Learning to act right (18)… Gay promiscuous paranoids?

Learning to act right (18)… Gay promiscuous paranoids?
Torrey Orton
December 6, 2010


Another surprise - from a request for a comment on the article Promiscuous Paranoids comes a learning experience for me and the writer. This response, like that of "sounding a bit stupid", gives me hope that the task of capturing ethical learnings may be more engaging for people than I have imagined. If engaged, the writing comes fluently and persuasively. I hope you enjoy this contribution.


I am aware that it may arouse a flurry or storm of discussion about some of the reported facts. The author is clear this is his experience. The 'facts' we may have in hand at any moment of decision-making might have been improved by a wide review of the available evidence for most of us. That we seldom can make such a review in the conduct of everyday life is not grounds for disregarding our decision processes, or others'.

Regarding the "Promiscuous Paranoids" post, you asked me for my comments, particularly as to how your post relates, if at all, to the "gay world".  Clearly I can only comment from my own experiences and so I'm not sure how representative of the general gay public this contribution will be.  From my understanding of your article/post (and I could be way off), your experience with (straight) men who would be considered to engage in binge sex and then fall into a committed relationship is that they may become highly paranoid and jealous that their girlfriends are getting it on with every other straight guy who shows the slightest bit of physical attraction toward her - his perception is based on him transferring his own previous binge sex behaviour onto his girlfriend and on to other men.  Further, this paranoia adds a high degree of uncertainty to the relationship as the male is constantly thinking that his female partner is cheating. 

From my own experience and my experience with my gay friends, binge sex is the norm amongst gay males, especially those in their late teens to late twenties.  It is accepted as a "rite of passage" to sleep with as many other males as possible and it is not abnormal for a gay male in his mid twenties to have had sexual encounters with over 150 different men (be they gay, bi, "straight", and/or married).  I myself have had sex/fooled around with approximately 175-200 different men.  Such a number would seem obscenely high to straight males and females, particularly of the older generation, and indeed I see it as quite high myself, although I do not see it as "abnormally high", at least for a gay male in his mid to late twenties. 


The acceptance of binge sex amongst the gay male population is evident even in gay male relationships which are "open relationships" - i.e. the male partners have agreed that having sex with other males outside of the relationship and/or and bringing in a third or fourth male partner for threesomes or group sex is fine.  The reasons for the partners agreeing to an open relationship are often varied however two of the main reasons are as follows:  Firstly, as sex is viewed quite casually amongst the gay male community, little importance is attached to having sex outside of the relationship, and secondly, because gay males are so sexually charged, one of the main reasons for a committed couple breaking up is due to the infidelity of one of the partners - an open relationship therefore eliminates that potential break up cause. 

Often partners in an open relationship attach rules to when it is permissible to have sex with a person outside of the relationship - for example, if one of the partners is away for work it may be permitted for one or both to seek a sexual partner.  Another example is where one of the partners in the relationship is HIV+ and does not want to transfer the virus on to the other partner.  I know of one such couple.  The partner with HIV is so fearful of passing the virus on to his partner that the pair do not have any sexual contact whatsoever and he allows his partner to have sex with other men.  Of course this raises a range of issues, including low-self esteem on the part of the HIV+ partner and whether or not the couple can truly be happy without any form of sexual contact with each other, but those issues are not within the scope of my comment now.  Rather it serves to highlight the range of circumstances and rules which a couple may attach to a gay couples "open" relationship.

Now, how does this high level of binge sex amongst gay males relate, if at all, to your post regarding binge sex in straight males?  In the times that I have been in a relationship, and I really only consider myself to have had two relationships, the issue of binge sex was one which had to be addressed at one time or another in each relationship.  During my first relationship I myself cheated on my partner with another male (and another female).  It was during my "coming out" phase and I was still scoping to see whether I was or was not gay. However I accept that that is not an excuse for my infidelity and needless to say that despite much effort, the relationship did not succeed.  


