Group Dynamics

When I was in high school, I worked at a fast food restaurant in a mall near my house.  It was a decent first job; I enjoyed working there.  There were a conflict between two employees, we’ll call them Jake and John, that occurred while I was employed there. 

                  Jake had been working at this store for a long time, and he was a really hard worker who preferred things done a certain way.  In my opinion, he was a hothead and probably got in conflicts with people all the time.  He was more respected by the management because he had been there a while, and he enjoyed working there for the most part.  He was the most knowledgeable and valuable member of the non-management team.

John had started working there at the same time as me, and he wasn’t the best at his job.  He didn’t put much of an effort into getting things done quickly, and sometimes we would be stuck behind after hours picking up his slack.  I’m not sure the reason for John’s lack of effort.  There weren’t really any qualifications to work at this store, and they hired a lot of 17 year olds who were looking for their first job.  John’s parents may have pressured him to start working, but he had decided early on that just because he had a job doesn’t mean he had to do a good one.  I’m sure you can see where this is going.

                  So a whole month goes by of John’s poor performance, and Jake is getting very frustrated with him.  John and another employee were told by our supervisor to take out all the trash, and that involved about 15-20 minutes out of the store bringing the trash down an elevator to the dumpster out back.  John leaves to do this. 

                  After about 30 minutes we get an unexpectedly huge rush of customers.  We weren’t prepared for it, people’s orders were taking forever to be made and customers were unhappy.  My manager and Jake were very stressed out and everyone was running around trying to pick up the slack from the two employees who had been gone ‘taking out the trash’ for way too long.  An hour after they had left, the two employees return just as we complete most of the orders and it’s slowing down.  My supervisor is very unhappy with them, and Jake is furious.

                  Apparently they didn’t think they would be missed, and really took their time taking out the trash.  My supervisor issued them both warnings (another stunt like that and they’re fired), but it wasn’t good enough for Jake.  

The manager left a little early that day and put Jake in charge for the last few hours until close.  He took advantage of this situation by laying into John and the other employee about how much they screwed everyone over, what a bad employee John was and how mad he was at them.  John, a blank look on his face, strode immediately from the store.  Fuming, Jake went into the back to brood. 

The other employee was pretty embarrassed, we all went back to doing our jobs and didn’t really talk about it the rest of the night.  I understood Jake’s frustration, but it was very uncalled for and rude.  He let his emotions get the best of them.  Other employees related to the manager exactly what happened, and he fired Jake for behaving that way.

Obviously, if John and the other employee were doing their jobs correctly, this never would have happened.  We also happened to become very busy at an odd time, which made their goofing off negatively affect the entire team.  Jake definitely should have kept his emotions in check; he didn’t have the authority to harshly reprimand them.