Moody staff members

Song of the Day:
"If you knew
this was your last day
what would you do?"
- "Last Day," Ari Herstand
(go to www.myspace.com/ariherstand)


One of my grads and I had an interesting conversation today. We were talking about a staff member. This staff members tends to be pretty moody. We've all gotten used to his moods and just deal with it. He tends to get all worked up over a situation or he's just super grumpy one day, and then the next day everything is okay again. So sometimes, we'll just ignore it and then talk to him the next day.

At a recent meeting that my grad had with this staff member, he was in one of his moods and was pretty rude to her. I heard about it from another staff member, who was pretty offended by his behavior and felt bad for my grad.

My grad and I talked about it today. She said she'd been debating about whether or not to confront him about his behavior. She has, just like the rest of us, gotten so used to his mood swings that she doesn't take it personally anymore and doesn't let it bother her. But she also knows that, in the "real world," he wouldn't get away with this. Would he behave like this in the real world? We hope not. But does that mean then that he doesn't respect us as he'd respect a supervisor in a "real" job. And isn't that a huge issue in itself? And if he did behave like this in another job, isn't it our responsibility to realize that this isn't okay and help him affectively manage his emotions so he's better prepared for a job.

We came to the conclusion that this is definitely something that needs to be addressed. Well, I'm sure I'll find out how that went soon....