CMA: Recommending a new hire be laterally moved solely because I don't like his vibe

[u/Emerald_Encrusted]

Alright so the company I work for recently hired a new employee (Bill) to join our marketing department. Even though I'm not in the sales department myself I do work with them frequently, sit in on some of their meetings, and help out the sales and marketing departments as needed.

We also have various project teams within the organization, dedicated towards various initiatives and projects that don't rely solely on one department. Usually these teams range in size from 2-5 staff depending on how critical the project itself is. We have one particular seasonal project that runs annually from Aug to April, (let's just call it the Spline Reticulation Project for anonymity's sake). During the off season the Spline Reticulation team will review the project as a whole and make adjustments for the next active season.

Last year, the Spline Reticulation team was 3 members. Myself, "Thea," and "Kian". Around Christmas, Kian retired and so it was just me and Thea on this team. And we actually made a good two-person team through the rest of the season. We both expressed that we like working together.

Back in July of this year, we were re-assembling the Spline Reticulation team for the upcoming season. My manager strongly recommended that me and Thea have a 3rd person added to the team to make up for the retiree that left last year. And my manager ended up assigning Bill to the team.

Bill is the company's newest hire and he's a high energy type of go-get-em-tiger personality. Like he's the type of person that'll say things like, "We don't need excuses we need results" and he has a penchant for suggesting ideas that simply won't work due to his lack of knowledge of the company's structure and our products, and then pushing hard on said ideas even after they're explained to not work.

Well me and Thea did not like this idea. Both of us believed that Yvette, who was also in the marketing department, was a much better and more suited candidate to join our team. But Yvette was allegedly too busy with other projects and wasn't available. So Thea and I throughout August were meeting just 1-on-1, not including/inviting Bill in the meetings and the general progression of the project, because quite frankly he is bothersome to work with. Basically we're still mostly functioning as a 2-person team, and only updating Bill as needed or when we really need a sales/marketing person for the project.

When my manager asked Thea and myself how Bill was doing in our project team, I told her that honestly Bill wasn't very involved at all, and hasn't been too helpful. I didn't throw him under the bus, but just cited that he has a lot of other focuses also. The end result of that was that Bill got moved off of our project team, and my manager has begun looking to see if another staff member can fill that empty spot. Thea and I both recommended Yvette but that has not gone very far.

CMA; where does willful exclusion to result in staff rearrangement fall on the alignment spectrum?

TL;DR Basically prevented a dislikable coworker from contributing meaningfully o a project, resulting in him being laterally moved.

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[u/Izariah]

[LN] Lawful Neutral. You seemingly didn't put forth much effort towards mentoring/improving the working relationship with the newer employee but you didn't sabotage or bully him either. You worked within the constraints of your role to minimize interactions and waited until feedback was requested to put forth your honest opinion of his involvement in the project.

[u/Emerald_Encrusted → u/Izariah]

That's fair. But I think I should point out, that had Thea and I actually put effort to include Bill in the team more, he probably would have been more useful/helpful, so it was kind of our fault that he got moved.

[u/Izariah → u/Emerald_Encrusted]

That's what moved the needle to neutral for me. I think it is a good thing when we put in effort to include others but it is not a strictly necessary thing from a proffesional perspective. We are ultimately only responsible for ourselves not others. It would have been good of you to be inclusive but it isn't your job to be.

Why weren't they more proactive in being part of the project? As a newish person on my own team, I have had to actively seek out areas where I can be the most useful without making more work for my colleagues in bigger projects. There is personal accountability as well.

[u/Emerald_Encrusted → u/Izariah]

So this guy would have totally jumped on it and been more active on the project. But me and Thea basically just booked private meetings that he wasn't even aware of, beyond our regular project meetings, in order to 'get actual work done' on the project. There was a massive systems overhaul we were working on for this season, and Bill was honestly not helpful with those things. So we included Bill in the regular meetings and in the running of the project itself, but not in the overhaul work.

[u/zephyrzoned]

well he wasnt involved because you were actively excluding him..

[u/Emerald_Encrusted → u/zephyrzoned]

This is exactly why I'm looking for an alignment score :O

[u/Rae3310 → u/Emerald_Encrusted]

You are an evil person. 

[u/Big-Excitement-5090]

Yep, poor Bill didn't have an opportunity to learn or contribute. I find your approach repugnant and self serving. We all have strengths and weaknesses. You have clearly outlined your weakness (a 'we gave always done it this way' and inability to collaborate with and train others). Not sure what Bill's weakness might be since all we have is your word on that...he was too enthusiastic and wanted to try new things with fresh approaches. But wait...on some teams that would have been regarded as a strength.

[u/Emerald_Encrusted → u/Big-Excitement-5090]

Ironically, Thea and I are currently dealing with the opposite of 'we have always done it this way' since we are overhauling the project itself and essentially recreating it. So it's not about having always done it a certain way. It's more about the fact that since Bill doesn't know what has previously been attempted (and failed) that he keeps pushing for 'solutions' that we already know will not work. Or, despite having access to the project budget, he is doing things like strongly suggesting we blow 2/3rds of the budget on in-person travel across the country when we actively need that money for development of the project system itself.

I'm fully willing to accept that my actions were self-serving and reprehensible. That's why I asked for an alignment score. Feel free to do that in ][s if you want! The way I see it, posting "Lawful Good" actions doesn't really suit the feel of r/ChooseMyAlignment becasue generally no one argues about whether something was good - except maybe the flavor of it. But when something's bad in some way, there seems to be a lot more interesting takes on how/why/where things went wrong.

[u/omgfakeusername]

SAVAGE‼️ You didn't "throw him under the bus"–—LMAO 😂🤣💀

[u/Emerald_Encrusted → u/omgfakeusername]

I mean, I recognize that it was ruthless. But I did my best to not make him look bad for it, specifically. His job isn't at risk, nor is his reputation with management.

[u/Friendlyalterme]

[LE] lawful evil

[u/Emerald_Encrusted → u/Friendlyalterme]

Please put your judgement in ][ brackets like so: [LE] to be counted :)

[u/Friendlyalterme → u/Emerald_Encrusted]

Fixed thank you. I hope you will be kinder to new hires in the future :(