Not too long ago, I wrote an article about bad bosses and managers. It is therefore only fair to present the counterpart to it, namely the bad employee. These are the nightmares of management and HR and usually just as difficult to get rid of, as a bad boss. Having been in management for almost 10 years has showed me a wide variety of the different kinds of bad employees, and here they are:

1. Mr./Mrs. Jekyll and Hide
   These are the people who are overly friendly on the outside. The ones who tend to have a huge, fake smile on their face, while almost hugging you when telling you “HELLO!” Of course, this is until you turn around. Then the dagger stares come out and the commentary starts. There are just as inauthentic as the huge smile they are sporting. They tend to be loyal to only one thing and that is their own interests. Don’t dare to make it on their “bad” side, as they will go out of their way to make your life miserable. They also tend to complain a lot about room temperature and noise levels, or get super sensitive about the same stuff they do all the time. Their second title is “hypcorite!”
2. The Busy Body/Gossip
   These are the ones who focus on everything but their own job. Eager to give you “advice” and monitoring your every move, those are the types that feel their opinion is not only wanted, but asked for and necessary for the success of the business. These are the guys who keep score on how often you go to the bathroom, how long your break was and how much time you may have spent on the phone. They tend to consistently overstep boundaries and make rude, racial or otherwise inappropriate remarks and can’t wait for another sad victim to feed them with any type of confidential information; which they will promptly distort and spread all over the floor.
3. The Delusional Type
   Oh, what fun it is to share metrics with that type! Because nothing is ever their fault, things were always out of their control, or they simply didn’t do it. You present them with numbers; they claim the system was reporting them wrong or that the system was down. You tell them about situations you have observed and they’ll look you straight in the eye, claiming that you saw it wrong, or that it was a one-time thing that never happened before. Either way, you (the manager) are the one who has the wrong perception and you only have it out for them; or you are discriminating against them. Because they are a star employee and you are simply too bad of a manager to see it.
4. The Drama King/Queen
   Ah, amongst my favorites of them all! These are the ones who stand out with passive aggressive and completely unprofessional behavior, which includes rolling their eyes, making comments under their breath, throwing arms up in the air and fists on the table. The bigger the audience, the better the show. Anything to get that attention. Sometimes, but rarely, their behavior can be less dramatic. My personal favorite used to do yoga in meetings, read magazines or fall asleep! You can’t approach them, because they are also delusional and of course, it wasn’t their fault and they feel justified behaving like complete jerks in the office. When you “threaten” them with a write up, they run to HR and claim you are treating them unfairly; or you are too harsh.
5. The Eternal Victim (Also Known as Master of Excuses)
   As we know, I already love this type outside of the office, but to manage them is even more of a nightmare. Of course, just like the other star employees mentioned above, they really shine when it comes to not taking responsibility for anything, blaming everyone else and having zero accountability. Everyone is out to get them and they cannot succeed, no matter how hard they are trying. The problem is, they are always trying and never doing. When you have to discipline them for lack of performance or anything else, for that matter, they will either get defensive or start crying, and then they usually promise you to get better. This promise lasts for about 2 minutes, or however long it takes them to get back to their desk; in which time they’ve realized that you are the jerk and that they are right as rain; after that the bad-mouthing and the passive aggressive commentary starts. They are like a virus and instead of doing their job or “getting better” they tend to bring the entire team down with their negative and bad attitude.
6. Debbie/David Downer
   The company sucks, the managers suck, the benefits suck, their job sucks and overall, they really don’t want to be here. However, they are here because they need a paycheck and said crappy benefits. Instead of doing their job and maybe improving their environment, they do as little as possible and spending the rest of the time complaining to everyone, co-workers, HR, managers and Facebook. They are like weeds and never go away; because after all, they are too down to look for something else and no other company would probably hire them anyway. Trying to coach them or giving them a better perspective has the same effect as sharing your feedback with the parking meter.
7. The Gamer
   These are truly my favorites, because those are the only type that I can immediately fire. I am talking about people who game the system; people who fake their timesheets or steal from the company. The “lesser” gamer is the one who waits until one sick occurrence falls off the calendar, and then immediately goes and takes another sick day. They are technically always playing by the rules, but actually doing just the absolute smallest amount to get by; but usually wonder the loudest when they don’t get the promotion or raise they feel they deserve. When you are making them aware of their patterns, they claim that the patterns are a coincidence…a coincidence that has been going on for a year or more!

Basically, employees can be put in three different groups, the achievers/optimists, the neutrals and the cutters. The achievers are the building blocks of your company. They’ll work hard towards one common goal; they are appreciative and genuinely contribute to the success of the company and a positive environment. They have a “can do” attitude and foster a team environment. Second in line you have the cutters, which consist of the nay-sayers, the negative, irresponsible and drama ridden bunch who bring everyone else down and influence those who are weaker in a negative way (these would be all the people I wrote about above). And thirdly you have the neutral group. They are neither unhappy, nor happy, but tend to get easily influenced by those who scream the loudest and do the least amount of work, which would be the cutters. Because they tend to keep to themselves and don’t speak out, they can easily be turned into cutters.

The most important thing in any company is having a great leadership team in place. Because a great leader can usually not only differentiate between the different types, but also do something before it escalates and hopefully make the proper hiring decisions to keep the bad apples out of the company. Great leaders inspire and the cutters don’t survive long with them, because they won’t stay under the radar, unnoticed and undisciplined. There are those who measure success by revenue created, which is important. However, it is usually forgotten that great employees are “created” by great leadership and that is what truly makes the difference between success and failure.

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