What would you do?

I furnish a nice pickup and gas to my top man ( tring to treat him right) all of the sudden he tells me there is a big dent in the tailgate. ( basically ruined ) he says he can't imagine how it got there yet he is the only one driving it. He denies backing into anything. I suspect he is lieing and hope another car is not involved. I get home where he parks the PU and there is a mysterious mark on a tree limb with his tire marks leading to it, now I know what happened and he is lieing through his teeth. I am not so concerned with the tailgate as the fact he has betrayed my trust and lied. The guy is 51 years old, not a teenager. I am dissapointed to say the least. How would you deal with that? DP

Head on and straight to the point. If he comes clean and is as valuable as you first thought give him a chance to redeem himself. But let him know you are NOT going to put up with this type of BS. Anyone can have an accident, but he should be a man and own up to it. You know his qualities and short commings but this has nothing to do with the tailgate. It comes to a matter of respect and loyalty if you ask me. And by all means ask him why he felt he should lie about it to you and let it be known that you know what happened. Wheather you fire him or keep him this needs to be resolved and only you can make this decision. I am sorry to hear of such things as this cause it's not easy to deal with so Good Luck on finding the right path.

That's right, it has nothing to do with the tailgate. DP

Can't say what i would do. Seems like there are a few choices,
1 call him out about it.
2 nothing.
3 play dumb, maybe move the truck sometime, and happen to park it right where he hit the tree, be amazed by what a coinceidence.

The results will kinda be the same, you'll still have a dented in pickup tailgate, cause none of the choices are gonna fix that.

After that the only thing to gain is proving that he lied.
Don't know if that gains anything or not, getting caught doesn't necessarily change behavior.

The employee can't be trusted as much now either way. I don't think confronting him would make you trust him again anyway.

Keep him, fire him, or just wait for a slow time and not have him back, whatever works for you.

The choices are yours, just consider what you are trying to achieve when you make them.
My view is none of the choices will fix your truck or make you trust him like you did before. And if what you do can't fix either of those problems there is nothing to gain. I would choose 3.

DP,
Mind giving an update?

Update. We are in the middle of a job so I haven't done anything, the guy is on my 623 and is a good scraper man so I don't want to ruffle any feathers just yet. However he has betrayed my trust, if he would lie about a tailgate he would lie about anything and is not the man I thought. When work slacks off I plan to sell the pickup, he is still welcome to run the scraper if he wants to provide his own transportation. So it is going to cost him a pickup and gas to have lied about it. He would have been alot better off to have told me the truth. DP

Dpete I understand your dilemma. You have a good operator but now can't trust him - you are also in the middle of a project and don't want to get rid of him. It is so difficult sometimes to run a business. You give so much to your guys only to have one take a crap on you and this is usually at the absolute wrong time for the business - They don't seem to do these sorts of things during the slack time when you are finding things for them to do for a paycheck. You carry them through the skinny times only to have them bail out on you when you have an opportunity to make some money.

I agree - I would sell the truck and take away that benefit. Let him stay on if you need him. Either way this sucks and I know how it feels.

If he's a good operator and you really need him, maybe you should just bite the bullet and take one for the team. Yeah, I know it's tough to do, but if this is the first incident like this with him, can't you give him the benefit of doubt? Maybe he honestly didn't know what happened. I have worked with absolute idiots that have done worse things than that with no consequences. He may just tell you to shove it, somebody else will hire him. Around here a good experienced operator is almost impossible to find. Heck, I'll hire him. Just last week I needed two scraper operators and they sent me truck drivers. After working with my "operators", I think you would appreciate what you have.

If hes not trust worthy to drive a pickup you trust him on a machine?? I dont know I realize operators are hard to find too. Call his bluff, no since letting him get away w/it. Let him know hes on thin ice at least.

subject

I agree with thejdman,trust is a thing of the past.If you keep him,let him use his own truck and buy his own gas.My boss has fired people for less than that.:usa

I don't care how good at something someone is, if he don't respect you you don't need him. I could careless about a tailgate, but I do believe in honesty! I would at the very least take that truck from him now, not when it becomes convent. I would also tell him as your taking truck back, if he ever lies to you again he's gone. I mean come on whats he 12 he needs to lie because he backed into a tree. A lie is a lie and that is one thing I hate more than anything. Like someone else said he needs to step up and be a man.

That operator doesn't know how good he has it working for you. Next to me he is the only other scraper operator I have ever heard of that had a company truck. And when I had one it was mostley becouse I realy needed it. I ran TS14 on small jobs were I was the only machine. So I had to pack my own fuel, tools and parts (lots of parts lol I think I wrenched on it as much as I moved dirt with it).

Its to bad your operator had to go and screw up a good thing. Its because of guys like him more operators don't have company trucks.

Only do what will be beneficial for you and your company. Don't worry about what’s good for him. Your loyalty is to you and your company not him. I have had many employees try and hold me hostage before and it is the worst part of owning a business. They think that they are indispensable and sometimes they are, for very short time I hope. I try and a make a list of attributes and a list of negatives about the employee and as soon as the negatives outweigh the positives he's gone. The big questions are; can and does he make you more money compared to others? Most employees when given the chance to lie will. Most employee’s when given the chance to steal from you, they do. The theft might be as small as free gas, or time, but they still do it. Unless employees are compensated by how much money the company makes and that is very hard to do unless they own it, they are looking out for their best interest, and so should you.

The man is all take and no give, He is driving his own car, I traded his and my pickup for a new F150 for myself. From now on operators can provide their own transportation, no more mister nice guy. DP

After all that trouble you should have got yourself a real truck. At the very least a super-duty F-250 with a crew cab and power stroke diesel. An F-150 is barely a parts runnin' truck.

Ya, but $45 to $50K for a PU is crazy, I'll just go with a little less style . DP