CPA INC. : a corporate witch-hunt

This was a very intense roleplay. I was playing JT, the head of payroll for CPA Inc, an accounting firm. Paychecks had been stolen and cashed by someone in the company. The forensic team said their investigation concluded that Sandy might be the one who forged the signatures but it was inconclusive. Other employees were certain she had done and they wanted her to be fired. This wasn't so much a negotiation as much as it was an argument. The Roos and Danas were unforgiving and relentless; they didn't let anyone else speak and they were speaking in a loud manner. Sandy got angry as well due to their false accusations but she managed to control her anger a bit more.

I tried to get everyone to reach an agreement and to compromise: after a while I understood I should direct my attention to the 2 least disruptive Roo and Dana, and I got them to be content with just moving Sandy to another department instead of firing her. The other two however were having none of it, they didn't care about reaching a compromise.

My position was tricky because I couldn't, in all good conscience, fire someone for something she didn't do, without proof. This would also be catastrophic for the company's image (bad press) and in legal terms we could be facing a lawsuit. But I also didn't want to alienate people who had been working at the company for several years.

I tried to reason with them, I started by telling them how much the company valued them and their work, and appealing to their logical side. I made sure to tell them their salaries would be paid. When they brought up the trust issue and how they couldn't work in a team, I tried using a sort of a shaming technique, that is telling them “this is not the company I worked so hard to build”, “this is a witch-hunt, stop turning on each other”. I spoke calmly at first, and I listened to their complaints, making sure they knew I understood their worry. But I also made it clear I wouldn't tolerate their accusations and attacks just on the basis of their seniority in the company.  I tried to follow what I had planned during preparation time, and give the arguments I had prepared.

But it got to a point where I didn't know what else to say, I couldn't reason with the other 2 Roo and Dana. I know they were put there to destabilize us, and they were successful. That was one of the major problems: I wasn't expecting there to be 4 people against me, and it certainly didn't help that I don't really like one of them. At that point I couldn't really make the difference between the person and the role they were playing.

I hate confrontation, but most of all I hate when someone doesn't let me speak. And it was infuriating that they came up with stupid arguments just to have something to say, or recycle their arguments on and on.

I was blind to the possibilities of separating them, or giving each one a specific time limit to express their complaints. Thinking back I wish I had done that, having one-on-one talks instead of a group meeting, but I guess the school context and being in a simulation makes it hard for me to think outside the box. I shouldn't have said “you” so many times, and should have reinforced the “we”. I also regret having said Sandy was working on a private project for me in order to justify her late nights at the office, I didn't think it through.

I wish I could have remained as detached as when I was working in customer service – however paradoxical, I was able to remain calm and manage the situation much better even though it had real consequences.

I hope in the future I can remain cool, calm, collected when facing people like these in real life (because unfortunately they exist) and not let them get to me.