I'm a Bad Boss

I’m no good at managing household help. Never had so much as a cleaning lady back in the States. Now Lady Got-Rocks has a maid, gardener, and pool man. If I had my druthers, everyone would just do their jobs with no instructions or feedback required from me. Sometimes I even plan my runs to Vallarta to coincide with their work hours so I don’t have to watch someone make my bed and wash up my breakfast dishes.

But every worker needs to feel appreciated, good performance noticed and commented on. So I force myself to remember with notes in my day planner: Compliment Ana for cleaning the ceiling fans; kibitz with Manuel about how healthy the plumbagos look. As if it were a chore for me to say something nice.

Nor do I deal well with poor performance. I limped along with Manuel for three years, watching as scores of plants and palms died from lack of water, weeds and dry leaves cluttered the grounds, irrigation and water filtration systems deteriorated for lack of maintenance. Manuel is a smart, talented guy who knew what needed doing. The two of us talked about corrective action but not much happened, especially when I was in California, as kindly neighbors recently pointed out. Neighbors who had rescued Manuel with small, no-interest loans almost as many times as his employer had.

“If you weren’t trying to sell part of your place, we probably wouldn’t even bring this up,” they said to me last week. “Manuel is a nice man, and we like him. But we see you’re trying to spruce up the garden with new plants that aren’t being taken care of.”

For the previous two months, in my absence, they had jotted down the number of hours Manuel came to work: My supposed Monday-through-Friday, 7 A.M.-to-noon caretaker showed up two days a week for all of an hour.

That did it. My hand was forced; I had to act. But to fire him without having clearly stated that his job was on the line seemed unfair and contradicted all my previous-life preaching as a human resources manager about progressive discipline. It also seemed unfair that I’d have to fork over a big severance (“finiquito”) amount if I fired him. Gringos rarely prevailed in fired-for-just-cause hearings; settlement amounts varied wildly and were often exorbitant.

So I did four things:

1. I talked to Manuel about his breach of trust, about the improvements I needed to see, about the fact that he could lose his job if the improvements didn’t happen.

2. I found someone to act as his supervisor and informed Manuel that he would now have a new boss. As expected, Manuel balked at this arrangement. "If you are so unhappy with my work, I might be forced to resign," he said.

3. I spoke with an accountant who figured out the much-reduced severance amount if Manuel were to resign(FYI: for a three-year, part-time employee, 10 days of vacation + 15 days of Christmas bonus [“aguinaldo”]) I told Manuel that I would pay him that amount plus five extra days to sweeten the deal.

4. I pleaded with the universe to please, oh please, let Manuel to see the wisdom of resigning.

The universe responded. Manuel took my offer and signed a letter of resignation. A new gardener starts next week. And I’ve learned my lesson. Like it or not, in person or in absentia, I need to step up to being a better boss. It’s only fair.