My awesome, supportive mom called my attention to a blog post from 09.29.11, which I titled "Transitions" (yeah I'm cliche). I was right on the verge of beginning the job that I'm now right on the verge of ending, and so it seems like an appropriate time to reflect on what I've learned in the last nine months, and try to parse through some of the same-but-opposite feelings that I have now.
You know what jumps out to me first? This line right here: "[Sean is] such a generous man,
and the thought of leaving a boss who already loves me and respects me
is terrifying." I think there was some amount of prescience on my part there, and as my mom mentioned, a certain amount of doubt that I felt acutely right from the get-go. If I knew that two particular qualities were so important to me - the love and respect of my boss, and a sense that I am accomplished in my field - then why did I leave? Maybe it's as simple as having been caught up in the career-path delusion, which turned out not to be applicable to me anyway when I found out that this job was nothing like a career, and more like a time-filler.
I've really tried to consider what I've learned from this experience. I've weighed my different reasons for being unhappy in this job, trying to figure out which ones were about people and which ones were about the work itself. If I'm perfectly honest, part of it probably had to do with the hours. Oddly, I really enjoy having afternoons to myself, and those three hours I'd get off earlier at Drip left me room to at least consider being more creative. More on that in a minute. But the scale goes like this: on the one hand, I believe in the Nickelodeon. When I told Andy I was leaving, he asked me some question that prompted me to tell him, entirely honestly, that I've never stopped believing in the Nick. It's not like that at all. But on the other side of that spectrum, I can't believe in terrifically boring clerical work for a boss that I can hardly stand making eye contact with. If there were even one small part of my job that required creativity, I think I'd be much more willing to stick it out. But all I do is pull reports from broken databases, then cobble together multiple busted reports in order to make one half-assed list that's probably only half correct. I ask for newer, better systems only to be denied, and then am blamed for the nature of those lists.
It doesn't help that I'm not active, I have little interaction with anyone outside of the office, and am never thanked for the work I put in. Maybe this is office lifestyle - maybe the kind of passive-aggressive cruelty we endure is actually totally normal - but either way, I'm not into it. Considering all the stereotypes about the restaurant/food service industry, I've got to say I've been treated much better by customers and employers in food service than by customers and employers in the "real world."
Do I regret giving it a shot? No. I learned so much. Do I regret the way I've handled some of the situations during this period? Absolutely. I covered a lot of that in the last post. Am I afraid that it's going to be difficult moving forward after this job? Yes. I definitely do. All that crap about "a black mark by my name" could still be true, even if I have tried to exit as gracefully as possible. But is there a big weight off, knowing that I'm going somewhere that I'm loved and respected and valued? Yes. More than anything.
5.24.2012
5.18.2012
Major Character Flaw
Once again today, I was reminded of what I consider to be one of my worst character flaws: my inability to speak my mind in stressful situations. There's this part in You've Got Mail where Meg Ryan speaks a truth I've lived by for a long time, where she delineates between two kinds of people. Because of my inability to find this particular scene (and the fact that my parents have the DVD I thought I owned), I'm just going to paraphrase: "there are two kinds of people. The ones who can say exactly the perfect thing in a situation to cut the other person down to size, and the people who can't."
Obviously, bad paraphrasing. Sorry, fans of the best movie ever made.
But the point is, I'm one of the latter kinds of people. No matter what the situation is, no matter how offended I am or will be in the minutes after that situation, the "right" thing to say just never occurs to me just at that moment. In the last few weeks, I've come to loathe that about myself. Kathleen Kelly (of You've Got Mail) has this wonderful breakthrough moment where she says exactly what she wants to say (to the unknown love of her life, of course), but there's never a reason why she suddenly finds this part of her personality. There's no catalyst for her newfound ability to say those mean things that other people can say. How can I get that?
