Dealing with sub-standard employees

This may seem like something rude to say about people who work for you, but at times, one is faced with the bitter fact that the person who is working for you and with you is not altogether competent/energetic/honest/hard-working/diligent or whatever. Now, I run a consulting practice and I have just one employee who sits outside my cabin and - takes calls, gives appointments, takes out print-outs of my prescriptions, coordinates the incoming/outgoing patients, collects my fees and so on. He/she is, effectively, more than one person rolled into one: receptionist, telephone operator, water server, etc. etc. etc.

I should be more accomodating since I am taking the work of four or five people from one person. Right? So why is it that I am saying so many negative things about this soul? Mind you, this is a general rant, and does not refer to any specific person or persons who have, at any time, worked with me or under me.

Well, the sorry fact is that some of the people who have worked with me have really, really been horrid. Either they are plain stupid (in which case, I should be called the bigger fool for having employed them!), but some of the others are wily, lazy, pre-occupied with their own things or simply, so truant that I am paralysed without their presence. On the other hand, even when they are around, they are so incompetent or adverse to improving that they end up giving me grief and stress.

How does one deal with this kind of mess? I cannot well throw them out for I need them too, to carry on with the mechanical work that forms a lot of the work that they do. I also consider the fact that I am not paying them top rupee, since most of them are students who come to work for me in their spare time, and a few are really needy people with families who it would be heartless to throw out of job. Thus, I continue to tolerate them till I can, or till they themselves realise their fault and ask to be released from the job.

Coping with feelings of Guilt

Like any other person on this planet, I, too, am as imperfect or perfect. Perhaps, a little more "imperfect" than others, okay? :-) At the same time, when I am really guilty of something, I am one of the first to accept my guilt and to publicly owe up to it without much fuss. However, there is one area where I do not readily accept my guilt: it has to do with my somewhat imperfect driving and managing to get myself into sticky situations while doing so. I don't have the exact figures on my fingertips, but if the police were to count my instances of "rash" driving and "the ability to hit others' vehicles with mine, even if they be stationary and parked near the sides of the road", I would have had to surrender my driving licence long ago!

Having said that, usually, when I am guilty as hell of doing something wrong, I tend to sulk for hours, then retire to a quiet corner of my home and brood for some time, a packet of potato chips in my hand to see me through the down phase. I have learnt not to allow the brooding to take over my other, worldly, responsibilities. Hence, I always remember what is happening around me and what other tasks are still to be accomplished before the day is done. Feeling guilty is normal, but feeling depressed and shunning life's so many exciting events is not.

How soon would I go and express regrets to the wronged person? If the guilt is clear, I say "sorry" right away; if the guilt becomes clear later on, I make it a point to meet that person or call him up and convey my regrets. If my mistake hasn't been discovered, and the harm it caused was totally insignificant, I have sometimes cheated and not gone and owed up too. Which person hasn't cheated thus? I have felt somewhat more guilty for doing so ... but for just a few days. After that, these things are forgotten and life goes on.