Everyone loves a firefighter. They go above and beyond the call of duty, they do whatever it takes, they jump right in and fix things. They are brave, they are strong, they are heroes.
It's no different in the corporate workplace.
Just like in the real world, the firefighter jumps right in when a system goes down, when a project goes wrong, when a reporting deadline looms.
Just like in the real world, the firefighter works long hours and deals with the burning of long flame emails.
Just like in the real world, not all fires in the corporate world are started through a freak act of nature.
Nope.
Some fires are started by Arsonists.
And again, just like in the real world, Arsonists can be very hard to identify.
But, after you work with someone for a while, and you just can't understand why they are always telling scary stories about awful things, why they are always working weekends and why it's always up to them to be the hero and save the day.
Because, here's the thing.
They start the problem. They send the first incendiary email, they are the first to escalate to management, they are the first to talk of impact to revenue, wider consequences, cost overruns.
They don't see the glass half empty. The glass is empty, cracked and filled with gasoline which will just take one teeny tiny match to turn a mild challenge into the Towering Inferno.
Let me give you an example. You have a project. You have 3 developers assigned. One developer has to take time off unexpectedly because his baby is born premature. You had a perfect project plan. You had set things up so when the actual paternity time was due, you'd be at a stage when you needed fewer developers. But that was meant to be six weeks from now.
And so you sit the team down, you explain the situation, you say you're going to get more help. You discuss and agree a plan for the next week, which is a reassignment and re-prioritization of tasks. You already have at least three ideas of how to fix this, so you don't give anyone any overtime. You don't ask anyone to do anything that isn't their core skill. They just have do different things in a different order.
Off everyone goes, all hands to the pump. Off you go, to speak to your peer managers and your department HR person to find out if there's anyone from another team who is on a little downtime between projects, and can be spared.
Three days later and - woo hoo! - you're in luck. There's a guy. There's a gal. Whichever. He/she can start in 7 days. It takes a day to dot the Is and cross the Ts.
Now you're ready to announce to your team in the morning meeting the following day that they'll get the help they need really soon. And they'll have that help for the next two months.
So, let's recap. It's day four of the re-prioritization. On day five the team is going to hear about the mitigation plan.
But you've forgotten the Arsonist. He has met your boss at the water cooler on day three, and dropped some snide comment about how hard the team is working now that they are a man down, and how the project is starting to drop behind the plan. The Arsonist tells the boss that it's ok, though, because he's planning to work this weekend to make sure the whole team can catch up.
And now you're fucked.
There was never an issue. But the boss thinks there was, even though you explain that you have a new person starting in a week, it seems like you're scrambling and it's all too little too late.
PHOOM! There go the flames.
The Arsonist is, in short, an extremely dangerous individual.
Why do they do it?
Perhaps they like the attention. Perhaps they find their day to day life boring. Perhaps they have issues that date back to their childhood.
It doesn't matter. They've lit a fire under your career and you are running around like a cartoon character trying to blow out flames on their butt.
Key signs:
- Constant complaining about impending doom
- Constant overtime
- Tattle tale
- Filling up airtime in meetings explaining, in painstaking detail, examples of where things have gone wrong, in similar situations, in the past
Catch Phrase: This isn't going to work
Your Strategy: Keep as far away as possible. Remember the Arsonist starts the fire so he or she can be the hero Firefighter. Get close, and you'll get burned. The minute you identify an Arsonist, find a way to never have them on your team again.
Their comeuppance:
Well, nobody likes constant negativity so, over time, the Arsonist becomes unpopular, and may even morph into the Curmudgeon. Slowly but surely, the Arsonist may be edged out into some job where he or she is working on something on their own.
They become known as a crabby old fart who has to be tolerated because they've been doing the same job for so long that they are the expert. But nobody takes them too seriously because they're old and in a mid-tier position and pretty much sidelined.
For more Workplace Personalities, click here.
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Monday, April 6, 2009 at 12:55PM 