Today I had a run-in with a very irritated older gentleman over the parking situation in the shared Nickelodeon/Immaculate Consumption lot. I had used an accepted parking trick in a completely full lot, and thought I was being courteous by leaving a note on my car directing one to the Nick office. But this older, entitled gentleman with his Mercedes SUV apparently does not park often in the Immac parking lot much and wasn't aware of the general practices, and so when he came outside and saw his car blocked in, he decided to lay on his horn for several minutes rather than trying to solve the issue politely. To be perfectly fair, I've been in his position. And like all parking situations, you calmly look for the owner of the blocking car, and ask that person to move. No threatening, no yelling. It's the downtown area, folks, parking ain't all neat rows anymore. He threatened to tow me next time (ironic, as it was my first time using this move), stared me down as I climbed into my car, and acted totally aggrieved in a completely common situation.
And you know what the really shitty part was? When he asserted that I was never to park that way again, all I said was "yes sir." As he was a complete asshole to me - I can't describe the situation well, or I won't so I don't get mad all over again - all I did was complacently apologize for something that isn't even wrong. And to some extent, by not explaining the unspoken rules of the Immac parking lot, I was actually harming others - when Jordan's car gets towed by this same asshole (he uses that maneuver far more often than I do), I will partially take blame because I never explained to this entitled gentleman how this parking lot works.
I really thought about the situation on the drive home from work, and in that short time became increasingly frustrated. Brian told me to put it out of my mind, but it's not just a single encounter - it's a systemic error. That fact just slays me. When I think about how the stronger people in this world would go about resigning, or how the Heather Bauers of this world would deal with Andy, it really makes me hate that part of my nature that makes me handle situations in the least confrontational way possible. No matter the level of the conflict, I'll go into fight-or-flight mode and just come up with the best way to avoid tension.
How do I crack that code?
Obviously, bad paraphrasing. Sorry, fans of the best movie ever made.
But the point is, I'm one of the latter kinds of people. No matter what the situation is, no matter how offended I am or will be in the minutes after that situation, the "right" thing to say just never occurs to me just at that moment. In the last few weeks, I've come to loathe that about myself. Kathleen Kelly (of You've Got Mail) has this wonderful breakthrough moment where she says exactly what she wants to say (to the unknown love of her life, of course), but there's never a reason why she suddenly finds this part of her personality. There's no catalyst for her newfound ability to say those mean things that other people can say. How can I get that?
Today I had a run-in with a very irritated older gentleman over the parking situation in the shared Nickelodeon/Immaculate Consumption lot. I had used an accepted parking trick in a completely full lot, and thought I was being courteous by leaving a note on my car directing one to the Nick office. But this older, entitled gentleman with his Mercedes SUV apparently does not park often in the Immac parking lot much and wasn't aware of the general practices, and so when he came outside and saw his car blocked in, he decided to lay on his horn for several minutes rather than trying to solve the issue politely. To be perfectly fair, I've been in his position. And like all parking situations, you calmly look for the owner of the blocking car, and ask that person to move. No threatening, no yelling. It's the downtown area, folks, parking ain't all neat rows anymore. He threatened to tow me next time (ironic, as it was my first time using this move), stared me down as I climbed into my car, and acted totally aggrieved in a completely common situation.
And you know what the really shitty part was? When he asserted that I was never to park that way again, all I said was "yes sir." As he was a complete asshole to me - I can't describe the situation well, or I won't so I don't get mad all over again - all I did was complacently apologize for something that isn't even wrong. And to some extent, by not explaining the unspoken rules of the Immac parking lot, I was actually harming others - when Jordan's car gets towed by this same asshole (he uses that maneuver far more often than I do), I will partially take blame because I never explained to this entitled gentleman how this parking lot works.
I really thought about the situation on the drive home from work, and in that short time became increasingly frustrated. Brian told me to put it out of my mind, but it's not just a single encounter - it's a systemic error. That fact just slays me. When I think about how the stronger people in this world would go about resigning, or how the Heather Bauers of this world would deal with Andy, it really makes me hate that part of my nature that makes me handle situations in the least confrontational way possible. No matter the level of the conflict, I'll go into fight-or-flight mode and just come up with the best way to avoid tension.
