Beyond Gruntlement
Rubbish ideas are still rubbish, no matter what reason is given for them
I learned recently that “gruntled” is actually a word, and it means pretty much what you’d think.
If someone is disgruntled, the thing to do is gruntle them.
But some levels of disgruntlement are impervious to gruntlement.
This brings me to my friend Toni, who recently had an experience worth relating.
Her situation has a lot to say about how organizations behave when they get big enough to feel exposed, which triggers a dangerous organizational impulse.
Toni was hired to perform quality assurance analysis for a US-based manufacturing company operating globally.
It was advertised as a nine-month contract with a chance at extension or a permanent role if things went well.
Toni was comfortable with this.
As an experienced professional who had moved around a lot, she’d grown accustomed to short-term relationships with employers. While she hoped to find herself in a permanent role with a team she enjoyed, she was also fine with going back into the market or taking a career break at the end of her term.
Her periodic feedback sessions went really well. She was admired by her team and was adding a lot of value. She had adapted quickly, was easy to work with, and had shown eagerness to learn.
At the seven-month point, Toni was given glowing feedback. Her manager created an expectation that she would be hired permanently. The manager did this by saying “you should expect an offer to be be hired permanently.”
Happy with that, Toni increased her investment, leaning into more projects and taking ownership of the company’s complaint record-keeping process.
She was building a great reputation as a positive self-starter known for her ability to balance customer demands with operational imperatives.
And then, something changed.
Just before the eight-month point, Toni’s boss assigned her the task of writing a report about a particular piece of industrial equipment used in the manufacturing operation. Let’s call it Widget 1.0.
The task was ill-defined and outside her knowledge or expertise, but she nonetheless jumped in and did her best. She learned about Widget 1.0, why it was inferior to Widget 2.0, and how the company could adapt its use of Widget 1.0 to maximize its usefulness while minimizing its liabilities.
Her presentation included cool graphics, references, and edgy witticisms designed to capture and hold the focus of any dullard lucky enough to read it.
When she turned in the first draft, her boss seemed dissatisfied. Oddly, the manager passed constructive feedback through an intermediary in the office. Weird.
The feedback was vague but actionable, so Toni made the desired improvements and sent in the second iteration confident her effort was hitting somewhere within the surface of the target.
Nothing more was said about the project.
A couple days before the formal end of her contract, Toni was invited to a session with her manager. Based on the feedback and signals she’d absorbed over the duration of her time, most of all the explicit reassurance of her boss not long before, she was expecting an offer to become permanent.
The opposite happened.
She was given notice that her contract would not be extended, nor would she be made permanent.
The sole feedback from her boss was that she had under-delivered on the Widget report.
Shocked and dejected, she packed up her stuff. Two days later, she said farewell to her team at the end of the day and went home knowing she wouldn’t be back.
She wasn’t so much disgruntled at this point as deeply sad.
Her sense of attachment to the role and team were reasonable. Those things now made her feel foolish for having trusted the company with her emotions as well as her discretionary effort.
She felt used, having given additional time and effort under the implicit understanding that she’d earned herself a place. The more she reflected, the less gruntled she was.
Later, it was exposed that the company had a rational reason for letting her go.
They didn’t have the budget for her role.
Rather than tell her this, they concocted a faux trap of underperformance to make it her fault. She had been earnest while they were playing pin the tail on the muppet.
HR had not only known about the nonsensical pretext, but helped her manager set it all up.
Imagine being such unimaginable shits that you rationalize to yourself that “protecting the company” is a valid reason to give someone a dubiously goofy fake assignment, and to let them pour untold hours into it, all the while oblivious that no matter what they do, they have already failed.
When Toni recognized this, she was disgruntled.
And it was justified. There would be no gruntling. She went from thinking she’d been with a good team and generally approving of the company to slagging it off at every opportunity, discouraging anyone from passing within a mile of it.
Her only regret was not cottoning on sooner. Had she done so, she’d have done her best sloth imitation every work hour of every work day, soaking up as much of a stolen living as humanly possible and walking at the bell even if the building was on fire.
When companies get big enough and exposed enough, they surrender to the illogic of self-protection.
This leads them down myriad dark paths, often culminating in fraud.
In Toni’s situation, she would have borne no ill will toward anyone for simply leveling with her. If there’s no budget, no problem. Knowing this would have allowed her to walk away with her confidence and dignity intact.
The smokescreen employed by her manager to protect the company left her feeling broken and undignified, and eventually disgruntled as the truth bore itself.
My message is simple.
Organizations need to treat employees with respect and dignity. This includes being honest with them. If that feels difficult, good. Doing the right thing usually does.
My message for individual employees is equally simple.
Do not let yourself be part of dishonest or underhanded tactics. Something fraudulent can never be part of a legitimate job description. So rather than defile yourself to protect your employer, make that employer rise to your standard by refusing.
This chronicle is just one way employers engage in the legalized abuse of employees by rationalizing that it was in the company and shareholder interest.
If doing so requires you to treat people like rubbish, you are a rubbish organization.
Do better, or pack it in.
TC is an independent writer, speaker, coach, and consultant specializing in organizational leadership. He has three decades of management experience including senior roles in both public and private enterprise.
