Management headache (Page 2)

I'm bringing in popcorn and Milk Duds.

Don't dip the pen in the company ink. 

And FWIW it sounds like you're doing the right things Renee.  

-Chris 

 And for all you know, he could like that kinda thing.

Last night I went home and realized two things which made me feel better about the whole mess:

1. His will to be mediocre is much stronger than my skill at convincing him to do a good job. I'm not going to fight the tide - you can't want it for them more than they want it for themselves. So, I'm going to tolerate his mediocrity, be much less generous with my time and take care of my own deals.
2. He and the chick had previously planned and paid for a 4 day ski weekend coming up in the next month. I'm going to need to buy more popcorn!

Set him up in a team, and keep the performance board up.  You have already said he resists authority.  Everyone who resists authority, by the time you have decided to be in the workforce, has to 'look cool'.  Set him up with another, or a couple of others, and tie all of their performance bonuses together.  You can bet, that if his attitude starts affecting his teammates Kool Aid, not only will they do your motivation for you, there office talk will make him suddenly very 'uncool'.  Office rebel screwing 'the man' = cool.  Office slacker screwing coworkers = not cool at all.

Give it a shot

I like this idea very much. If the team were big enough, it would work well but I've got very little bench strength to work with, unfortunately.

One of his coworkers is a mediocre performer who has an attitude of learned helplessness. He might not be around much longer; that is entirely up to his performance/production. I'm trying to recruit someone who I know I can count on; she'll give all of them a run for their money.