Common Sense?
August 24, 2008
The older I get, the more amazed I am at how small the pool of practical behaviors known as “common sense” actually is. Case in point – we recently facilitated the offer of a contract to a gentleman in another State to come and work for our client in this State.
This gentleman, with many years of experience, made a series of assumptions and did not communicate those assumptions to anyone in our company or the client company. And in fact, because the client company was not totally organized, he decided to take a vacation during a week where we and the client thought he would be accessible from home and would participate in conference calls and emails. He did neither of these things, and was basically AWOL for over a week.
Now he is outraged that he was fired, outraged that his expenses are not getting reimbursed. This bit surprised me more than the behavior leading up to the termination.
Texas is a state that allows people and companies to sever employment without cause.
And most professionals communicate when they are planning on a vacation or will be in communicado for any period of time.
The lesson? It is worth the risk of sounding condescending, to spell out everything to everyone regardless of their level of expertise or experience.
