This story is based on a real encounter that happened in a private company in Singapore, noted for being probably the last private local enterprise with a pension program for all employees.Let’s call the dramatis personae Andrea, Beatrice and the Boss. Andrea, who is single, feels that the workload allocated to Beatrice (who is married with children) was too little since both of them are of the same position. When she confronted Beatrice about this matter, Beatrice was extremely agitated and even swore at Andrea. Andrea decided to let the matter rest but the situation only worsened, with Andrea’s workload multiplying while Beatrice continued to take only less than half the workload.
Finally after a long struggle, Andrea decided to confide in the Boss. She told the Boss that she feels the division of workload was not fair and justified. The Boss thus called Beatrice to the office privately to discuss the matter with her. The Boss told Beatrice Andrea’s stand on the workload and his hopes that they would come to a compromise. To Andrea’s horror, Beatrice started crying and accused Andrea of bad-mouthing her. Beatrice also told the Boss that she is having a difficult time taking care of her children. The Boss empathized with Beatrice and put Andrea’s misgivings aside. He told Andrea to put in more effort to complete the tasks since she is single. After this incident, Beatrice has been treating Andrea as public enemy number one, never missing a chance to snipe at her.
All 3 persons are unlikely to quit as the amount of pension received is determined by the duration of one’s employment with the company. Other than her issue with Beatrice, Andrea has had a pleasant time working at her department as she is given many learning opportunities. In addition, she has been promoted consistently. However, she cannot stop feeling discriminated against because of her marital status or lack there of. Due to the unequal workload, she could not have personal time for a proper social life or be with her elderly parents.
Beatrice, on the other hand, believes that Andrea is out to get her. She feels that Andrea should have more sympathy for her since she is having a tough time juggling between work and family. Even though her workload is lesser than Andrea, she believes she is still doing a good job. As there are such good prospects in the company, she will not consider leaving. She also does not think her snappish behaviour is wrong due to her stress. To her, an occasional slip-up is forgivable.
The Boss, seeing that productivity in the office has not dropped, decided to turn a blind eye to the interpersonal conflict brewing in his department. Since everyone is doing a good job, why disturb the status quo?
I find this relevant because when we enter the working world, we would most likely still been unmarried. How much slack will we take up for our married colleagues? How do you think this stalemate can be resolved?
P.S. I hope no animals will harmed in the making of the above picture.
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Dear Annie,
ReplyDeleteI feel that the conflict that you have posted is totally realistic and possibly a real issue in the working world. I think that it would be quite impossible for the boss to step in to clear the conflict since the productivity in the office was not affected by this situation. In addition, neither Andreas nor Beatrice would quit the job just to avoid seeing each other in the office. Perhaps, either one of the parties involved in this conflict should take the initiatives to clear the misunderstanding. As Andreas really wanted more time for her social life, I think Andreas could find a way to speak with Beatrix. She could explain to Beatrix nicely about the anmout of work that was assigned to her and hinted that the workload was affecting her social life. In her speech, she could acknowledge and agree with Beatrix that she has quite a difficult time juggling with family and work. Hopefully, both parties can come to a comprise and share the workload.
Hey Annie,
ReplyDeleteI think that marital status should not play a role in the workplace. This gives is not fair to discriminate among the ones who are married and the single ones. If you are single, this does not necessarily mean that you have more spare time than a married person and thus result in more work being allocated to you.
In the scenario that you described, Andrea feels that the workload of Beatrice is less, this may be a false as she is under this impression. In my opinion, it is the role of the boss to decide upon the workload and make sure that it is fair to everyone. Even though the productivity has not dropped, in the long run, the conflict can be worse and thus affect productivity. The boss should deal with the situation quickly to ensure a sound working environment
Hey Annie! I love the kittens, they are so cute! Ok that aside, I think what Terry and Yuvraj said is right, marital status should not play a part in deciding the workload a person should get because that is mixing personal issues with business, which should not be the case. Andrea should probably talk to Beatrice and get her to take her share of the workload and then be a nice colleague and offer to help her in a few areas to lighten her load. This way, both get equal share of the work but Beatrice could count on help from Andrea when she needs to instead of dumping all the work on her. This way would probably foster a better relationship between them when they see each other as allies rather than enemies. But of course, the tough part is getting her to take her share of the work back. If talking to her does not help maybe Andrea should see the boss's help in distributing the work again.
ReplyDeleteYou've generated lots of discussion here, Annie, with your fine description of this interesting conflict scenario.
ReplyDeleteI'm only confused by the statement "To Andrea’s horror, Beatrice started crying and accused Andrea of bad-mouthing her."
I thought Beatrice was alone with the boss. How did Andrea come to find out that Beatrice had cried and bad-mouthed her?
In any case, thank you for a compelling post!
"To Andrea’s horror, Beatrice started crying and accused Andrea of bad-mouthing her."
ReplyDeleteThis part of the story caused problems when my blogging buddy read it. I rewrote it to try to make it clearer but I guessed it still ended up confusing. Beatrice was alone with the Boss but when she left the office, everyone could see she was teary-eyed. Water cooler talk easily spread to Andrea's ears that Beatrice had cried and denied all the accusations. Thus, Andrea only found out what happened in the private discussion later, much to her horror.
This story has to be taken into context that there are many other colleagues in the office, contributing but more likely gossiping about the situation.
I would post my thoughts on the solution later as I want to see as many solutions as possible before consolidating my thoughts.
Hey Annie,
ReplyDeleteI can empathize with Andrea and I believe we know many people like Beatrice around us. However, we do live in a meritocratic society, and as Yuvraj said, discrimination of marital status is unfair. One should get rewarded fairly according to the work they have accomplished. If Boss cannot bring herself to delegate more work to Beatrice, the least she could do is to help Andrea by giving her less work. (Probably by spreading the damage to the rest of the colleagues).
Indeed, married people have multiple responsibilities, and as I can see from my brother, it isn't easy juggling so many things. That does not mean they can shrink responsibility at work though, and they should have some professionalism and perform their job well. We should show understanding and have some patience for them when they say they do overtime to help out with the team projects, but during office hours they should not be much different from single colleagues.
What I think Boss could do for Beatrice is to either get Beatrice some professional help, or recommend a childcare center for Beatrice so that she can better focus on her work.
Thanks, Annie, for the added explanation. NOW I understand (I guess I was able to infer that, but it is better if I don't assume.)
ReplyDeleteMy apologises that my own take on this conflict took so long to materialise. I just totally forgot about my blog for the last few hectic days.
ReplyDeleteI think what is very important in resolving this conflict is that one party has to be the first one to step out and communicate with the other. In fact, all of you suggested the same thing, that Andrea should take the first step and be proactive about seeking a truce by being nice.
Although this might sound unfair, my opinion is that Andrea should take the step to ask Beatrice for a heart to heart talk. Perhaps Andrea can show goodwill by treating Beatrice to lunch and showing concern about Beatrice's family. I believe that in difficult conflicts such as this one, there MUST always be one person who will forgive and forget first.
Terry had a good point about how Andrea should acknowledge Beatrice's difficulties. Yuvraj's strong stance against discrimination is commendable. I like Candice's idea about becoming allies very much. Chong Yew seems the most experienced about married colleagues since I guess he had learnt from his brother. Haha! He was also the only one to tackle the problem from the Boss's perspective (by the way, the Boss is male) with a good solution of spreading the workload to others as well.
Another solution I came up with was for both of them to remain enemies but discuss which parts of the workload they were best at. That way, both would be at their most efficient despite the unequal workload. It's an idea copied from economics (where emotions are NOT involved) called specialisation of labour.