Erratic employee

connors07

It doesn't sound that surprising to me.
I feel in a similar situation to what your colleague has been through and seeing similarities with what KiKi has posted above. I am slightly older than your colleague and on less money. I am considered key at work. I've worked in a host of departments (for the right reasons I promise!) and its left me well skilled to cover. But I am a manager myself and have been a few years with my own team to manage and support; continually bad management elsewhere and bad planning means I am covering multiple management positions at once. Yes it is a form of compliment and I don't want anything for it per se. I have constantly reiterated the need for more logic to be used. For example when I book off holiday I make sure those I cover are not off; whereas they continually book over mine and each others knowing they'll cause an issue. On top of some morally bankrupt decision making in the last 6 months I no longer trust the company I work for and trust to me in absolutely crucial. I have a couple of years left off my mortgage, I live modestly and I am done with the politics of work and poor/weak management. I have just about 'forced' myself to continue where I am until my mortgage is paid off and then I'll hand in my notice. Although the temptation to go sooner and 'just stack shelves', has been very strong. There is more important things than money at work. I'd likely rank it well outside the top 5 key things alongside trust, colleagues, progression and passion for the role being way ahead. I am the youngest of an ageing management team and they'll like have a lot of the OP's thoughts and feelings about it when I hand my notice in. 

For me it wouldn't be no Gen Z, no making a point. It would just be having had enough of company politics and weak management. Once the passion is gone from the role and when that alarm wakes me up in the morning and its a groan followed by 'how can it only be Tuesday etc' then its time to take stock of what you're doing and why. Right now the juice is worth the squeeze as I want my mortgage paid off. If your colleague is up North on 60k a year I'd imagine that goes a long way compared to down South. Fair play to him. You only have one go at this. I'd ask him what his reasons are so that the next time someone of his talent comes along you'll know what it takes possibly to retain them; although we're all different with different motivations. 

Manxman_in_exile

As somebody else has said, I don't understand why the OP describes this employee as "erratic"?  I see no inconsistency in what they're doing and I also don't think what they're doing is irrational.  The OP asks: "Why would you walk away from a very well paid job, at a young age, with amazing knowledge and throw it away for an supermarket entry level job?"  I can think of lots of reasons - some of them alluded to by the OP!  That comment makes me think the OP is a bit naive and/or inexperienced as a manager if they think people only driven by materialistic motives.

Having said that, I would not describe £60k a year (which is a lot more than I ever earned!) as a salary so high (or unusual) that you couldn't walk away from it.

BrassicWoman

I think you blew it when you got them to write reports for your own education. Very, very selfish. Job shadowing and having some bonding time would have been better.

 Good luck hiring.

[Deleted User]

Agree with the above comment ...

I request a lot of "boring", fairly complex papers and business cases from this individual, to try to learn more myself.

I would be in the same position as your employee, distracting them from the great work they do (you say so yourself) in order to educate you how to do your job properly is ridiculous

MinuteNoodles

I've been in this employees boots a few years ago, coincidentally it was at a tech company which made it's own bespoke hardware systems and wrote it's own software. Basically he's got to the point that he's sick of working for a company that's run by a bunch of incompetents who couldn't organise a pee up in a brewery, he's got sick of trying to get change and the final straw was getting a new boss who knows diddly squat.

Like him I was in a key position but also where I didn't need the money and was only there because I enjoyed the role and I stopped enjoying it because the way it was being run made my job not quite impossible to do but more stressful than it needed to be, often just finishing a system as the van was being loaded due to days and weeks of build time being wasted due to the way the company was run. Also it wasn't very nice when you were onsite with a customer having to explain why something wasn't working properly and having to cover up for the blatant managerial incompetency and lasse faire attitude of the software developers at the company as you tried to rectify it. One day I decided I no longer enjoyed it and left. Went on the Friday I walked out from a multi-disciplined technical role to driving lorries the following Wednesday. Much happier driving the lorries.

No amount of money could have convinced me to stay. Heading towards 50 I'd learnt many years ago that I'd rather be happy in a job than miserable no matter what the pay. 35-40hrs a week of forced misery just ruins your entire life.