Update: How do I [32F] protect my work relationships from a bad nepotistic hire?

A Redditor shares an update on handling a nepotistic hire that was causing tension at work. After a few weeks of frustration, things escalated when Gavin, the husband of the new hire Donna, began spreading rumors that some coworkers, including the Redditor, were making his wife feel uncomfortable.

In response, the Redditor spoke with the CEO, who addressed the issue without involving Donna’s work performance. The CEO reassigned Donna to a smaller role, took her off the Redditor’s projects, and started interviewing an external candidate to take on her responsibilities. Gavin has been instructed to provide more support for Donna, which has caused tension but resolved the immediate concern. Read the original story below…

‘ Update: How do I [32F] protect my work relationships from a bad nepotistic hire?’

Since my story got way more interest than I anticipated, I thought I’d give an update. The CEO didn’t want to talk to me about Donna and I didn’t bring it up in the meeting a few weeks ago.

However, everything kind of came to a head last week when Gavin started telling other people on the team that a few of us, including me, were making his wife feel awkward. I think some of the original commenters predicted this would happen, albeit in a slightly different way. He didn’t tell me directly and I found out from the other people who had been accused.

I then decided to talk to the CEO about Gavin. \*I didn’t mention Donna or her work quality\* but I wanted his advice and input on whether I was making anyone uncomfortable. I also gave my side of the story, focusing on how the accusation dampened my morale and pointing out that I feel like outsider sometimes since most people in the company are old friends.

Fortunately for me, he didn’t see things the same way Gavin did and said he would speak to him. After the meeting, the CEO quietly took Donna off my projects and reassigned her something small and not really connected to the core business objectives to work on.

He’s also now interviewing someone from outside the friends and family circle to take on the lion’s share of what Donna was originally assigned to do. Gavin has been told to provide more direct support for Donna, which he seems annoyed about but obviously isn’t going to fight.

TL;DR: I’m lucky my CEO is a wise dude. All in all I think this is a good and fair outcome for everyone, though things with Gavin and I will almost certainly get worse. Thanks for all the advice in the original post. OMG thanks for the gold kind stranger!

Here’s how people reacted to the post:

Aventurine_Glass −  That’s an awesome outcome. Although how Donna still has a job in any capacity boggles my mind

thisisliss −  I remember reading your original post and am so glad things worked out the way they have. You handled it really well and it’s great to know that Gavin will finally be the one to have to manage his wife!! Couldn’t ask for a better solution, I hope your work life is now a lot happier.

It sounds like Gavin is only going to make things worse for himself if he’s complaining about you and your colleagues, just don’t rise to his bait for drama and keep doing your job the way you have. People will quickly realise he’s the problem !

SpagattahNadle −  What a good outcome – probably the best in this case that Donna got reassigned elsewhere. Be careful around Gavin and her in the future, though – you’ve seen he’ll willingly throw you under the bus if it suits his agenda so keep that in mind when dealing with him. Best of luck for the new hire, hope they help you with your workload!

casualLogic −  PERFECT! You did good! And while it’s not funny, maybe you could find some small humor in having used the whole “It’s Not You, It’s Me” CYA defense to your advantage. Well done. Very well done!

meliocoilean −  So Gavin is mad that he has to be the one to help, mentor and support her now?. Hmmm He didn’t seem to care when your projects got put on a standstill because you had to consistently put off everything due to her habitually putting you into two hour one on one meetings just to get help because she didn’t know how to do *anything*..

Soooo. He can deal with it. And you handled things well. Now its between Gavin and the CEO where Donna goes. And you can actually get your projects done now.

Tgds0208 −  I’m glad this worked out. Sometimes the best approach is to sit back and let things fall into place!

[Reddit User] −  Lol this is too real. As someone who is the Donna in my company. From the other perspective, I was just thrown in the shark tank, with the double pressure of family expectation, entire lack of training, and also a chaotic disorganized environment

We didn’t know what we didn’t know. But unlike Donna I did my best to hide in the background, be super helpful and accomodating to others and started churning out the spreadsheets tracking all the info of the business

I busted my ass for over a year, quietly in the background. I am still deeply insecure and slow at my job. It is definitely a bad fit but I can’t leave anymore than people may want me to leave which is an important point. At least now I have carved out a role and I can deliver the content on that role, which is expanding

Just saying , if you were suddenly thrown into a car garage and handed a wrench, it would be challenging etc. Of course people are going to hire family. The failure is the training process, and protecting the new person while they have a chance to find their footing, or not

sisterfunkhaus −  I read the original post, and I am so glad you went to the CEO. Since he isn’t firing Donna, it sounds like Gavin is important to the business. I would just be super professional with both him and Donna, and if Gavin gets unprofessional, then you document and take whatever action you think works best.

Monique7G −  Yay thanks for the update! So happy it worked out for you. Hopefully the new hire is good too!

oneeyedman99 −  Your company does not have adequate hiring or training processes. Really, they don’t seem to have processes at all. Small companies where people know each other well can get away with this, larger ones cannot. Your CEO has kind of papered over the problem for the time being, but it will come back in the future.

You were expecting them to hire someone who could hit the ground running, but that kind of thing is often not possible in today’s hot job market, someone like Donna may well have been the best they could get, or close. It might not even have been possible in any job market, depending on the nature of your work and how much of the necessary knowledge is unique to your own company.

You need to set expectations in the future that part of your formal job responsibilities will be training new people that come in. Your CEO probably also needs to start working on formally defining and documenting work processes, which I suspect largely live inside peoples’ heads at the moment.

Do you think the Redditor handled the situation well by addressing the issue without directly attacking Donna’s work performance, or should they have taken a different approach? How would you manage a similar challenge in a work environment? Share your thoughts below!