The Good Ones. Bruce Weinstein

if I didn’t fight back. I felt that a lawsuit was justified. So Richard Solomon, an attorney friend of mine, said he would take on my case.

      The school didn’t bother sending a lawyer to the hearing because they had no defense. It took two years of diligent work on my friend’s part, but I received the payment I’d been promised.

      My kind lawyer refused to accept payment for his good work, even though it cost him a lot of time and energy to resolve the matter. He agrees with me that it was worth the effort to hold the school accountable for its debt. But it’s understandable that many people who suffer losses through someone else’s dishonorable behavior choose to move on rather than fight. It can cost a lot of time and effort as well as money to hold promise breakers accountable. Karen Jacobsen told me, “I don’t want to have negative energy in my life, which is what going after a deadbeat client would entail.”

      Employees who routinely fail to be accountable rack up all three costs — time, money, and energy — for their employers. Supervisors have to divert their attention to the errant employees, which also incurs an opportunity cost. A report from the staffing firm Robert Half International reveals that managers spend almost 17 percent of their time at work — or close to a full day out of five — dealing with underperforming employees.