fortunately, M handled it appropriately saying "I don't have time to tell you what it says, you will have to read it yourself."  M is very frustrated but also doesn't want to hurt V's feelings.

So, after all that explanation, what could TAN do?

Alright, so here is the situation.

We are in a cube maze.  Two of my employees' cubes are open to each other.  One employee (V) has been with the group quite a while, but can be a bit of a space case and is ultimately starting to bump up to retirement in the next 3-5 years and has little to no ambition to advance. In other words, she is happy doing what she is doing.  The other (M) has her moments but is probably going to be my Star Employee.  She has been doing what she is doing for a while (4-5 years) and is ambitious to advance and learn more and take on more responsibility.

So now that that has been established about their background, V has gotten into a horrible habit lately of just turning in her cube and asking M questions on how to do something and or where something is saved on the Shared Drive.  Some of her questions are about things that she has actually trained M on to begin with.  The constant interruptions have been getting frustrating for M and sometimes she is in the middle of something and when she comes back to it, she has either done something wrong and will need to fix it, or it takes her a while to get back into the thought process she was in.  So it is inefficient.  My initial recommendation to M was to tell V that she would have to wait while she finished what she was working on and it would take 5 or 10 or 15 minutes.  My thought was that V would then get fed up with waiting and jsut do it herself. 

Unfortunately, that isn't working.  Now V is not only waiting for M to tell her what to do when if she were to do it on her own it would take her MUCH less time than waiting.  Sometimes, she is actually just sitting there watching M do her task instead of doing something else, which is awkward for anyone. 

Yesterday it became readily apparent that V is just lazy.  M sent her an email, and V printed it off and then took it over to M and asked "what does this say?".  Fortunately, M handled it appropriately saying "I don't have time to tell you what it says, you will have to read it yourself."  M is very frustrated but also doesn't want to hurt V's feelings.

So, after all that explanation, what could TAN do?