Recently, I had to put one of my employees on a PIP due to his issues with administrative tasks and the fact that he was basically kicked off a work site because the site managers didn’t trust him anymore. He happens to be one of my favorite employees (honestly, I like all of the people on my team), and I didn’t want to do it, but it was the logical next step. So after I wrote the PIP and got it approved by HR and my boss, I presented it to him. I tried to be positive — I basically told him that there were certain areas in which he was not meeting standards, that we’re going to put it in writing and give him 60 days to improve, and that we were going to work together to make sure he succeeded.

In this meeting, I talked about setting goals that were achievable and making sure he achieved them. At the end of the meeting, I asked him if he had any questions or concerns I could help with, and he said something to the effect of:

How’s your book writing going?

Now, my team all knows that I’m a writer — I have my sci-fi books displayed on my desk for all to see. And, a few weeks ago, I gave a training presentation on goal-setting and SMART goals. At the end of that presentation, I said I had a goal of getting one of my novels done by the end of Q2, and that everyone on the team was welcome to hold me accountable to that. Most of the team just laughed — I said it with the intent to be funny — but this employee actually brought it up. Which was actually rather thoughtful of him, to be honest, but he also hoisted me with my own petard.

There is no way I’m finishing any of my sci-fi or fantasy novels by the end of Q2. I have way too much going on (some of which I’m going to talk about in the coming weeks). But I do have one book that my daughter is editing (for slang, mostly), and she’s also writing an afterword for it because the subject is relevant to her. It’s going to be published under the same name as my sci-fi novels, so I won’t be linking it here, but I have discussed it in the past. I think, as soon as she finishes the afterword, I should be able to go through, make the few changes she recommended, and move to the next step in the process: typesetting. I could conceivably have the book out before the end of Q2, or at the very least have it ready to publish by then even if I don’t release it until Q3.

I told my employee all of this, and mentioned to him the reason why I had to modify my goals, and he seemed fine with that, but I do appreciate that he cared enough to remember what I said in the presentation and actually bring it back up.

I really hope this guy makes it through the PIP. I have no desire to fire him. But at this point it’s all up to him.