During my second relationship, my partner was aware of my previous infidelity and was constantly suspicious of whether I had remained faithful to him.  Despite my assurances to him, he always remained somewhat insecure and to this day, even though the relationship ended over two years ago and he has a new partner, he still questions me.  I know that I was always faithful to him - having cheated once before I am aware of the damage that can be done by infidelity and have vowed never to do it again.  However as a result of the binge sex mentality, and my actions in my previous relationship, my former partner still has doubts.  On a side note, my former partner is now in an "open" relationship - he lives interstate from his boyfriend (for now anyway) and they two have various rules as to when sex outside the relationship is and is not permitted.

Accordingly, while I myself never had doubts about my partners and their fidelity to me in my previous relationships, they were constantly questioning me about my fidelity toward them.  The effect of that on me was that I felt that they did not trust me and it led to intense feelings of frustration on my part, especially in my second relationship as I knew I had remained faithful. 

However, that is not to suggest that I have never experienced the "promiscuous paranoia" explained in your article - indeed I have.  However, rather than occurring in the context of a committed relationship, my "promiscuous paranoia" has occurred, time and time again, in the context of dating - i.e the initial stage of a potential relationship in which neither of the men have committed solely to each other.  As in the straight context, I transfer my own binge-sex behaviour onto all other men, including the guy I am dating.  Consequently, I automatically think he is having sex with every male he comes across who shows the slightest of interest toward him. Not only am I therefore paranoid that he is having sex with a number of other men, but it makes the "courtship" process even more complicated - I feel that I have to work extra hard to retain the interest of the guy and to have him settle on me as a partner, and discard all the other potential partners he is "clearly" having sex with. 


Even if the guy I am dating is not having sex with anyone (and I believe him), I usually still feel incredibly jealous at his previous sexual encounters, even though the number of my own previous sexual encounters towers way above his (his actual or stated number). The jealousy is usually so intense and unbearable that I either sabotage the developing relationship or simply stop seeing the guy altogether.  The sense of insecurity created by the "promiscuous paranoia" is extreme, making it very difficult to form positive and lasting relationships.

My point is this: the scenario of the "promiscuous paranoid" which you describe in relation to the "straight" community is also directly applicable to the "gay" male community. However it is even more heightened. The practice of binge sex is readily accepted amongst the gay male community and therefore the level of binge sex is higher. Levels of paranoia amongst gay males who are in committed relationships are also higher and to that extent more destructive.  Gay males (including myself) sabotage their own relationships to prevent the inevitable "cheating" which will occur (or in the mind of the paranoid individual, has already occurred). Their ability to remain in a committed long-term relationship is damaged, and in my case, highly under-developed. Self-esteem and self-worth issues therefore ensue.  It is my belief that it is at least in part because of this "promiscuous paranoia", that gay males have "mastered" the "open relationship", as discussed above, developing an extensive range of rules and principles in which sex with a person outside the relationship is permissible.

Having recently become aware of my under-developed relationship skills and the negative impact that binge sex has been having on me, I am actively working to develop normal, positive relationships, not (entirely) based on sex.  I am challenging my impulsive thought processes that would have normally led to me becoming highly jealous and even vindictive upon hearing of potential relationship partners and their previous sexual partners and am seeking to understand why it is that I am having such impulsive thoughts, rather than focusing on the thoughts themselves.  Inevitably the issues surround my own personal insecurities and my perception that I am, in some way, "un-lovable". 


Further, I have embarked upon a self-imposed "sex free" period - if only for a few weeks or months.  Taking sex out of the equation is forcing me to meet new people and begin to develop relationships the old fashioned way - simply by meeting up for coffee and talking.  Even if there is no spark and nothing develops with the person I'm meeting, it's still forcing me to go out and meet new people. Given my personal insecurities, that can only be a positive thing.

In essence, I have become acutely aware of the negative effects which promiscuous paranoia has had on me and my ability to form relationships and I am now seeking to rectify that.  It will no doubt be a difficult process and I'm sure I will have re-lapses into binge sex, if only due to the culture of binge sex within the gay community to which I belong. However, I realise that it is an incredibly important and necessary exercise if I am to ever have positive and long-lasting relationships.

See Trusting Judgment for a related learning experience.

