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I agree with the excellent advice I've read so far, but not with the "three
strikes" idea. It's an obvious metaphor, but if "Betty" is at the point of
being put on probation, then she'd had plenty of "strikes" already. Allowing
three more strikes gives her license to screw up twice more, and she'll
probably take advantage of it and then say, "You can't let me go, you gave me
three strikes."
I say strike one was the problem that brought her to your attention; strike
two is the one that got her on probation; and "strike three" is whatever you
deem it to be--one little problem you might forgive, but one big problem you
might decide is (to add another metaphor) the last straw. Or you might decide
to contact her immediately and say, "this is exactly what we've been talking
about--I told you not to do this, and you've done it again. Do you understand
the problem? When will you fix this?" (To throw yet another sports metaphor
on the fire, this is called the "two-minute warning.") But whether you permit
her this lattitude is entirely up to you.
It's an ugly situation. Good luck.
-- Steve
Steven Jong, Documentation Team Manager ("Typo? What tpyo?")
Lightbridge, Inc., 67 S. Bedford St., Suite 100E, Burlington, MA 01803 USA
mailto:Jong -at- lightbridge -dot- com -dot- nospam 781.359.4902[V], 781.359.4500[F]
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