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'New York Goes to Work' on VH1: Characteristics of difficult employees
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VH1’s Tiffany “New York” Pollard needs a day job until her acting career takes flight. Photo courtesy VH1.
I have been hooked on reality shows since the first season of “The Real World” on MTV. Nowadays I love to watch the dating shows on VH1, much to the dismay of my boyfriend—who has seen more episodes of “Flavor of Love,” “Rock of Love,” and “Daisy of Love,” than he would rather admit to. However, if you’re a fan like I am, you know all about Tiffany “New York” Pollard, who is not so lucky at love. For those of you who don’t keep up with reality television, she has appeared on four seasons of dating shows (twice on “Flavor of Love” —where Flavor Flav of Public Enemy dumped her not once, but both times—and twice on her own dating show, “I Love New York”) and none of them have resulted in a lasting relationship. No longer worried about being struck by Cupid’s arrow, Pollard is now trying to strike it rich with an acting career. But what does any of this have to do with the workplace?
For the last month VH1 has been airing “New York Goes to Work,” where Pollard gets to sample different day jobs—all chosen by the show’s viewers—including positions such as ghost hunter, pig farmer, and clown. The show, which will have its season finale on Monday, often illustrates textbook examples of bad behavior in the workplace and some of the characteristics of difficult employees.
In The Complete Idiot's Guide to Dealing with Difficult Employees, Robert Bacal writes that the most common challenge that bosses encounter with their staff is bad interpersonal behavior. He stresses that although managers tend to chalk this up to “personality conflicts,” it’s more efficient to solely address the behaviors themselves because they are easier to change than employee personalities. In addition, this approach gives everyone in the workplace leeway to be human—sometimes you exhibit bad behavior because you are having a bad day, but you wouldn’t want to be labeled as someone with a difficult personality because of it.
I don’t know if Pollard is just having a bad day or if she is a general bad employee, but some of the behaviors that Bacal identifies as difficult employee characteristics can clearly be seen in this clip: negative comments and nonverbal cues, rudeness, aggressiveness, and personal attacks. Though I would not necessarily recommend her approach to the workplace, Pollard never ceases to entertain.
Clearly Pollard is not going to win friends or influence people here, but despite her shortcomings, would you want her as a coworker?
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