And that's what you get for belittling me a million times.
An accountant who stole $43 million from her employer had her jail sentence reduced this week. Especially noteworthy were the reasons she gave for siphoning off that staggering amount of money. In one word: revenge.
She worked for ING Australia (coincidentally a former employer of mine) where she was the victim of an allegedly abusive affair and bosses she claims were bullies. This toxic environment compelled her to “get back at the system and others within the system” and so she redirected company funds her way.
Among the many questions raised by the case is this: What exactly are vengeful employees capable of doing to employers they suddenly see as the enemy?
It’s a trend known as Lordstown Syndrome, named after a town in Ohio that houses a General Motors factory. Back in the 1970s, the introduction of new technology deprived the workers of meaningful jobs. They went from having interesting and diverse roles to ones that were repetitive and boring. And so they revolted.
Sure, they resorted to the customary tactic of a unionised strike – although theirs lasted 22 days and cost $150 million – but they went even further than that. Some of them became careless with their work; others intentionally embarked on sabotage. This rebellion resulted in countless damaged cars that were in no condition to be sold.
In their book Getting Even, professors Thomas Tripp and Robert Bies outline two main causes of such revenge.
One is the ‘manager-centred perspective’, which means the fault rests squarely with the employees. The theory suggests some employees are naturally more fragile, volatile and mean-spirited. They’re vengeful because they’re predisposed to such behaviour. It’s in the best interests of managers, then, to identify those with that tendency and monitor them closely.
The other is the ‘employee-centred perspective’. This instead looks at the situational factors propelling employees towards anger. It’s not the employees themselves who are to blame but other people – or other things – sending them into a rage. Revenge is therefore seen as the morally right thing to do, if for no other reason than to correct a perceived injustice.
The authors believe the employee-centred perspective prevails in organisations. Employees, in other words, are driven to seek revenge because of external factors such as a bad boss, a vindictive colleague, or some kind of perceived unfairness.
In reality, both perspectives are legitimate depending on the organisation but, either way, the opportunities for exacting revenge are greater than ever. That’s because mass digitisation has provided plenty of potential avenues for people to take advantage.
A couple of years ago, the Infosecurity Conference in London (one of Europe’s biggest events on data security) asked delegates whether their knowledge of their employer’s technology was enough to hold the company to ransom. Did they know, for example, how to spy, change files or crash the system - even if they were no longer employed by the organisation? A third said yes.
Larger companies at least have the resources (usually) to prevent this from occurring. Smaller businesses, though, are far more vulnerable.
Of course, the vengeful behaviour isn’t always so sinister. Sometimes it’s just the spreading of splenetic gossip. Or a sudden spike in sickies. Or even a prank. One of the most famous occurred when George Bush took over the White House in 2001. As his staffers moved in, they discovered the letter W – as in Bush’s middle initial – missing from many of the keyboards.
In the real world, write professors Tripp and Bies, revenge is a warning bell for managers to pay attention to injustices within the workplace: “In that sense, you can view revenge as a sometimes positive phenomenon.” Yeah, sometimes.
What examples of workplace revenge have you witnessed?
Follow James Adonis on Twitter @jamesadonis