Pinkie Pie
11-08-2006, 06:50 PM
I'm not sure if I'm more amused or pissed off by this.
My boss, the current manager, has been on and off of bed rest for a bit now (she's pregnant, and about 2 or 3 months away from her due date), and so for the time being, I've had to be the "acting manager" (meaning I do the job but don't get paid for it =P). Not a big deal or anything, since I'll be taking the store soon anyways.
Anywhoo, Talia (my boss) was actually there today, having just gone to the doctors and not feeling bad, she had come in to help out today.
Our closing employee was supposed to come in at 4:30 tonight, so Talia and I had to stay to wait for her, which is normal. When 4:45 came around and she still hadn't shown up, we decided that we probably should call her and see what was going on.
So, I call her house, and she picks up the phone. I asked her if she knew she was working today, and it turns out that she didn't pay close enough attention to the schedule. Or something. Anyways, she wasn't aware of the fact that she had to be there, and apologized. I told her it was fine, accidents happen and all.
I waited for about thirty seconds of silence to hear something like "okay, well, I'll be there in a few minutes then". She said nothing. I asked her if she could please come into work now that she did know that she had to be here, something I shouldn't have even had to do, but oh well.
She then complained about not having a ride, since she didn't think that she'd be coming to work today. I asked if she could check to make sure she couldn't get a ride somehow, and she said that since she had homework anyways, she didn't think it was a good idea to come in.
She's worked closing shift before. I've worked closing shift before. Both of us know that you literally sit there for an hour or so with nothing to do.
So, I suggested bringing her homework along with her, that she could get it done while business was slow (read : the whole frigging shift). She once again said she didn't have a ride. I asked again if she was sure there was no possible way to get to work today, if it was possible to walk.
Here's where it gets good. She said that she guessed she could walk, but that it would take 45 minutes to get there. I told her that was fine, we'd be there anyways until she did get there.
Then she went back to saying she didn't have a ride to work. I stood there kind of dumbfounded for a second, trying my hardest not to scream into the phone (for those of you who don't know what I'm like offline, that's saying a lot, since I'm normally one of the most timid people I know). I told her that she just said that she was close enough to walk. She then said something like "Oh, I just told you it'd take a long time, and it's cold outside.".
She was making this excuse to me, which I found ironic, amusing, and infuriating at the same time, seeing as I've spent the last four jobs I've had walking to work, even when it took over an hour to get there by foot and bus, and in the winter when temperatures dropped to 10 degrees or lower. To call the current temperature outside "cold" is to use the term in the most loose sense possible, as in "not a temperature you sweat at". It's 50 degrees outside, with the thinnest of sweaters you'd be fine.
Anyways, at this point I was ready to walk down to her house and strangle her, and to avoid telling her that I asked her to wait a moment, and relayed the information to Talia to get her opinion on what to do. She told me to have her call one of our other employees to come in and work her shift, and I turned back to the phone to tell her this.
Upon putting the phone to my ear, I was told that I "didn't have to talk about [her] behind [her] back, it's not like it's [her] fault [she] didn't know [she] was supposed to work today."
Yes. That's right. She was angry at me for expecting her to come in and cover her own shift. Not to mention that there was no indication that I was "talking about her behind her back", unless simply repeating what she said to me to our boss counts as gossip.
I kept myself from saying anything other that firmly telling her to call her coworker and to call us back afterwards.
We didn't even really expect to hear back from her, but she did call back about a minute later. She said that he hadn't picked up his phone. Talia told me to tell her to just be there on her next day she was working. I told her that, and she again told me that it wasn't fair for me to be angry at her. I said nothing else, except for repeating the order to be there on her next day.
In any normal case, we'd have written her up. The really irritating part, though, is that she'd just given her two weeks notice a few days before, so we really couldn't even do anything about it that wouldn't be pointless.
I can only hope that it's because she's put in her two weeks that she's acting like this, that she doesn't feel any obligation to care. Not that it's good in that case either, but I'd really hope that the concern over keeping her job would motivate her to care about it.
The thing is, I'm not angry at her for not seeing the schedule. Sure, it's a stupid mistake to make, but it's a mistake, nobody's perfect.
What I am angry about is her complete lack of an effort to fix that mistake, or to even remotely care that she made it in the first place, once she was told about it.
When you have a job, you're given a responsibility to do what the job expects and requires. If an emergency comes up, or if there's some kind of reason that you can't make it to work on a certain day, provided we're told about it before hand, we try to be reasonable and to work around it. But not bothering to accurately record your schedule for the week is not a valid excuse to get a "get off work free" card.
Neither is a lack of a ride a valid excuse, for me in particular, when you live within reasonable walking distance. Had she lived, like, two hours away, that would be one thing (though even then there's the busses, and it's still very possible to get where you need to go), but it would have been only slightly more than a half an hour's worth of walking. Unless there's a valid problem (as in some kind of health problem or something) that makes that unreasonable, then, if you're expected to be at work, there should be no reason why you can't let your feet get you there.
Maybe I'm mistaken in expecting the same kind of effort I'd have put forth as a standard for people. When I have a need to be to work, if there's a way to get there, and there isn't a valid reason that I can't get there, I find a way there. That was true for all of my jobs, even when I was just a normal employee. Doing my job well has been a reasonable priority for me, and I don't see why anyone else shouldn't at least put forth the effort to do so, if there isn't something valid keeping them from doing it.
