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My Perfect Employee
Her name is Laura. She is the perfect employee.
Polished, professional, perky. Laura never seems to have a bad day. She is relentlessly optimistic. Arriving before everyone else and working late into the evenings, Laura never misses a deadline. Her work is flawless.
Laura drives me nuts.
I am often reminded of the scene in the old romantic comedy My Best Friend’s Wedding when Julia Roberts tells Cameron Diaz’s perfect character that she is creme brûlée: creamy, sweet, annoyingly so. She can never be jello, even though Diaz says she can.
Creme brûlée can never be jello.
I feel guilty about my feelings. Laura is meeting every challenge with enthusiasm and energy. Why is she on my last nerve?
It finally hit me one day in a meeting.
The team was discussing how to address a budget shortfall. It was a tense conversation because many unappealing options were being considered. As the debate raged in the room over the right course of action, Laura piped up and said, “This isn’t the end of the world. We just need to tighten our belts a bit, and we’ll get rid of this shortfall in no time. I’ll put together the spreadsheet of how we can do this and share it with all of you. It won’t be bad, it might be fun to creatively reach this goal together.”