LFA Café
Questions About Yourself => Any Questions You Have About You => Topic started by: MaryAnne on December 19, 2001, 11:25:56 PM
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Hi MaryAnne,
We have an employee who lives in chronic crisis. Most everything that happens in her world seems to be enlarged and a very big "deal". This interfers with her work with youth at a local after school center and we have not had any luck helping her. It always seems that there is something bad happening to her and these "things" take over her thoughts, she obsesses over them, even if they are beyond her control or not even her issue to worry about.
An example would be: a tree recently fell onto her rented mobile home and broke out a window in her living room. Because this happen (late at night) she missed all of work that next day and into the evening. Since her work includes running programs for kids, these kids were very disappointed when their activities were all cancelled. She failed to make sufficient contact with any of her supervisors regarding her absence. We attempted to point out that the tree was not her problem, it was her landlords. However, she became very defensive and angry. Before this happened, it was something else and we know that next week, it will be something different.
We want this employee to be successful and would appreciate any help you can give us.
Thank you,
Jennifer
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Jennifer and Group:
You are all very kind to want to help this employee most places would just fire her. I think you took a novel approach to trying to handle it. I will try to help all I can. First let me tell you this woman is very lonely and does not feel like she is worth very much. Her need to always have a crisis is her way of trying to “be seen” to “be validated” somewhere in her past she never was. I am telling you these things because if we try to fill the needs she is screaming out for there is a chance to get her to change. If not you may just have to tell her that she will have to enter counseling or get another job. You can’t let the children suffer too much for her if she will not be willing to help herself.
But lets try ourselves first. She needs these crisis because she is so insecure. They make her feel important and like more things happen to her than anyone else. They are also a smoke screen, so that if anything she does is not right or she fails at something it wasn’t her fault it was in a crisis. These are all safety techniques she needed as a child to “save” her life maybe literally. They definitely were to save her sanity. But now they are called maladaptive coping skills. So the only way to get rid of these maladaptive coping skills is to replace them with adaptive coping skills. Unfortunately you can not nor is it your job to do this. She really does need counseling.
I am afraid you may not like my response to you but I think this is all you can do and it is what is best for her in the long run.
Who ever her supervisor is the next time she comes in with a crisis, take her into your office. You should never gang up on someone. Always make it a one on one talk. People coming down on her and invalidating her is what she was met with as a young person and she will always get defensive and angry. The anger shows she has some major issues to work through.
OK, so supervisor take her into your office and close the door. Ask her to sit down then say “ I am so sorry about your crisis it must be terrible to have so many things keep happening to you it is almost like life is against you isn’t it? Let her ventilate a little and you validate a little with I am sure it is. Then you say to her I am sorry as I said but this is your place of employment and you will need to start taking care of these crisis after work and not use work time to talk about them, ventilate about them, use the phone to deal with them without my permission and basically leave your personal problems at the door when you come to work. Tell her we all have problems and we all have to leave them also. It is only what is fair to the children and to your job. We really care about you here and we want you to have a happy life also but at work we are here for the children and that is what we are going to do be here for the children. If something happens at night and you can not make it to work I expect you to call me as soon as you know about it because the children expect you and are terribly disappointed when you do not come in. They really like you and you are important to them as well as to the running of this center. Please try to make it so you don’t have to call in because again it is hard on all of us when you are not here and again the children suffer.
Then reinforce to her how important she is to the center, the children and to all of you. Again that you are sorry her life is so difficult but you can not change that nor can she on work time. Tell her if she ever needs to talk about the crisis she is in that your door is always open and you will be glad to be there for her but you can not allow her private life to spread out into the centers purpose and activities.
If it continues then I would suggest a counselor or insist on a counselor that will be her last saving grace for the job well really for her. She needs to see a counselor but first try the managerial technique with psychology thrown in.
I am sorry I wish I could be kinder but this is what I would do with my employee as a manager and as a counselor. I don’t think there is an alternative if you want to give her a chance. Everything is in the delivery. I really felt we had an expert show us that when Clinton was in the White House. He is a master at delivery. He could get people to like getting screwed over by him and even thank him afterwards. So whoever is the chosen one for this job practice on one of the other women and the delivery should be empathic, yet clear and a little parental. Lots of reinforcement about her terrible life with so many crises. Let her know how valuable she is to you, her co-workers and the children so she will feel value and be validated but she has to have someone set boundaries as we call them in Psychology. Only with boundaries can you get through to someone like that, we do it that way in the Psychiatric hospital when a patient acts like she does. Until they are able to control their behavior we set boundaries that helps give them the safety they need to have their behavior controlled for them until they can do it for themselves. And each time they keep the boundary we always made a positive affirmation to them about it. So do add that when she does keep the crisis out of the work place compliment her and also treat her with more attention so that like a child you reinforce the behavior you want to keep and ignore the behavior you do not want. So when she talks about work, does her work and stays focused at work give her kudo's so she will get the message that she is liked more when she acts like this than when she does the other. If she brings up a crisis whoever is in the room get up and leave saying nothing. This will reinforce that the negative behavior is not going to be tolerated and she will be alone. Reinforce good ignore and leave with unwanted actions or talk.
It may take some time and she may quit after the talk so as always discuss this among you and do what you think best because you have to live with the consequences. I just don’t think there is another way, unless you want to take the counseling way first. Which would be fine too. Again supervisor, call her in bring up about the crisis and validate them and use them as the reason why she needs counseling maybe she will stop just because she doesn’t want to go to counseling or looked at as a person who needs counseling. If she asks why would she need a counselor tell her that it is just too abnormal for anyone to have that many crisis so something must be going on that she needs to deal with and it is affecting the center, the staff and the kids. Again reinforce her being valuable and needed and cared about but that the center comes first while she is on the centers time. Give her a set amount of time to get into the counseling and to report back to you when she has it set up. Tell her you will support her in this and that it is not a negative thing. Last say wouldn’t you like to get rid of all these crises? What is she going to say no, so you can force her with those types of affirmations to get help or stop bringing the crises to work.
OK so there are two ways to go (smile). That is my best.
Please let me know what you do and how it turns out.
I do care and really like to know how I am doing and if things work out for people,
Thank you and Good Luck,
MaryAnne