Appreciation (32) … Wild strawberries – the taste, not a movie

Appreciation (32) … Wild strawberries – the taste, not a movie
Torrey Orton
Nov.30, 2010


It is a story I've told dozens of times: the taste of wild strawberries on an early summer mountainside… in the Massif des Bauges, south-eastern France, June 2005. What I didn't tell includes…


... that there was a dog from the neighbourhood (local dairy farm on the mountain side where we parked before the walk) which accompanied us almost to the top of our climb, then turned back and went home… 4 hours later seen hanging out in the parking lot at the farm...


… that there were four of us walking together for the first time, learning the pacing of our different styles, only one of us in reasonable shape (the other guy who tended to jog up the mountains effortlessly)...


…that it was early summer - the trees fully leafed, brooks still running strong with snow melt (not Cauterets strong, but for our first alpinish event in 10 years and from Melbourne, strong)…


…that I saw these slight red spots along the dirt roadside amidst otherwise lighter shades of green, hanging in the way strawberries hung when I picked them as a 10 year old for local producers in Lunenburg but this a trace of memory not consciously searching, nor on looking close did they appear at all like commercial berries, but there was enough lookalike to pull me down from looking forward, to stop me ambling along, to pull slightly aside the greenery which already seemed strawberryish…


…and, that they tasted like no strawberry I had ever known (nor since as well, having searched the slopes of three other alpinish ranges vainly since then to find their relatives - French, Spanish or Italian: rien, zilch, diddlysquat, etc.!). They had an almost vinous depth – no nose, but distinctive middle and finish. They were so slight (1/10 the size of a commercial strawberry) that there was almost no body; rather, they melted than crunched or squished.


Occasionally I have an apricot from our tree here that is precisely ripe and at an appropriate temperature which brings an acute taste and slight nose, reminding me of real fruit from those 55 years ago which were fresh. I did not know they were all manmade to some extent. Wild apples were hard to find in Massachusetts in the 1950's. Wild meant grows outside the house??


Strawberries anyone.

Appreciation (31) … Walk or wait?

Appreciation (31) … Walk or wait?
Torrey Orton
Nov. 26, 2010


Time was when the best way to summon a train, bus, tram or cab was to light a cigarette. Pretty much turned the corner within seconds of striking the light. Nowadays, 25 years on, the story is cleaner and more irritating. It's just a question of when to walk and when to wait between trams. I never minded the lost smokes all those years. But the threat of a lost walk or a lost punctuality is mildly gut shaking.


I'm a work walker. I believe I do myself goods by walking as much of my work routes as can be fit into the train / tram schedule which bridges them. But these do not mesh with the smoothness of high class gearing. Their rather more grindy operation, slightly unsynched it seems, signals their respective owners persistent proudly proclaimed unmet performance objectives. And I regress…


I do need to be at work on time (clients await). I leave home an hour before shutters up. Because of the just noted asynchronous public transports, I often walk a few tram stops. I know how long it takes and I can do two stops in the normal waiting time – about 8 minutes. That's easy. Uneasy is the non-arrival of the scheduled tram which opens a gateway to walk another stop, if I dare. If I dare wrongly, there's a prospect of another 8 minute wait as the scheduled tram ambles past catching me between stops*.


So what? Well, so I do not get the longer walk I usually take towards the end of the route (about 1 km. of quick-paced passage through the salubrious inner city streets of Albert Park). This walk sets me up for the day by providing a slight sweat and leaving me at the keydrop** with 10 minutes to settle down. If I do not have the walk I'm not well balanced, which leads to increased stress in therapy management. I know that will matter both towards the end of the day (an energy gulf) and during the day as my finer senses of process and detail are dulled.


This whole thing seems simple, and is simple if I drop my various other personal performance objectives embedded in the above narrative (my scripts for managing my day). It condenses a clear stressor into a clearly bounded area (6:50am – 7:50am), with almost guaranteed release. The almost is the lurking awareness that I could still mess up, or be messed up, by misjudgement plus fate.


Wait or walk?



*the loss leader of such events was the 7:26am arriving at 7:35am, closely followed by the next one, the real 7:35am. The wrap-up: I was ten minutes late and two trams down, so had my 1km walk at 1.5 km distance from the clinic; Result: just got there before 8am client. Plus, I lost X% of the training effect of the 1km thru apprehension about missing 8am.


