When I moved in Hungary in 2006, I started a direct marketing company. In fact, it is the local local branch of an Italian marketing company where I worked since 2003. The company is growing very slowly: we faced a lot of issues with the local market (I'll probably talk about this topic in another post) and only in the last months things started going on the right path.
I still remember the old days when I spent the whole working day alone, in the office, struggling to find the good motivation to work on something which almost everybody around me considered a failure even before starting. I always considered my company as a family, where trust and respect are the glue for the team members. I remember the old times when Aron, my first employee and now business partner, started learning the internals of the direct marketing: he trusted me, sharing with me the duties of starting up the company. Looking back I feel proud of what we did and more conscious about what we can do in the future.
Growing also means enlarging the team. To say the truth, I didn't expect to have so many problems looking for new people to add to our team: I interviewed a lot of people for our "python programmer" position, spending a lot of time and energy. I know that living in Hungary also means dealing with a local, small, atypical environment, but we offer the possibility to learn and develop IT and non-IT skills in a young, international environment.
We finally found an interesting guy, with PHP experiences but willing to learn Python. He told us that he could leave his job by the 16th of June, and he could work with us part-time till that date. Everything worked fine for three weeks then, suddenly, he disappeared. For one week, his mobile phone rang, but nobody picked up the line. No answer to e-mails, IRC, MSN or any other communication channel. I was worried, I hoped he was fine somewhere. This morning he called Aron telling him that he was sick, he had an issue with his eye. He visited a lot of doctors. He was busy. So busy that he couldn't call us to tell us so. For one week. After he started working with us four weeks ago. What is more annoying is that he didn't appear worried about his position, about our project, about our company. If I'd have quit from my job, I'd be very very worried about my new employer who is looking for me for one whole week without being able to reach me.
We are a growing company based on a small team, without a strict organigram and a horizontal structure. I trust my workmates, I trust them so much to put in their hands my investments, my reputation, my customers. The best team members knows that errors in this phase (eg. lost customers) can influence the company future and their job position
In this case, I gave out trust, but I didn't get back respect. I'm starting to think that being friendly and building a collaborative environment, a horizontal structure is not helping but damaging the company. Maybe if I'd be a boss with strong authority, then people wouldn't behave in this way.
And yes, of course, the problem with the eye was just an excuse.
I still remember the old days when I spent the whole working day alone, in the office, struggling to find the good motivation to work on something which almost everybody around me considered a failure even before starting. I always considered my company as a family, where trust and respect are the glue for the team members. I remember the old times when Aron, my first employee and now business partner, started learning the internals of the direct marketing: he trusted me, sharing with me the duties of starting up the company. Looking back I feel proud of what we did and more conscious about what we can do in the future.
Growing also means enlarging the team. To say the truth, I didn't expect to have so many problems looking for new people to add to our team: I interviewed a lot of people for our "python programmer" position, spending a lot of time and energy. I know that living in Hungary also means dealing with a local, small, atypical environment, but we offer the possibility to learn and develop IT and non-IT skills in a young, international environment.
We finally found an interesting guy, with PHP experiences but willing to learn Python. He told us that he could leave his job by the 16th of June, and he could work with us part-time till that date. Everything worked fine for three weeks then, suddenly, he disappeared. For one week, his mobile phone rang, but nobody picked up the line. No answer to e-mails, IRC, MSN or any other communication channel. I was worried, I hoped he was fine somewhere. This morning he called Aron telling him that he was sick, he had an issue with his eye. He visited a lot of doctors. He was busy. So busy that he couldn't call us to tell us so. For one week. After he started working with us four weeks ago. What is more annoying is that he didn't appear worried about his position, about our project, about our company. If I'd have quit from my job, I'd be very very worried about my new employer who is looking for me for one whole week without being able to reach me.
We are a growing company based on a small team, without a strict organigram and a horizontal structure. I trust my workmates, I trust them so much to put in their hands my investments, my reputation, my customers. The best team members knows that errors in this phase (eg. lost customers) can influence the company future and their job position
In this case, I gave out trust, but I didn't get back respect. I'm starting to think that being friendly and building a collaborative environment, a horizontal structure is not helping but damaging the company. Maybe if I'd be a boss with strong authority, then people wouldn't behave in this way.
And yes, of course, the problem with the eye was just an excuse.
i think you did it partly wrong. it would have been ok to fire him. i would not rely on him further if he seems to be a risk to your company. you cant trust the jewels of a small company to a programmer who lies to you. resources and equations in your own business model may slightly differ, but generally i would say: lets look for someone new, even if that means that the effort for finding "mr. liar" was wasted.
You might want to figure out why "mr. liar" had a reason to lie. What were his motivations to "lie"? I suppose he actually is worried about his job - or why would he have a reason to lie?
I don't think you're doing it wrong. I think you just happened to find a person who didn't handle a situation properly. Whether he could have handled it differently depends on exactly what the situation was (whether he was lying to you or whether the problem with his eye was so serious as to make it impossible for him to even think of contacting you).
I'm not sure how you can go about establishing the truth of his explanation, but that's up to you. If you do end up firing him and looking for someone else, the next person you find may be exactly what you're looking for.
People are interesting and unpredictable creatures, and there are no guarantees. There isn't really a right or wrong way to go about finding an addition to a company. In the end, no matter what approach you use, you're ultimately taking your chances with anyone you take on, and it's basically the luck of the draw as far as finding exactly the kind of person you want working with you.
You seem to be a good-hearted person. I wish you the best of luck!
Well. I think when something happens, it has happened due to it was suposed to happen.
I understand your worry now, but the fact is that you aren't doing anything wrong, is not your fault. People come without warranty documents, so we can only trust, and sometimes things go wrong, and some people are not as seriously as the y were supposed to be. And any body can do anything with that issue.
If you have made a reflexion, on how to focus the company organization after this event, I'm sure your new ideas will would be great and will be really good for the company in a future. I really like to think that when something bad happens to me, it has happened because in a future will be better for me. Call it as you want, Ying Yang, Karma, Luck, action and reaction...
I wish you to find someone who will be more seriously and even with better technical skills than "Mr.liar".
Have you ever seen the Steve Jobs speech at Standford? Well he talks about three stories, The first one, is about connecting dots watch it. I think this is a another dot.
Cheers.
I don't think you were doing "it" wrong, whatever "it" is. I think this guy was doing "it" wrong. He may have had a good reason for not showing up, or he may not have. However, he most certainly did not have a good reason for not contacting you, and I think you should have "the talk" with him, to make him understand—or fire him, if needs be.
BTW, your captcha thing sucks. After a "preview", I couldn't submit anything anymore because the captcha test failed, but I can't even see the captcha anymore!
I think that a revolution requires time to work, so maybe your idea was good, but u should be more patient...
Good Luck,
:)