pan6467

So at work I hold myself and my coworkers to high standards. I do not hold my co workers to any standard that I myself cannot meet..... makes me a prick at times but that's just the way I am.

Anyway Saturday night, a black (his race makes no difference to me but it does to him as I will show) co-worker decides to disappear at extreme long intervals. Which means while I am supposed to be charting and doing individual consultations and helping clients, I am instead watching the phones and doing his work. He chose to be up front watching tv and talking to another co-worker, not do his job.

When I approached him to tell him he needed to do his job, I was called a racist because "you (meanining me) wouldn't treat a white co-worker that way". Which is bullshit because I do. If someone doesn't do their job I call them on it because I take pride in my job and if I can't do my job because a co-worker won't do theirs I'll get pissy and bitch about it.

So my question is, is it racist to hold a co-worker of a different race to the standard of the job?

Or is it not more telling who the true racist is when they are the ones bringing race into it, to justify their laziness and refusal to do the job to the best of their ability?

PS this bothers me in that I really want to know if I am supposed to have a standard for white co-workers and one for black..... seemingly he expects me to.

__________________
I just love people who use the excuse "I use/do this because I LOVE the feeling/joy/happiness it brings me" and expect you to be ok with that as you watch them destroy their life blindly following. My response is, "I like to put forks in an eletrical socket, just LOVE that feeling, can't ever get enough of it, so will you let me put this copper fork in that electric socket?"

flat5

He is just trying to take advantage of you.
Let him know (with a smile if you can) that it won't work.

tecoyah

Been there....done that. There is a certain level of fear every supervisor deals with when dealing with underperfomance issues and racism. Its a sad situation but unfortunately it is real. Much as the sexual harrasment blowup 15 yrs ago made it difficult to interact with female members of staff as we once did (ie:joking, flirting,generally having fun) we need to adapt to the "Game" played by a few who want to work the system.
Professionalism is the ONLY savior in this mess, everyone gets treated EXACTLY the same, and no one can be your friend.....this is the CYA of supervisors in many workplaces. If an individual attempts to use his/her race as a tool on my staff.....I simply tell them the truth. "You are not doing the job I pay you for, and this is unacceptable. If it continues we will begin the progressive discipline process on your next infraction."

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Holding onto anger is like grasping a hot coal with the intent of throwing it at someone else; you are the one who gets burned. - Buddha

Toaster126

Your post seems to show that you already know the answer to your question. Don't let people walk all over you, and certainly don't let them use something like a cry of racism to get away with stuff.

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"The question isn't who is going to let me, it's who is going to stop me." (Ayn Rand)
"The truth is that our finest moments are most likely to occur when we are feeling deeply uncomfortable, unhappy, or unfulfilled. For it is only in such moments, propelled by our discomfort, that we are likely to step out of our ruts and start searching for different ways or truer answers." (M. Scott Peck)

cj2112

The key to any discipline problem as a supervisor is being able to document the issues you're having w/ the employee. This guy has done you a favor by playing the race card so early in the game. You now know what to expect when his behavior continues and you end up having to fire him. You will need to be able to pprove that you fired him for issues other than race, because he is going to hire an attorney when you fire him (and you likely will end up firing him.) Every time he is late, takes an extended break, fails to come to work (calling in sick etc.), is doing something other than his job, behaves in an unprofessional manner, etc. you need to document it.

ObieX

Tell him if you were racist you'd be whipping him back to work, and to get his lazy ass up.

And we're all a little racist. The man in question is also racist seeing as how race is the first thing he jumped to. Its hard to not be racist when its thrust upon you at every turn by guys like this.

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We Must Dissent.

ObieX

Indeed.

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We Must Dissent.

Poppinjay

I think you should have gone up front and changed the channel on the TV and started watching a show you like.

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I think the Apocalypse is happening all around us. We go on eating desserts and watching TV. I know I do. I wish we were more capable of sustained passion and sustained resistance. We should be screaming and what we do is gossip. -Lydia Millet

Cynthetiq

what a cop of out a statement, "you're racist" is always a last card to toss down to try and trump everything else and get a bye.