**this is the café we leave clinic keys in overnight to allow the earliest arriving therapist to open office.

Rectifications (24) – Mental disease / illness??

Rectifications (24) – Mental disease / illness??
Torrey Orton– Nov 22, 2010


What to call a mental problem? There are good names for many of them – anguish, ecstasy, obsession, compulsion, anxiety, outrage, and so on, moving forwards. These are found in the heart of psychological / psychiatric description (with greco-latinate equivalents – e.g. anhedonia - for the more medically deterministic mentalities of the DSM series). They are also found in the heart of human languages. They are the material which occupies the arts…in fact, occupies pretty much everything except the natural sciences and scientistic technologies – engineering, medicine, etc.


These problems of course are the stuff of a life, not "mental problems". Sometimes they can get a bit big. Major life changes, by choice or fate, tend to be associated with these normal problems. A good grief lasts quite a while and can be incapacitating for weeks. So can a rabid infatuation! It is the difference between being depressed and having depression. We are in the grip of the latter and are affected by the former.


'Disease' suggests a medical condition, something to be treated with a pill or a patch. A broken body is not a diseased or sick one, or even an ill one. It is injured, impaired. Some diseased bodies require breaking (surgery) on their way to repair, but the breaking is not a disease. Mental health problems can produce physical symptoms of great intensity.Or, the reverse, bodily disorders can reflect or constitute mental problems. This is because the state of the mind is also physical and behavioural. We are thinkingfeelingacting beings. So is our cat, only somewhat less imaginatively than we.


Mental health matters are injuries to the mind/body, which is probably part of why we have a naming problem. Naming has become embroiled in a marketing problem posing as an awarenessproblem. The awareness problem – about the reality, normality and ubiquity of mental health issues – has been attached to our existing awareness of mostly troubling, inconvenient, not terrifying health problems. This has been to normalise the mental ones, which so scare us they remain the sometime content of myths and demonologies and movies.


The marketing problem is the public campaign by McGorry and others to increase government financial commitment to early intervention in youth mental health issues. How far there is to go in public understanding can be seen in a recent AFR BOSS (Nov. 2010, pg. 65-66) article called "Mind Games" which misquotes McGorry, misrepresents the nature of acute conditions like bi-polar and schizophrenia, and prints a recommendation from psychiatrist Ben Teoh that "any employee displaying evidence of mental illness be referred to a psychiatrist for immediate assessment." If these conditions are difficult I wonder how anyone in the average workplace can pick them or confront them. If lawyers, doctors and dentists can't, then can HR or the CEO????


The larger proportion of Medicare funded mental health treatments are in the non-psychotic, non-acute mental health domains. It is our apprehension about falling into the psychotic which accompanies the very idea of mental health problems. Many of my anxiously depressed clients are relieved to have me confirm that they are certainly not crazy, though their acutely anxious and depressed periods feel crazy, feel threatening to their sanity. Try on OCD episode, a suicidal ideation or a public panic attack for a taste.


Piggybacking the mental on the medical encourages a pre-existing tendency to see it as amenable to physical treatments alone – pills or patches. The current evidence about effective treatment of mental problems is clear: medication alone can never resolve them. It is a useful and, in acute stages, essential part of effective treatment. The reason is that mental problems are biopsychosocial events, not merely biological ones, including the apparently "chemical imbalance" ones. See Lyn Bender's recent article for another take on this discussion, and a vigorously disappointed reader (the 4^th comment) on therapy.


Both the Australian and American psychological associations actively promote biopsychosocial thinking and use it to evaluate and drive research, yet it has barely made it out of the professional policy box in which it has been installed for 10 years. And to think in this way stretches the competence of most allied health care practitioners well out of shape. We have neither the breadth of knowledge nor conceptual potential to use it.


The socio part of the construct is an often acknowledged component of mental health but inconsistently included in research or therapeutic action frames because the 'target' of the action is the individual. Their troubles are really social – they involve families (of origin and choice), playmates (the binge drinkdrugsex scene or footy squad, for instance) and workmates (bullies and their facilitating social systems of workplace control) and the authorisations of commercial culture (to booze, sexualise, and commercialise).


