So my boss is at a meeting yesterday, and I opened the store. We have an inspection-type visit today from the Home Office Blitz Team, so I’ve been spending all day, when I’m not waiting on customers, working on cleaning and organizing things in the back room and on the floor. This is how I spent Monday, too, since she was at another meeting. Last week we had a roof leak, and the mall gave us some big trash barrels for drips. Since it rained a lot on Monday, I had the guy who was closing drag the barrels back into the most likely spots just in case. Tuesday when I come in at 9 a.m., I check the barrels and the roof hasn’t leaked, so I drag them back out of the way, planning to put them out again Tuesday night, just in case.
Now our whole backroom is about the size of your average living room and most of it is taken up with rolling shelves…the rest is just a narrow walkway. At 4:15 p.m., when her meeting ended, my boss called me (it was actually the third call of the day from her) and said she had just remembered something really important. Thinking she had another task for me, I innocently asked, “what?”
“You need to check the backroom for leaks since it’s been raining all day.”
“What do you mean,” I said, totally confused. “Do you mean offsite?”
Now our offsite storage area is at the total opposite end of the mall…not someplace I go everyday, but I was sending the guy there at 5 o’clock, and my boss has a habit of using the wrong words for things.
“No,” she said, “the backroom. Remember when it leaked last week?”
I took the phone away from my ear and looked at it. Then I returned it to my ear and said, “I’ve been in and out of the backroom 9,000 times in the past 7 hours. Don’t you think I’d have noticed if the roof were leaking?”
“Oh, hee, hee, we just wouldn’t want the home office team to walk in and see the floor all flooded, hee, hee.”
Now since the home office team isn’t coming first thing in the morning, even if it leaked overnight there would be plenty of time to mop up…oh wait, last time she left it for me to mop up at 1 pm.
I ended the conversation with her, then picked up the phone again to call my old store, but she hadn’t hung up the phone properly at her end and I could hear my boss telling the ladies at the daycare center how funny it would be if the home office team had to cancel because we had barrels out catching the drips. Like a little thing like that would make them cancel a visit that deals mostly with things out on the sales floor.
Since I ended up staying until 10:15 pm, making it a 13 hour day, perhaps I’m a bit testy and overtired, but come on! What an assinine phone call! Check the backroom for leaks! We’ve been open for hours! I’ve been here for hours! I think I would have noticed…heck, you can’t even turn on the lights without walking where the drip was!
The nerve of her, checking to see if the backroom was leaking. Sounds like your boss is a complete, unmitigated jerk. I suggest quitting at once. :rolleyes:
[sub]Or perhaps your boss needs to find an adult to take your place.[/sub]
She didn’t call to see if it had leaked overnight, or was currently leaking. She called to have me check and see if it was leaking…as if it were a totally separate place that I wouldn’t have been in at all in the past 7 hours. As if I was just getting there (at 4:15 pm) and hadn’t set foot in the backroom yet.
And I’m 10 years older than her, and have worked with her for years at another job where she was equally clueless…always overlooking the obvious stuff and focusing on odd details. In this relationship, I am the adult.
Or maybe you need to pull your head out of your ass Crafter_Man. Not sure why you thought you had to be such an asshole, seems like a reasonable rant to me. So you think it is great if your boss checks in on you on something that obvious–YOU wouldn’t notice that water is running all over the floor? Glad you don’t work for me is all I can say–I want to be able to trust my employees.
All kittenblue is saying is that if her boss trusts her to run the store when she isn’t there–maybe she should trust her to realize that the fucking back room is flooded. Seems reasonable to me.
Nobody likes some asshole double checking in on them. As a boss you get respect from your employees by trusting them----if she doesnt’ trust kittenblue she should drop by on her way home, etc,. There are ways to get a comfort level with your employee without treating them like they are 8 years old. You don’t need to be a twit and call and ask something so basic. Especially when your employee is working a 13 hour day.
Crafter, I find your remarks feckless, unkind, and more’n a little dumb.
Let’s work YOUR ass inside out and upside down for thirteen hours straight, dealing not only with the Buying Public, but with representatives from the Home Office, nonstop pretty much, and see how much like an adult YOU feel like afterwards.
Hell, I don’t even know what line of work **kittenblue’s ** in, and her story makes me wanna go back to bed and hide under the covers…
Your childish snarkiness aside, I can see that you’ve never had a boss that had no idea how you spent your day. I’ve had plenty, and believe me when I say that these people need bitch-slapping, stat.
To be honest I don’t think kittenblue would be my ideal employee, I prefer a little more team spirit than:
“I’m 10 years older than her”
“where she was equally clueless”
“In this relationship, I am the adult.”