Then again, maybe that's why I was the one to make management, and they weren't.
My boss, the current manager, has been on and off of bed rest for a bit now (she's pregnant, and about 2 or 3 months away from her due date), and so for the time being, I've had to be the "acting manager" (meaning I do the job but don't get paid for it =P). Not a big deal or anything, since I'll be taking the store soon anyways.
Anywhoo, Talia (my boss) was actually there today, having just gone to the doctors and not feeling bad, she had come in to help out today.
Our closing employee was supposed to come in at 4:30 tonight, so Talia and I had to stay to wait for her, which is normal. When 4:45 came around and she still hadn't shown up, we decided that we probably should call her and see what was going on.
So, I call her house, and she picks up the phone. I asked her if she knew she was working today, and it turns out that she didn't pay close enough attention to the schedule. Or something. Anyways, she wasn't aware of the fact that she had to be there, and apologized. I told her it was fine, accidents happen and all.
I waited for about thirty seconds of silence to hear something like "okay, well, I'll be there in a few minutes then". She said nothing. I asked her if she could please come into work now that she did know that she had to be here, something I shouldn't have even had to do, but oh well.
She then complained about not having a ride, since she didn't think that she'd be coming to work today. I asked if she could check to make sure she couldn't get a ride somehow, and she said that since she had homework anyways, she didn't think it was a good idea to come in.
She's worked closing shift before. I've worked closing shift before. Both of us know that you literally sit there for an hour or so with nothing to do.
So, I suggested bringing her homework along with her, that she could get it done while business was slow (read : the whole frigging shift). She once again said she didn't have a ride. I asked again if she was sure there was no possible way to get to work today, if it was possible to walk.
Here's where it gets good. She said that she guessed she could walk, but that it would take 45 minutes to get there. I told her that was fine, we'd be there anyways until she did get there.
Then she went back to saying she didn't have a ride to work. I stood there kind of dumbfounded for a second, trying my hardest not to scream into the phone (for those of you who don't know what I'm like offline, that's saying a lot, since I'm normally one of the most timid people I know). I told her that she just said that she was close enough to walk. She then said something like "Oh, I just told you it'd take a long time, and it's cold outside.".
She was making this excuse to me, which I found ironic, amusing, and infuriating at the same time, seeing as I've spent the last four jobs I've had walking to work, even when it took over an hour to get there by foot and bus, and in the winter when temperatures dropped to 10 degrees or lower. To call the current temperature outside "cold" is to use the term in the most loose sense possible, as in "not a temperature you sweat at". It's 50 degrees outside, with the thinnest of sweaters you'd be fine.
Anyways, at this point I was ready to walk down to her house and strangle her, and to avoid telling her that I asked her to wait a moment, and relayed the information to Talia to get her opinion on what to do. She told me to have her call one of our other employees to come in and work her shift, and I turned back to the phone to tell her this.
Upon putting the phone to my ear, I was told that I "didn't have to talk about [her] behind [her] back, it's not like it's [her] fault [she] didn't know [she] was supposed to work today."
Yes. That's right. She was angry at me for expecting her to come in and cover her own shift. Not to mention that there was no indication that I was "talking about her behind her back", unless simply repeating what she said to me to our boss counts as gossip.
I kept myself from saying anything other that firmly telling her to call her coworker and to call us back afterwards.
We didn't even really expect to hear back from her, but she did call back about a minute later. She said that he hadn't picked up his phone. Talia told me to tell her to just be there on her next day she was working. I told her that, and she again told me that it wasn't fair for me to be angry at her. I said nothing else, except for repeating the order to be there on her next day.
In any normal case, we'd have written her up. The really irritating part, though, is that she'd just given her two weeks notice a few days before, so we really couldn't even do anything about it that wouldn't be pointless.
I can only hope that it's because she's put in her two weeks that she's acting like this, that she doesn't feel any obligation to care. Not that it's good in that case either, but I'd really hope that the concern over keeping her job would motivate her to care about it.
The thing is, I'm not angry at her for not seeing the schedule. Sure, it's a stupid mistake to make, but it's a mistake, nobody's perfect.
What I am angry about is her complete lack of an effort to fix that mistake, or to even remotely care that she made it in the first place, once she was told about it.
When you have a job, you're given a responsibility to do what the job expects and requires. If an emergency comes up, or if there's some kind of reason that you can't make it to work on a certain day, provided we're told about it before hand, we try to be reasonable and to work around it. But not bothering to accurately record your schedule for the week is not a valid excuse to get a "get off work free" card.
Neither is a lack of a ride a valid excuse, for me in particular, when you live within reasonable walking distance. Had she lived, like, two hours away, that would be one thing (though even then there's the busses, and it's still very possible to get where you need to go), but it would have been only slightly more than a half an hour's worth of walking. Unless there's a valid problem (as in some kind of health problem or something) that makes that unreasonable, then, if you're expected to be at work, there should be no reason why you can't let your feet get you there.
Maybe I'm mistaken in expecting the same kind of effort I'd have put forth as a standard for people. When I have a need to be to work, if there's a way to get there, and there isn't a valid reason that I can't get there, I find a way there. That was true for all of my jobs, even when I was just a normal employee. Doing my job well has been a reasonable priority for me, and I don't see why anyone else shouldn't at least put forth the effort to do so, if there isn't something valid keeping them from doing it.
Then again, maybe that's why I was the one to make management, and they weren't.