Story time. I have an employee working for me at my barn. The past week or two he has been late to work without saying anything because of another job, but not just like 15 mins late, I’m talking 2 hours late. We had a discussion about it. Told him it can’t happen again and if his availability has changed, he needs to let me know so I can schedule

Accordingly

Okay, so we haven’t even had a week go by since that, and I also had reminded him during the discussion that he needs to “Communicate with me.” Don’t consider that unreasonable.

Now, today I literally TELL him that I’m on my way up. Get there and not only is he not there but his phone which is for clocking in and out and geolocked is sitting on the table in the office. I ask the property owner if he’s been there and he goes “Yeah, he just went out to grab something to eat real quick” Which I’m like “What? He just got here.

Even more, he hadn’t bothered to bring in the ONE horse that comes in to eat before doing that?”

(placeholder for the rest so I can drive home)

drive safely

[Okay, home now, so time to continue.]

Now mind you, he was due in at 6pm. His clock in is at 6:20pm. I show up around 6:30pm, he's not there. No idea where he went which is why I asked the owner if he knew. So, he drives back in at 7pm, and mind you, his phone is left on the office table the entire time he's gone. Already sketch there. The owner has said that he went out to eat.

When he returns, I ask him where he's been?

He tells me that he went out to run an errand for the owner. He's not there working for the owner. He's working for me. I rent the property, so there in my mind, there is no reason he should be doing errands, especially off property errands for the owner on my time without at least running it by me. Remember that communication thing I mentioned?

I start to bring up that he shouldn't be doing that on my time without him asking me first, and he storms off before I can even finish and starts yelling about how he's done so much and that I"m treating him like a child and how it shouldn't be a problem that he was gone for 15 minutes on the clock, ect.

He puts on this whole show of trying to get a hold of the "owner" to supposedly prove he was running an errand for him, which if that was actually the case, and I assume it was just him creating a scene at that point, then I would have been straight with the owner, who I have a great relationship with, that he can't be doing errands for him on my time.

Pretty certain the owner would have been fine with that honestly.

So, we get to talking, and he. brings the feeling treated like a child thing and I tell him that I am currently trying having an adult conversation with him and that is merely being held accountable for his actions. I'm not yelling, I'm not angry, I'm just annoyed at the blatant disrespect for myself, my time, and my business that he's working for.

He threatens to leave, I motion for him to feel free to leave, I wasn't stopping him. He calms down and I ask him if he wants to leave. He says no. I politely tell him that this can't happen again and to head back to work, but remind him one last time this can't happen again.

Like, am I the one in the wrong here? Because I feel like I had every right to reprimand him at this point. Especially since I'd had polite conversations with him more then once prior to this. He has a habit of trying to gaslight me when I do it, and that's where he's hitting the disrespect button the most.

he's being kind of a brat, yeah

fuzzysquish: Yeah, he is. He's not the first person I've employed that has tried to pull this shit, and he's crazy if he thinks I don't see what he's doing. The ones who complains they're getting treated like children apparently don't know how children are treated.