So, what can we call "mental" problems which is true and not banal? How about emotional issues, challenges, hurdles…well, in fact these are true, and banal due to their humanity. Sometimes that humanity overwhelms us, and always it is attached to other "issues" which we try to engage dryly, unexcitedly, numerically. The tide of heartless sciences is ebbing, but the names for biopsychosocial ones have yet to emerge. I wish I could do better.

Learning to act right (16)… “sounding a bit stupid”

Learning to act right (16)… "sounding a bit stupid"


Torrey Orton
Nov 15, 2010


If you've only got a hammer everything looks like a nail, and if it doesn't you treat it as one! Some ethical matters are invisible to us until we see them right. Without right seeing, right action is improbable. With right seeing right action is only possible. Sources of learning to see things rightly, as they are, unvarnished by preconception and prejudice, has been the heart of epistemology since Plato looked out of his cave and saw the light. In ethics, as much as science or art, the problem is that we can't easily see what we don't already know. This is not only a theoretical problem.


A good sign that someone is seeing anew, differently, as if for the first time, is the feeling of "sounding a bit stupid", as with my colleague below. So he earned an unexpected, and unintended, place in these annals and accepted the offer of a shift of domain with grace… a sign of potential for seeing anew. He was responding to an earlier post of mine on euthanasia and included the thinking breakthrough which opened the door to my views.


Hi, I think I run the risk of sounding a bit stupid with this, but here goes:

A few years ago I liked to play a game on my blackberry called "brickbreaker". It's a small version of a paddle/ball game. My high scores were typically around 8 to 10,000 points, and I never finished the series of challenges in the game.


Then one day, at Oslo airport, I started to think about what the purpose of the game was. For me, I was looking for the stripped back heart of the problem, a Zen approach if you like. What I realised was that the most basic aim of the game was to ensure I hit the ball with the paddle as often as possible; not to earn points, or to hit "bricks". In fact, those things were distractions. They almost took away from the game.


From that point I simply focused on that one aim, and, surprise surprise, I discovered that not only was the game a series of challenges that created a loop (ie, once a player finished level 33, the game went back to level 1 with the score intact) but that the high score was, in fact, without limit. From a high score of, at best, 10,000 points, I went on to give up and retire on 1,450,000, having worked through the series of challenges hundreds of times.


All through thinking about the game differently.


And that's what I love about your approach. When you strip back everything, why should choosing to end a life with dignity be a crime? Suicide is a crime, as is attempted suicide, I think. You take away religion and government, strip it right back, but you include personal responsibility to friends and family. It's such a clear assessment of the problem. The clearest I've read, and that's why I hope more people read it.


But you can't beat city hall, and you CERTAINLY can't beat God and those that believe in him/her. They have suckered us into believing that choosing death is wrong. But can they explain why it's wrong? It's an extension, in the Catholic Church at least, of the every sperm is sacred routine. If you ask why, it always comes back to God, and if god doesn't exist, they have a HUGE credibility problem.


There's a great scene in the old US series called Kung Fu, with David Carradine, where he is walking with a companion and they see a man about to jump off a bridge to his death. Caine's companion says "Shouldn't we save him" and Caine says "How can you know what he's experiencing, how can you say that death may not be the best thing for him" or words to that effect.


Any anti euthanas-ist who has ever taken a pain killer should be ashamed of themselves.

Learning to act right (17)… Matters of love

Learning to act right (17)… Matters of love


Torrey Orton
Nov 8, 2010



Matters of love provide daily opportunities for practicing ethical behaviour. Intimate relationships are among our most desired and needed life foundations. In and through them we achieve or seek a large range of other needs. Wherever modernity passes, these relationships are endangered by powerful internal and external forces.


So, 1/2 marriages will have the experience of total relationship breakdown and starting over again (or not – also a decision). This involves, among other things, a delicate dance of hope and pragmatism played out to the music of our needs asserted and acknowledged, engaged and resisted – all for a good reason: no one other can wholly meet our needs. That doesn't stop us hoping they will! This hope is fuelled by the process of negotiating the unequal quantities of dominance and submission required to construct a workable whole for both parties – this thing called an intimate relationship.


