About five years ago my wife and I bought a new car to replace my old jalopy from college. We used every resource we had to get the price down to where we could afford it: credit card points you could apply to the vehicles, an employee discount through my company, trade-in on the old car, and a little cash we raised to picking up cans on the side of the road (okay, maybe that last part was made up, but we used everything else). By nature we are not extravagant spenders, but for this purchase we went above and beyond. Leather seats, all the bells and whistles, even the flashy red paint that was limited to the higher-end model. We planned to make this car last a while, so we were okay with the expense. For about four years the car ran very well and we really enjoyed how it handled and drove. Gas mileage was good and since it was a six cylinder it had plenty of power when needed. Our car was our friend.

However, somewhere around the fifth year, the friendship began to head south in a hurry. The water pump failed, spraying coolant all over the engine and requiring a complete belt change. Two (yes, two) batteries died and one nearly exploded, according to the service guy who seemed a little nervous when he got it out of the car. Strange noises were coming from the wheel well, making us wonder if it was something minor or if we would soon see our left front wheel waving at us from the other lane. Then, right after fixing another coolant leak, requiring us to keep a close eye on the coolant level every other day, the topper: complete and total engine failure due to a completely dead battery and dead alternator at four thousand feet. high on a stretch of a mountain road where there was absolutely no cell service. It’s one thing to be furious that you were going to incur ANOTHER repair bill for a car that you’d love to push off a cliff. It’s a whole different experience to be smoking AND trying to slide a two ton hunk of rolling metal down a mountain with no power steering or power brakes.

We no longer own this car. It was sold for some magic beans and its blue book value about two weeks after this little experience. Why do you ask? An alternator is a relatively cheap repair compared to replacing the entire car, isn’t it? Weren’t the leather seats still soft and comfortable? Didn’t the six-cylinder engine make enough power and give you decent fuel economy? Are the devices still working? Yes to everything, but the key factor was…I couldn’t trust him anymore. The annoyance factor of him became too high.

I see the same “nuisance factor” concept come into play when managers describe employees who contribute a significant amount through their jobs but require more than average attention. As:

o The sales clerk who constantly beats his sales numbers but treats his co-workers so badly that people leave the company or leave the department;

o The graphic design employee who produces phenomenally creative work but cannot be counted on to deliver the entire project before the deadline;

o The project manager who is the best in the company but spends at least an hour a week in his supervisor’s office complaining about his salary and asking for a promotion;

o The programmer who produces quick and efficient results but has a temperament that makes clients reluctant to work with him on projects.

These examples illustrate some of the ways an employee can reduce the value of their contribution to their employer and, more importantly, their manager, by having a high hassle factor. Managers can tolerate employees who do tremendous jobs but give them headaches, but only under certain conditions.

What are these conditions? Imagine a balance scale. One tray contains the employee’s contributions and the other tray contains the frustrations or extra work that a “big nuisance” employee creates for their manager. As long as the contribution side of the employee exceeds or equals the frustrations side, the manager will most likely tolerate the employee’s problem behavior. But if the scales begin to tip the other way, the manager is likely to run out of patience and either address the problem through discipline or remove the employee from the organization.

Employees with a high annoyance factor create problems for everyone. They can create resentment among other employees in the workplace. These ‘low hassle factor’ employees are working hard and not causing trouble, but they don’t see their boss spending more time with them. They may also wonder if they would get the same preferential treatment if they hit a rough patch in their job performance and needed the boss to be patient while they figured things out.

Employees with a high annoyance factor also cause problems for managers. The manager’s dilemma is whether to try to mold the employee into shape, in the hope that the employee will outgrow any problem behavior they display, or just keep cleaning up the masses.

So what do we do about it? We (employees) do nothing about it. That’s why managers get paid a lot of money: to handle headaches like this. But it can serve you well by making sure you understand your own ‘annoyance factor’, or those things that might create an annoyance factor for your boss, and try to keep your ‘nuisance factor’ as low as possible.

For this exercise, you will need to take a step back and take an honest look at yourself and say, do I have any habits or behaviors that could become an annoyance to my manager or supervisor? As with other guidance I’ve given you throughout this book, feedback from others who know you well would be of great benefit, as it’s hard to be objective with ourselves. However, some areas that you can evaluate on your own are:

o Are you chronically late? If so, could this delay affect your work in any way? Would people know when they can expect their work to be finished?

o Do you handle accountability well or overcommit and fail to meet your obligations and responsibilities? If it’s the latter, it’s not a question of when your work will be finished, it’s a question of whether it will be finished at all! It’s not something a manager wants to worry about for an employee for a long time.

o Do you keep your emotions in check when dealing with other people in difficult situations, or do you take the opportunity to try the saying “Never back down from a fight?” Will your boss need to support you in managing the damage to your department or your company’s reputation as a result of your confrontations?

What is the #1 nuisance factor of all time? In my experience, the hands-down winner is the chronic complainer. However, let’s put this in context. Problems arise in the workplace, and the only way a manager knows about many of them is if someone complains about them. Obviously, a manager can’t fix what he doesn’t know about. The most effective complaints, however, are followed by “could we try it this way instead?” or “what could work differently is…” I personally love these complaints because I discover the problem AND learn a possible solution.

But when the person complaining about the high nuisance factor shows up, they usually aren’t complaining about anything specific (they don’t have a particular problem, but they’re not happy and want you to know about it) or they have a long, specific complaint, but have no idea or recommendation how to fix it. They also seem to have a need to bring problems/complaints of all kinds and sizes to the manager’s door constantly.

If you have a complaint or problem, DO take it to your manager for discussion, but include at least a general suggestion on how the situation could be remedied. Otherwise, it’s like he just vomited on his boss and left: he feels better, but he’s got a mess on his hands. I don’t particularly mind people doing that to me, and I think your manager won’t like it either.

If you can’t come up with a solution to your problem, you may not have a real complaint. You may just need to whine. Work problems should be shared with your manager; moans should be shared with friends. But if you feel the need to behave like the chronic complainer, do so at your own risk. As the saying goes, “chronic complaints are like a car alarm: people start to tune out after a while.” Your boss may start to dismiss your opinions and stop paying attention to you altogether…just like we ignore car alarms.

extract from Leave campus and go to work

by T. Jason Smith

ISBN 0-9777237-6-3

Aspen Mountain Pub

Release date April 12, 2006