How do I crack that code?
5.17.2012
Draft of a Resignation Letter?
"I've been thinking through my life a lot lately, and my job, and how those two things tie in together, and I've realized that this job is just not a good fit for me. It's been eight months, and for most of those months I tried harder than I've had to try for a job. Part of that is the environment - which has certainly not been optimal for me - but I'll take the blame for part of it as well.
Either way, I think the best course of action is for me to resign, and for you to find someone with experience and know-how. Training me from scratch may not have been such a good idea after all when you consider that you were simultaneously trying to train yourself how to use those systems. If it wasn't unfair for you to expect me to learn new systems while you were relearning them, it certainly wasn't the best idea.
I'm fairly resolute about leaving - there are days when I think I'm dumb for wanting to, but if I'm really honest with myself, I've been wondering when I would leave almost since I started. It was a countdown until Indie Grits, and now I don't have something important to keep working for. I love Andrew and Isaac, and I love the Nickelodeon and Indie Grits, but you've made it increasingly difficult for me to love the work I do. It's the systems, yes, and the fact that I'm terrible at anticipating you, but it's also the way you treat all of us. When you hired me, you said we'd "work closely together," but that's not at all true. You work far above me and expect me to know what you need without telling me, and you don't respect me enough for it to be anywhere near working "with" me.
I really appreciate you taking a chance on me, even though I'm sure it'll look like a wasted effort to you. I'm sorry I'm leaving before you in a lurch, but I'd be happy to help you train the next one, or write an extensive list of where things are and how I've organized things. I would still love to come to the Nickelodeon and volunteer for Indie Grits, and I hope you won't think of me too harshly for realizing that someone else would do a better job, and I'd do a better job somewhere else."
Can I do this kind of thing in an e-mail?
Either way, I think the best course of action is for me to resign, and for you to find someone with experience and know-how. Training me from scratch may not have been such a good idea after all when you consider that you were simultaneously trying to train yourself how to use those systems. If it wasn't unfair for you to expect me to learn new systems while you were relearning them, it certainly wasn't the best idea.
I'm fairly resolute about leaving - there are days when I think I'm dumb for wanting to, but if I'm really honest with myself, I've been wondering when I would leave almost since I started. It was a countdown until Indie Grits, and now I don't have something important to keep working for. I love Andrew and Isaac, and I love the Nickelodeon and Indie Grits, but you've made it increasingly difficult for me to love the work I do. It's the systems, yes, and the fact that I'm terrible at anticipating you, but it's also the way you treat all of us. When you hired me, you said we'd "work closely together," but that's not at all true. You work far above me and expect me to know what you need without telling me, and you don't respect me enough for it to be anywhere near working "with" me.
I really appreciate you taking a chance on me, even though I'm sure it'll look like a wasted effort to you. I'm sorry I'm leaving before you in a lurch, but I'd be happy to help you train the next one, or write an extensive list of where things are and how I've organized things. I would still love to come to the Nickelodeon and volunteer for Indie Grits, and I hope you won't think of me too harshly for realizing that someone else would do a better job, and I'd do a better job somewhere else."
Can I do this kind of thing in an e-mail?
5.10.2012
Post Office Etiquette
Now that I'm going to the post office literally five days a week, some things have become evident to me about the etiquette that so often goes unrealized at this, the most unconscious of public spaces. I really do believe people just go about their business without really thinking about how they should be acting, but when it's something you deal with every day, sometimes twice a day, you start to have allergic reactions to all the obnoxious people who think their business is more important than yours.
Let's back up just a bit to the pre-post office stage. This pet peeve actually transcends pet peeve and delves straight into terrible driving; I hate when people turn left at the same time someone coming towards them is turning right, just assuming that the person with the right of way is totally fine with staying in the rightmost lane. That is most often not the case at all. A lot of people want to get in the middle or right lane when they turn. Seriously. Just don't do it.