The story below catches many of the conflicting needs that pave the way to relationship development and sustainability, or not. It is the effort that offers the learning for us. The honesty of the description provides the material.


Learning to do the right thing: Matters of love
I met my husband when I went to university at the age of 17. With all the enthusiasm of the young we had sex, fell in love, lived together, got engaged and at 22 I was married. This was a marriage based on sex and good food. We had nothing else in common and at the age of 27 with a 2 year old and a 6 week old baby I found myself a single mother. For the past 25 years my life has consisted of work, study and raising children. Early in my single life I had thought I could find love but I was bitter, angry, and distrustful - not attractive features.


So at 52 I fell in love. I had known this man for a number of years through my work. We met on occasion for breakfast and to talk work and usually ended up talking of all manner of things. Though the relationship had always been professional the rapport was comfortable. Then he asked me to dinner. His invitation and insistence told me this was more than a professional rendezvous. The dinner went for 4½
hours. When I think back to that night all I can remember is him and me, I have no recollection of anything else in the restaurant. The conversation was easy and varied and none work related. Here was an intelligent, attractive man who was interested in me at all levels.


I knew he was married, but I let myself believe his marriage was over and that all he needed to do was "sort out the logistics". How SMS and e-mail has changed the face of romance. What in the past took weeks of furtive phone calls and dates to say seems to be said in days. Things that you would never say out loud can be typed and sent with ease. It was exciting and sexually arousing in a way that I had never experienced.


Then the relationship moved to the physical. How nervous do you think I was? The last time I had a lover I was in my early 40s and though fit and healthy things are not where they used to be. I know love is just a cocktail of hormones that combine to make you form an attachment, but I will always remember how caring and considerate he was of me. I don't believe any man has treated me with such respect or tenderness.


Through all the excitement of the past weeks sitting heavily in the back of my mind has been his wife. When I separated, my husband had had an affair with his secretary and for years I have been able to say "he left me for the secretary"; he was the wrong doer, which gave me a sense of righteousness. In fact, we divorced because we had a bad marriage that made neither of us happy. We communicated on the most basic level, had differing values and life expectations. We used sex as a bargaining tool. My life is richer and happier for not being married to my ex- husband and my children more enlightened and happy people.


I find a man I feel worthy to love and who I think could love me and he is married. I have never wanted to be the other woman, partly because of my own experience but also I believe women shouldn't do that to other women. I could continue to have an illicit affair ignoring the consequences to his family, and my own dignity to satisfy a lost need for intimacy but I know it is not right. I don't want to be the cause of his wife's heartache and I want a relationship that is open, honest and conducted in the open light of day. I want him make the right decision about his marriage because he is unhappy, not because of me. I have been conflicted because I am 52, and it has taken me 25 years to fall in love again; will I miss an opportunity that may never occur for me again and end up a lonely old cat woman. Is it right to do what I know is wrong in the pursuit of intimacy long forgotten. I know it is not.


Here is the rub! I fall in love with a man battling the same dilemma. He wants to do the right thing and while I struggle with my own impasse, he has the courage to articulate what is right thing to do and I know he is right. So he is going to sort out his "shit", whatever that means. I don't know what I am expected to do. Will I wait? Does he want me to wait? Will I try to find love on the internet now I have experienced it and will I lose this desperate feeling knowing the right decision has been made?


Today I wish I could be unethical with ease but I know I won't respect myself. Any relationship we may have had will be doomed if it starts this way. That doesn't make me feel any better.


Note – the author remarked that it had taken about 40 minutes to write this story once she allowed herself to see she had a live ethical learning in her heart. The search for a topic had gone on for weeks til that moment.

Learning to act right (15)… Performance management up close

Learning to act right (15)… Performance management up close
Torrey Orton
Nov 3, 2010


Mick's Case – unavoidably conflicted retrenchment


It's easy these days to find stories of corporate malfeasance on large and small scales. So the world of business, which some think is outside the realm of ethics, is one rife with ethical challenges and short on ethical exemplars. The following is one candidate for exemplar status. Its power resides partly in the persistence of the main agent, Mick, and partly in the unavoidable complexity of the situation – performance management.