“I took the phone away from my ear and looked at it. Then I returned it to my ear and said, ‘I’ve been in and out of the backroom 9,000 times in the past 7 hours. Don’t you think I’d have noticed if the roof were leaking?’”
kittenblue: I’m not claiming your boss is the sharpest knife in the drawer. Maybe she was just stressed out from the meetings. Maybe she had a brief lapse in memory. Who cares. My point is that this is incredibly petty. If this seriously upsets you, you’re going to have a very tough time surviving in the real corporate world…
Maybe you shouldn’t crap all over threads that you think are petty, Crafter_Man. Maybe you should just hit “back” and let kittenblue have her snit, just like we all have at times.
It doesn’t matter what you complain about here, there’s always gotta be somebody who comes in and tells you how petty and stupid your complaint is. I personally haven’t seen anything in the Pit rules that specifies exactly what level of non-pettiness we must achieve before being allowed to bitch about it here.
My last job (the Job From Hell[sup]TM[/sup]) had a leaky roof. We discovered this when it started raining one day before the store was open (pre grand opening) and the roof was leaking on to a phone and one of the computers.
I moved the computer, pulled the phone out of the way, put trashbags over everything, unplugged everything, put a trashcan to catch the leak and informed managment.
Corporate comes by and tells my boss that computers should never be moved for any reason and I get in trouble (light trouble as the bosses knew the corporates were imbeciles).
Another time, half the building shorted out, giving one manager a bad enough electrical shock that he was briefly hospitalized and burning out (melting) five surge protectors. We tried to use the burned out SPs as examples to customers for why you should buy a surge protector as no expensive electronics were damaged. Corporate said no.
Of course, I quit that job when my supervisor spent all of his time sitting in the back talking to another supervisor and periodically screaming at us that we weren’t being productive enough.
Yeah, I guess in hindsight I was reacting to Crafter Man’s reaction, but I don’t think the ideal employee has to love you unconditionally.
But what may not be clear is that the boss and I have been friends for about 6 years. I’m the one who urged her, when she was looking to change jobs, to apply with this company, and she got the job. When a couple years later she took a manager’s job with another company, I’m the person she asked to come work for her part-time so she could be sure of having one competent, trustworthy, hardworking employee…her words. When she was fired from that job, I’m the one who told her to come back to this company, even though she would be just an assistant, at least she’d be employed. And when a management position opened up that was less than an ideal one, we proposed that the two of us take the post as co-managers. That didn’t work out, but I encouraged her to apply for this current position even though I am long overdue to be considered for such a post.
Then the company dragged me out of the nice little cocoon of a store I was in and assigned me to her as her assistant, because they knew she needed someone competent, hardworking and trustworthy. They gave me to her so that she could fire 5 of her employees and still keep the store running. In the month and a half I’ve been there, I have re-organized almost all the understock drawers, rearranged the computers and the registers to provide a more appealing and usable counter area, cleaned and organized the bathroom storage shelves, cleaned and organized her desk, and her file cabinet, and cleaned and rearranged the undercounter areas, finding pieces of important equipment she didn’t know she owned. (She’s been in this store since October) I have re-organized the majority of the backroom area…two sections left to do…and that involves a lot of time climbing up and down ladders (I’m 47, overweight and currently out of arthritis medication for my knees and ankles…constant pain, and the knee keeps going out). I have trained and encouraged the staff (what’s left of it) written schedules and business plans, and done outreach calls to generate business. The only thing I have point-blank refused to do is clean the mini-fridge. (I would have to sit on the floor to clean it, and I didn’t make the mess. It’s been like that since before Christmas, so they tell me) Oh, yes, and mopped up the floor after the last flood, and tidied up offsite, and put away shipments. Oh, and finished up a redisplay that was supposed to be done before I got there and before she went on vacation.
During the month and a half I’ve been there (and did I mention that I still pick up some hours at my old store) the boss has been on vacation (a week and a day) been out on funeral leave for an elderly relative of her husband’s(almost a week) and been out of the store two days this week in meetings. She leaves everyday promptly at her quitting time, while I stay late working on these major projects…usually I am working a single coverage shift, so I can’t really get into a project til we’re closed. And single coverage means no lunch break…if I forget to bring food from home, I’m stuck.
I do all this because I can’t work in a disorganized setting. I can’t sell things if I can’t find them on the backroom shelves. I can’t give my customers the attention they need if my coworkers aren’t trained to deal with their customers. I can’t let customers see merchandise with dust and fingerprints, and sticky crusty fingerprints on the glass shelves. I can’t let merchandise get damaged because no one can find the box it was in so they shove it onto a storage shelf. I can’t make money for this company if my coworkers try to pass off poorly done work as “creativity”. Or botch up two items for every one they get right. I’m proud of my company, and our products, and I work hard.
