What do you do when you want to wring someone's neck?
Do you wring it? Do you tell them you want to wring their neck? Or do you keep it a secret until you sneak up behind them while they’re in line at the coffee shop, stab them with a shiv, plant it on the guy in the trenchcoat, and sneak away?
ON A SERIOUS NOTE:
Currently, I’m the vice president of an organization that has a multi-thousand dollar event coming up, and the “president” has completely checked out. I have called and emailed him multiple times per week, every week, and haven’t heard from him in two months. I pretty much hate the guy and want to kill him for leaving me to do all of this work on my own. Besides the fact that he’s the supposed “president” officially, he’s been in the organization longer than I have, and knows how to do things I don’t. It’s not just that I have to do stuff myself, it’s that I have to re-invent the wheel because he won’t return my phone calls.
It’s not about the credit, everyone knows I’m doing all the work and acting as president; all of the other members of the organization respect and look up to me. It’s not that.
It’s that I need HELP!
What’s your best advice?
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11 Answers
Call a meeting of your board, get him kicked off. Have yourself appointed interim president, and do what you need to do your way.
I’m with Alfreda. He needs to go. If you have free reign in the meantime, hire an event planner to help you get it done. Good luck!
Channeling JackAdams: Assassination is always an option!
Become an entrepreneur and have all your underlings pay you to smite your boss.
Seriously, though—Are you hiring?
Remove the dead wood as Alfreda said.
It’s not about the credit. I don’t care who calls who what. Everyone knows I’m in charge, and I already have free reign. I need help, and we can’t afford to hire event planners or boss-smiters, so no, ponderinarf. And I’m really starting to hate the guy.
I just don’t know how to approach it. I’ve tried being matter-of-fact. I’ve tried whining and throwing a tantrum into his voice mailbox, and that actually did get me a returned call, but I was unable to answer it due to circumstances beyond my control, and he never called again. I haven’t tried threatening him, but I’m honestly thinking about it.
I don’t want to kick him out, I want to let off steam and then try to work with him, but I don’t know how to go about it. Maybe I should have made that more clear.
Could you simply refuse to do any more work on it until he contacts/helps you?
Definitely go to people that have some sort of control over him and let them know what’s going on, with as much documentation as possible. Maybe he won’t be fired, but the better the paper trail is, especially when it comes to laziness and lack of commitment and work ethic, the better chance that he will be reprimanded or punished in some way. Present it in a manner of “I just want to get this done because it’s what’s best for the company.” That makes you look like more of a team player in the long run.
Update!
For those who are curious how I resolved the issue, about 2 weeks ago, I finally hit on something that worked. I took all of your suggestions, sort of. I found out how to have him thrown out and myself appointed the president, and then I called him and calmly explained to his answering machine that if he didn’t show up, it was exactly what I was going to do. I left another message saying the same thing a few days later. He showed up. He pitched in. He did a lot of stuff that I would have had to do if he hadn’t shown up. So on the one hand, I was very pleased with the way things turned out. On the other hand, he made a big mistake (of not being honest with me about something) that cost the organization $80 for no reason, that I’m pretty upset about. But all in all, I’m really pleased with how things turned out. Thank you for the suggestions everyone!
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