One meaning of an 'unavoidable complexity' is that there is no exit without carrying some of the dirt on you, as much inside as out. One reason there are few public examples is that ethical people tend also to be self-deprecating and so their stories remain only in the hearts and minds of those directly affected. Is it unethical to promote one's ethicality?! How could others learn from them?


Context - based on discussion June, 2003

 In 2003 Mick was opening a new franchise in an established retail / wholesale field. He had six months to reach break-even, and with an upward trend in place towards profitability. The current figures were promising. If successful, the franchisor would hand him a number of other opportunities on a platter. If unsuccessful, he would lose money, face and a future. He had been recently retrenched from corporate life himself and did not want to return to it. This was a very small business. That means all and every aspect is directly managed by the owner(s), especially difficult people issues like the following. No HR department, legal staff, salaries clerks, etc.


The small initial staff was handpicked for sales competence. One of them, Jean, was a mid-40's woman with background in the industry and track record in retail. However, over the first 6 weeks of operation, she had become less and less effective in converting prospects to sales. She paid too much attention to details of customers' product selection, disregarded prospects with much greater sales potential and was unpredictable in work attendance. Other staff, especially Mick's number two Jim, were beginning to remark Jean's short-comings, including her impact on sales. Mick was feeling the heat of both his own perceptions of her and Jim's emerging perceptions of his management competence. Jim had some stake in the outcome because equity participation for him was just around the corner of their passing the start-up test.


Jean appeared to have some personal issues which affected her work. Her children were in Perth and she was palpably uncertain and anxious in her dealings with people at work – staff and customers. Mick sensed she was in a fragile state. However, so was the business. Mick himself had recent experience of "Stalinist" management in large enterprises and very much saw himself as an opponent of that style. It was a very painful situation for him to appear "Stalinist", especially to himself.

Action

Nevertheless, Mick felt he had to let Jean go. A replacement had been found and was scheduled to start Saturday. Mick decided to retrench Jean on Friday. This was in keeping with the 3 month trial period of her employment contract. The payout was generous from the contract's viewpoint. His approach was to hand Jean her retrenchment notification and benefits at the close of business that day. He acknowledged her contribution so far and pointed out the reasons for retrenchment and expressed his concern at having to take this action.


Mick is troubled, still. First, he is aware that any retrenchment is violent for the retrenched. Second, he wonders if this one may not have been extremely violent from Jean's viewpoint considering her overall fragility - maybe a last straw kind of situation? Third, he wondered about his own contribution to this situation: did he make a hiring mistake in the first instance which exposed her to challenges she couldn't meet in her current condition? And, fourth, he didn't want to see himself as someone who does violence to others, though he knows that the viability of the business required it at that time.


July 25, 2010 email from Mick about my treatment of his work above


You give me too much credit. The replacement was organized in the background. I also had to balance up the supplier angle as they had a hand in finding Jean. And, yes, we did let her go. She was NOT up to the task. She should not have been there in the first place and the longer the situation went on the more it reflected on the total organization. I would like to think she was treated as well as could be done; but Torrey it was still a brutal act. Such acts occur when you take the time to "look and respect" staff. Whether or not they can do the job is an overlay on top of this.

As an addendum we had another one in the last 12 months. Greg – mid 50's, working in a small goods factory after he had been retrenched from a shipping company some years ago. His current employer was relocating to the other side of the city. He was looking for another job and he was recommended to us by a supplier (who we later found out had a relationship with Greg's daughter).


We sent Greg on a course – investment $4K. He appeared slow so we gave him more time. We spent time in explaining things we had gone over a number of times previously. He was not up to it so we set a deadline of 3 weeks and if no progress was made he would leave. After 3 weeks he had to leave. His performance was noted by customers and staff. I spoke to him at lunchtime and he left with a cheque straight away.


I later found out that that very morning he had refinanced his house. Knowing this, would we have done anything differently? NO.