Emotional Intelligence

I hate dealing with problematic employees. Every work situation has at least one person who makes everybody crazy. They don't get it, aren't socially adept, have weird quirks, lash out at others and generally make everybody miserable. Everyone knows it but the person themselves. No one has any idea how to address it. Bosses let it ride because its such a difficult thing to prove, and after all, they have to make a living somewhere. If it becomes really intolerable, they finagle a way to get rid of the person who doesn't see it coming and spends the next ten years trying to recover in one way or another. I hate dealing with problem employees.

But in every job I have held, the situation arises. In various places and at various times, I have tried numerous approaches, and finally settled on absolute and immediate honesty. Which is not easy by any means. You find yourself saying the things everyone else has wanted to say but didn't. And you end up in arguments because the person has no idea what you are talking about and isn't convinced that you are trying to help them.

I'm not a counselor, a psychologist, a trained career expert or even a CEO. Just a person who is tired of putting up with people in the wrong jobs, trying their best to do something they are mostly unsuited for, and making everybody miserable. Today I was given a new key to use. Its called emotional intelligence. Many of these sorts of people never grew up emotionally. It is especially true of mental geniuses - they may excel at the brainiac stuff, but they stink at the social stuff. Employees prefer the socially ept to the mentally ept. Who knew?

All these years we thought straight A's and memorizing everything that might be asked on Jeopardy were the keys to success. Not so! Its a new area for me. I am learning to subtly assist these social outcasts in exercising their long atrophied emotional muscles - and am amazed at the results! Maybe there's something to this stuff. Not that its the end all, but at least the next time I encounter this sort of thing, I will have a new tool to try.

Meanwhile, I wonder who *I* am driving crazy??!!