No. You are hired to do a job, if you don't do it, then they'll fire you and hire someone else. That includes if you don't hold people up to their duties and tasks.

and pull him aside, tell him if he wants to pull that racist bullshit card, that you'll then make sure that EVERY interaction is involved with a third party to make sure that you ALWAYS have a witness.

__________________
I don't care if you are black, white, purple, green, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, hippie, cop, bum, admin, user, English, Irish, French, Catholic, Protestant, Jewish, Buddhist, Muslim, indian, cowboy, tall, short, fat, skinny, emo, punk, mod, rocker, straight, gay, lesbian, jock, nerd, geek, Democrat, Republican, Libertarian, Independent, driver, pedestrian, or bicyclist, either you're an asshole or you're not.

JustJess

Yeah, that was bullshit.
There's someone at work I'm hoping will get fired (inefficient, unreliable, very slow) but it'll be a real bitch of a job because she will DEFINITELY play the race card - as if her being black has anything to do with her inability to do a good job. *sigh*

As an HR person... document, document, document. And don't bother pulling him aside, actually - that will play into his claiming racism. Just make sure to have witnesses and do not treat him the slightest bit differently, even though you might want to since he's clearly going to be a pain in the ass. And oh yeah, document.

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My heart knows me better than I know myself, so I'm gonna let it do all the talkin'.

Cynthetiq

you are right.

I didn't think about the pulling him aside part. I'm thinking back to my days when I had personal relationships with my subordinates prior to my managing them, and I would respectfully ask them if they were willing to go head to head on some subjects. Some took that time to back down after realizing that they were being flippant, and others took more vigor and pulled more rope for themselves.

and yes, document everything, no matter how small or insignificant it may seem from interactions to observations.

__________________
I don't care if you are black, white, purple, green, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, hippie, cop, bum, admin, user, English, Irish, French, Catholic, Protestant, Jewish, Buddhist, Muslim, indian, cowboy, tall, short, fat, skinny, emo, punk, mod, rocker, straight, gay, lesbian, jock, nerd, geek, Democrat, Republican, Libertarian, Independent, driver, pedestrian, or bicyclist, either you're an asshole or you're not.

God of Thunder

As has been said, document, document, document.

But, not just with this person, with everyone. You not only need to show his history, but prove that you've taken the same approach with everyone. If you write him up for being late, be able to prove that you've written others for the same thing, regardless of race.

The same thing happened here last year. A former co-worker (who ended up quitting, not getting fired) tried to play the race card. He even went do far as filing a lawsuit. Luckily the management here was able to document disciplinary action against others in the department that proved to be consistent. He filed suit against our supervisor, the department head and the city as a whole and lost all three.

I think one of the things that saved them is that they had recently fired a white girl over several disciplinary actions. The truth of the situation was they were too lenient on this guy (probably in fear of the race card getting played) and then tried to crack down when it got out of hand.

End result, be consistent from the beginning. Don't fear the race card. If you are equal with everyone from the beginning, you should be safe.

The problem becomes that you will be forced to prove that you are not racist, instead of the other way around.

Best of luck to you in what could become a difficult situation.

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I reject your reality, and substitute my own

-- Adam Savage

genuinegirly

I would chuckle as he said the racist thing, then say: "Hey, any (insert job title here) needs to answer te phones. I'm swamped. Help me out."

I can only take comments on racism like that as a joke. It's obvious that he's not doing his work.

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"Sometimes I have to remember that things are brought to me for a reason, either for my own lessons or for the benefit of others." Cynthetiq

"violence is no more or less real than non-violence." roachboy

Willravel

Fire him for being racist to you. He assumes that because you're white that you'll give preferential treatment to whites and be unfair to blacks. You clearly wouldn't do that, and there is certianally plenty of proof that you give equal treatment. He's racist.

maximusveritas

From your description, it sounds like he's just a fellow co-worker and not a subordinate of yours. If that's the case, ou should go to your supervisor and let him/her know what is going on before your co-worker does.
It does sound like he's taking advantage of you and you shouldn't let him do that anymore. Let your co-worker know that you have no problem with him, but that you just don't like having to cover for him all the time. I'm guessing his response had something to do with the manner in which you confronted him, especially if it was in front of other co-workers.