Parking in the post office is always a mess as well. But no matter how much of a mess parking is, I don't ever think it's acceptable to park in a handicapped parking space, then hop out of your car and run inside for a second. Call me old fashioned here, but those spaces are sacred. I cannot think of a single situation at the post office that justifies taking that spot when you clearly don't need it. And it happens so, so often.
It all comes back to a sense of entitlement - and while I may suffer from that same sense on occasion, I like to think I can keep it in check enough to remember things like right of way, politeness in parking, and pedestrian safety. And while some people probably do have more pressing places to be than I do (I won't get fired if I show up five minutes late), it seems like people get so caught up in their own world that they have no time to yield, to acknowledge that all of us are going places and doing things and seeing the world through our own eyes.
If I want to get into the nit-picking details of it, I could mention how people avoid your eyes or even glare at you at the post office. I feel like, in a place like this, it's actually terrifically important to smile at people. It's like a neighborhood - you get to know the cars you park next to at the post office, and by the same token, you should get to know the people that are with you on your "shift."
Let's back up just a bit to the pre-post office stage. This pet peeve actually transcends pet peeve and delves straight into terrible driving; I hate when people turn left at the same time someone coming towards them is turning right, just assuming that the person with the right of way is totally fine with staying in the rightmost lane. That is most often not the case at all. A lot of people want to get in the middle or right lane when they turn. Seriously. Just don't do it.
Parking in the post office is always a mess as well. But no matter how much of a mess parking is, I don't ever think it's acceptable to park in a handicapped parking space, then hop out of your car and run inside for a second. Call me old fashioned here, but those spaces are sacred. I cannot think of a single situation at the post office that justifies taking that spot when you clearly don't need it. And it happens so, so often.
It all comes back to a sense of entitlement - and while I may suffer from that same sense on occasion, I like to think I can keep it in check enough to remember things like right of way, politeness in parking, and pedestrian safety. And while some people probably do have more pressing places to be than I do (I won't get fired if I show up five minutes late), it seems like people get so caught up in their own world that they have no time to yield, to acknowledge that all of us are going places and doing things and seeing the world through our own eyes.
If I want to get into the nit-picking details of it, I could mention how people avoid your eyes or even glare at you at the post office. I feel like, in a place like this, it's actually terrifically important to smile at people. It's like a neighborhood - you get to know the cars you park next to at the post office, and by the same token, you should get to know the people that are with you on your "shift."
5.09.2012
Too Much, All the Time
How do I ever make decisions?
I have a mind of my own - I like to think - but I've learned to pay close attention when people give me counsel. Lately, though, I'm running into some form of cognitive dissonance, when I have too many people telling me too different things. I have a bad habit of completely shutting down in that situation, digging my heels in and waiting for some blinding light to show me the way. So the last few months have been a little bit difficult, and a lot stagnant.
A friend made the point last night that I'm still really young, and this is the time in my life when I have an opportunity to do what I want to do. This really struck home with me. Maybe it's not quite as crazy as flying to Italy tomorrow (ideal), but as simple as spending my afternoons laying on the river reading, or training myself to write an hour a day again. Her implication - or the one I read into it - was that I jumped into adult life a little faster than was absolutely necessary, or maybe just faster than is good for my psyche at this time.
I've got things pretty together right now, though. I've got a wonderful boyfriend that I fully intend to spend the rest of my life with. We have two dogs together (you have to see the way he interacts with Chloe - she's as much his as mine now), a house that we're trying to move out of, and a lovely garden. I'm not saying I would lose those things if I tried this other method, but I would certainly feel less like I deserved it, had worked for it. I'd lose my claim to being a contributing member of society.
What happens if I decide I don't want this responsibility, and walk away? Not the responsibility of "family life," because I like that part, but that false responsibility of having a salary, working set hours, and hating every second of it. What if I decide I don't care about a "career," and decide to be a Five Points rat until Brian and I can go away and find something better to do? Does that mean I'm throwing away my potential or just finding out that my potential doesn't lie in office management?
