Topic: Liar, Liar. Pants on Fire!!! Drama from the Maintenance Tech

My new maintenance tech is a back-stabber and trouble-maker.

There are four of us in our group. Area Manager, Property Manager and 2 full-time techs. The new tech has been increasingly going from one of us to the other telling lies or telling what the other said about each other to the point the Property Manager wants me to fire him.

His primary focus is the PM he works onsite with. She was out of the office sick for 3 days and the day she came back, he told her the AM was on her way to the office to fire her.

He also told the PM that the AM was stealing money from the company with the company credit card, which is pretty serious (since that lie was about me!)

He's the best tech we've had and I really don't want to fire him. Any advice?

Oh my and I thought I had my hands full.

First off, You're putting up with an awful lot just to have a decent tech. But remember, YOU are the manager and the person in charge - that needs to be made painfully clear to him.

Call him on his stuff immediately. Tell him so-and-so just told me you are claiming I am stealing. Why are you saying this? And then wait for his answer. And then you are going to rip him apart. You're going to do this because that's the only option you have. He's going to backpedal, make up more lies and try to deflect blame. You need to put your foot, or 2 inch heel, down and right on his throat and make it clear he is never going to say ANYTHING about you again. Let him go running to someone else after that and see how much sympathy he gets. HR coming to you to tell you that YOU are out of line? All I can tell you is if that were me, he'd wish he'd never opened his mouth.

He's either going to get in line or he will quit. I know you need a good tech but this guy is not worth it. This person has problems, big ones.

And why, you ask, am I giving the advice like this? Been there. Doing the nice gal thing, treating him kindly, bla bla bla. That's just telling him he can walk all over you and everyone else.

Whatever happens, would love to hear the outcome. As you may recall, maintenance is of particular interest to me right now...

Wow, that is a horrible thing to be dealing with. I have a liar on my staff also but his lies are not nearly as grand. He tells those little lies bragging to the other maintenance staff that he says things to me (supposedly putting me in my place) that he never said and takes credit for things he did with the help of his co-workers.

I ignore it for the most part because nothing has been big enough for me to care a great deal about what he said but I would have to put my foot down if it was something like stealing or spreading rumors like that. Good luck and let us know how things work out!

Well, here's the update:

We just got an HD Supply account and he orders himself shirts with his name on them and a jacket, without permission. Taking those out of his paycheck.

We had a resident death, so we had the lock changed so we would know who went in. We hid one at the office and the manager has the other. We only go into the unit in pairs and did I get a shock when he opened the door with his own key when we went to clean out the fridge.

I wanted to say "Do you have your own key to all units?"

His 90 day review his here. I've already talked to him about playing us against each other. He still does it, but we are trying to ignore him.

Wow!!!

No. His having his own key is not right. Fire him. He may be doing a lot of things on the property without your or your manager's knowledge and he is a liability to your company. People who tell lies about upper management without any bit of truth are not to be trusted and will never gain your trust. Trust is the cornerstone of a relationship. Cut him loose now.

Why on earth would you ignore an employee's bad behavior?? Call me cynical, but someone who has that much questionable behavior going on... it's going to get much worse, not better. He has keys that you were unaware of. He purchased personal items without permission. Can you honestly say he won't outright steal from the company - or worse - your residents?

No respect for anyone or for the company he works for. The lying was addressed, he still does it and the tactic is to ignore it. He knows company policies, violates them and nothing is said about it. All I can say is not doing anything about it is the same as condoning it.

As a side note, as far as material orders, create an extra approval tier with HD. When an order is phoned in or entered online, it first has to be authorized (i.e. by you) before it will ship.

For what it's worth - I'm in the same boat. Have one that feels he's above it all, believes he creates schedules and decides what work he will and won't do, has started conflicts with other maintenance personnel as well as "tattling" on them. He tried to bait me and that didn't work out well for him at all. Regardless of whether or not "I put him in his place" he's taking too much energy from a good team. And while he's a highly skilled tech, background of commercial plumber, held a GC license for many years, does an exceptionally good job on construction related work he's just too difficult to work with so yes he will be leaving. Stop worrying about being able to replace this tech, you will.

Just re-read your post, your property manager wants you to fire him. Is he still there?

Update. He is still with us. I talked with him about his behavior. Our team all agreed to not discuss their personal business with him.

We've been paying him a lot of attention, taking him to lunch with us, listening to his troubles. He's actually smiling a lot more. He's stopped complaining about the other employees (we would ignore it anyway).

He has previous long-term employment with another company and is a great worker.

So far, so good. It's been about a month. Lots of mentoring on my part.

Well kudos to you Mindy! I know it's only been short term but it seems like a good turn around has occurred with a great manager at the helm (and that would be you). Listening to his troubles --- sounds as if you've been treating him like a person and part of the team rather than someone who works for the company. Good move. I hope everything works out in the long run :)