When I came to this store, I told my boss that I was used to being part of a team that was like one person split in three. If you talked to one of us, you talked to all three…the communication was constant. If one person took an order, the others could finish it with no questions, no problems and no difference in quality. There was a boss, but we had all been managers of our own stores, and we functioned as equals. I let her know I would not be subservient, or meek, but that she would never have to worry about the quality or quantity of my work.
So I talk to her as her equal, and when she has these ditzy moments, I don’t let her get away with them scott free. I ignore her compulsive mannerisms (hair twirling and mouthing the words you’re saying to her being the two biggies) and her inability to pronounce the colors of our product, but I don’t ignore her when she treats me like I’m a 17-year-old trainee. (We have a rating system for our skills, and my rating is higher than hers. I think it physically hurt her today when she had to tell the Home Office people that she only considers herself a four, and I am a Five-a Master, if you will) She could easily be a Five if she cared enough to practice, but she doesn’t love it like I do…it’s just a chore to her, while to me it approaches art.
She’s never had to deal with her employees on an equal footing, and I give her credit for all the efforts she has made. As I said, I came from a very cohesive, tight-knit, equal footing group, and I’m having to learn just as much about dealing with under-performing team members, discipline problems, personality clashes, and all that entails…though I don’t think it was fair for me to write the disciplinary action plans for everyone my first full week there before I’d met everyone.
So. Anyone still think I’m not a good employee, a team player? Well, you can just rub my swollen, sore feet and then kiss my…
Oh, and for what it’s worth, I feel bad that her last assistant was absolutely no help to her and wasn’t on her side. That’s really got to bite, knowing the person who is supposed to be your right hand is sabotaging you. I’m here to help get this store back up to standards so she can keep her job. I just insist on doing it my way.
No offense, or anything, kb, but if she’s 10 years younger than you an yet higher-ranking, isn’t it just possible that she’s actually rather competent, or even that you may be the clueless one?
RNATB, I didn’t notice her calling the boss incompetant. Heck, kittenblue even admitted that her boss would be at her skill level with a bit more practice. She’s pissed because the boss treated her like a greenhorn who needs specific direction for everything “you need to check the back room for leaks”, rather than the highly experienced worker she is. It’s a matter of respect, not competence.
Nah, she’s just ambitious and driven…totally prefers to be working. I was a stay at home mom when my kids were the age of her kid, and didn’t get into the workforce until much later. She thrives on corporate-speak and goals. I work to survive and fight my workaholic tendencies as if they were cancer. My idea of a good day is being home, making a quilt or reading. Her idea of a good day is when her husband picks the kid up from daycare so she doesn’t have to…she has never kept her baby home from daycare when she had a day off from work and spent the day playing with her. And besides, I think I make the same money she does, so why should I place my head on the potential chopping block…I prefer being the power behind the throne.
And that’s the thing you see - she’s the one that would presumably get the flak if, by some chance, the room was flooded. So she’s just checking in a friendly way to ensure that that’s not the case. It’s how employer/employee relationships work isn’t it?
Like you, I get slightly offended that my boss doesn’t think I’m capable of thinking of the obvious but because I too have an assistant who does work that I’m ultimately responsible for then I realise that what is obvious to me isn’t always obvious to all. I assume it’s the same for my boss when he thinks of things and checks with me.
Many’s the time my boss rings me to suggest something that I’ve already done. Sometimes he suggests things I haven’t thought off. Likewise, I often check with my assistant to make sure things are done - sometimes she’s done them, sometimes not. As long as the shit never actually hits the fan then something must be working right.
That said, I don’t think I’m more competent than my boss - I assume there’s a good reason why he does his job and I do mine. I’d suggest that having a superiority complex wouldn’t make either his or my life very easy! Not saying that you do - it just looks a little like that from here.
I think Crafterman realized that the rant was sort of weak and was just trying to REV it up a little. Ha, it worked.
OP- What would have been so bad about saying, “Yeah boss-person, Im the one who noticed the leak was a problem, Im the one who took action to control the leak, and I`ve been on top of it ever since. When do I get my raise?”
She was just doing her job. Im sure there are plenty of people who would have ignored a leak in the roof. We have occasional leaks here where I work and youd be suprised how people can turn a blind eye when these things happen. There can be a puddle on the floor and a garbage can 13 feet away, yet no human interaction will occur to place said can under said leak.