It's about themes, I suppose - what's the theme by which I want to live the next few years of my life? Do I want to be selfish and "find myself" and try to find happiness externally? Do I want to "start a career" and show my worth here rather than places where I feel I'm actually talented at all?
Here's the bottom line: I want to quit. Is that the worst idea I've ever had? Does what I want actually matter if I'm doing something right?
I have a mind of my own - I like to think - but I've learned to pay close attention when people give me counsel. Lately, though, I'm running into some form of cognitive dissonance, when I have too many people telling me too different things. I have a bad habit of completely shutting down in that situation, digging my heels in and waiting for some blinding light to show me the way. So the last few months have been a little bit difficult, and a lot stagnant.
A friend made the point last night that I'm still really young, and this is the time in my life when I have an opportunity to do what I want to do. This really struck home with me. Maybe it's not quite as crazy as flying to Italy tomorrow (ideal), but as simple as spending my afternoons laying on the river reading, or training myself to write an hour a day again. Her implication - or the one I read into it - was that I jumped into adult life a little faster than was absolutely necessary, or maybe just faster than is good for my psyche at this time.
I've got things pretty together right now, though. I've got a wonderful boyfriend that I fully intend to spend the rest of my life with. We have two dogs together (you have to see the way he interacts with Chloe - she's as much his as mine now), a house that we're trying to move out of, and a lovely garden. I'm not saying I would lose those things if I tried this other method, but I would certainly feel less like I deserved it, had worked for it. I'd lose my claim to being a contributing member of society.
What happens if I decide I don't want this responsibility, and walk away? Not the responsibility of "family life," because I like that part, but that false responsibility of having a salary, working set hours, and hating every second of it. What if I decide I don't care about a "career," and decide to be a Five Points rat until Brian and I can go away and find something better to do? Does that mean I'm throwing away my potential or just finding out that my potential doesn't lie in office management?
It's about themes, I suppose - what's the theme by which I want to live the next few years of my life? Do I want to be selfish and "find myself" and try to find happiness externally? Do I want to "start a career" and show my worth here rather than places where I feel I'm actually talented at all?
Here's the bottom line: I want to quit. Is that the worst idea I've ever had? Does what I want actually matter if I'm doing something right?
10.06.2011
Problems with the Christian Youth
I think I'm fairly well qualified to write on this topic, too - I was one for a very long time. Even if I still believe in God and have fondness for aspects of the religion, I can also fairly well disqualify myself from that category: the "Christian youth" are the ones in YoungLife, who go to MidTown, who wrap their social and religious dealings up so closely that they forget that there's anything else out there.
For a little context, I'm in a wedding right now that requires me spending time not with the cool Christian kids that I used to hang out with (well, two or three of them), but rather the kids that they're hanging out with now. Is it wrong to call a certain set of them "cool" and a certain set . . . definitely not cool? Even if I don't buy into the same set of moral concerns that I used to, and if my actions are no longer driven by emulating Jesus in my daily life, I still live by a certain code that more or less requires me to consider others' feelings and treat people with respect. Sometimes I feel like this self-informed mode of values is far more effective - or maybe it just boils down to the fact that I was raised right.
But one thing that really strikes me, hanging out with a crowd of Christian youth, is that they tend to hide behind their Christian community as a way to avoid being real with anyone on the outside. I know Rachel felt it too, and I'm sure Alyssa was aware of the tension - not going to MidTown, or worse, not going to church at all, means that a lot of girls feel no need to get to know you at all. It's funny, because I felt the same way when I was actually going to MidTown. I guess even within that social strata, there are substrata that allow their members to ostracize people. All the girls I was with last night went to the same service (of the three that I think are still going each Sunday night - there was always a "cool" service to go to), knew the same people, had become close with the same leaders. If you don't know these people and hang out at the same times, clearly you must just be a godless heathen and nobody needs to try to connect with you.
