Case Study #1: The Curious Case of the Disgruntled Gremlin
Joe has been working at Acme Industries for over 20 years as a maintenance technician. He started working right out of high school and all of his training has been through Acme training programs and On-Job-Training. Joe has always been a solid and reliable technician but never showed any interest in promotions into supervisory positions. Most of the other technicians look to Joe to help them out with difficult diagnosis issues, and in fact he helped you a number of times. He is a highly valued employee with a wealth of historical knowledge on Acme’s production facilities.
Lately, Joe has been showing unusual behaviors; showing up late or suddenly calling in “sick.” He doesn’t seem to be able to focus on his work and avoids other technicians looking for his normal expert assistance. His maintenance work is falling behind and several critical service checks had to be rescheduled due to his slow work. At the same time, there seems to be an increase in the rate of unusual machinery breakdowns, which are all in the service area Joe works in. Rumors are starting among other technicians that Joe is deliberately damaging equipment for reasons unknown.
As Joe’s team leader, and the supervisor responsible for the equipment that is mysteriously failing, you need to understand what is happening and resolve the situations; both with Joe’s performance and the equipment failures.
What are you going to do?
Download and review these files to help with your case study analysis.
Joe’s Personnel Files
Maintenance Records
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