I remember being the same way in high school - in fact, there were several weeks of crying and frustration among my youth group because some people didn't try to welcome new additions, and some people felt unwelcome even after having been there for a while. It's easy to hide behind the mutual friends and events that you can talk about with the people you know, and even easier to write someone off that's from a different circle entirely. When surrounded by your compatriots, you have their collective goodwill and the "us vs. them" mentality - some kind of primal instinct present in troops of monkeys and prides of lions - is strong. Politeness, genuine interest and kindness are unnecessary towards someone who has no tribe present.
This is not to paint myself as a victim, because like I said, I was like that once too. I had my defenses last night that allowed me to express my disinterest in playing that game - the only way to challenge it is to completely deny it - but it just seems vastly unnecessary to want to play the game at this stage in our lives. The concept of "young adult" allows for arrested development and offers what should be fully-fledged adults the ability to worm out of responsibility, both social and religious. Grow up - get a job, find the real world. If church for the youth is mostly about drawing bounds around specific types of people, then something is drastically wrong.
For a little context, I'm in a wedding right now that requires me spending time not with the cool Christian kids that I used to hang out with (well, two or three of them), but rather the kids that they're hanging out with now. Is it wrong to call a certain set of them "cool" and a certain set . . . definitely not cool? Even if I don't buy into the same set of moral concerns that I used to, and if my actions are no longer driven by emulating Jesus in my daily life, I still live by a certain code that more or less requires me to consider others' feelings and treat people with respect. Sometimes I feel like this self-informed mode of values is far more effective - or maybe it just boils down to the fact that I was raised right.
But one thing that really strikes me, hanging out with a crowd of Christian youth, is that they tend to hide behind their Christian community as a way to avoid being real with anyone on the outside. I know Rachel felt it too, and I'm sure Alyssa was aware of the tension - not going to MidTown, or worse, not going to church at all, means that a lot of girls feel no need to get to know you at all. It's funny, because I felt the same way when I was actually going to MidTown. I guess even within that social strata, there are substrata that allow their members to ostracize people. All the girls I was with last night went to the same service (of the three that I think are still going each Sunday night - there was always a "cool" service to go to), knew the same people, had become close with the same leaders. If you don't know these people and hang out at the same times, clearly you must just be a godless heathen and nobody needs to try to connect with you.
I remember being the same way in high school - in fact, there were several weeks of crying and frustration among my youth group because some people didn't try to welcome new additions, and some people felt unwelcome even after having been there for a while. It's easy to hide behind the mutual friends and events that you can talk about with the people you know, and even easier to write someone off that's from a different circle entirely. When surrounded by your compatriots, you have their collective goodwill and the "us vs. them" mentality - some kind of primal instinct present in troops of monkeys and prides of lions - is strong. Politeness, genuine interest and kindness are unnecessary towards someone who has no tribe present.
This is not to paint myself as a victim, because like I said, I was like that once too. I had my defenses last night that allowed me to express my disinterest in playing that game - the only way to challenge it is to completely deny it - but it just seems vastly unnecessary to want to play the game at this stage in our lives. The concept of "young adult" allows for arrested development and offers what should be fully-fledged adults the ability to worm out of responsibility, both social and religious. Grow up - get a job, find the real world. If church for the youth is mostly about drawing bounds around specific types of people, then something is drastically wrong.
10.05.2011
Open Letter to Managers
I've done something similar to this before - talking about my frustration with managers. I don't know if it's because I have a natural desire to delegate and make things happen my way, or if I just am my mother's daughter, but I have very strong feelings about certain parts of . . . any job, really. No matter what the situation, or the circumstances in the job, I get frustrated when people do things in a way that seem ineffective or inefficient to me.
It doesn't take long for me to feel strongly about the concept of "efficient," either; within a few weeks of beginning work - really, right about when I've found what I consider to be efficient for myself - I start to get frustrated when people do things in a way that makes them slower or less clean than me. Different doesn't matter - training a girl today, I tried to make it really clear that I mind when you don't attempt to be efficient, not when you do things differently than me.
But all that aside, my pet peeve for the day is when two people - who will go unnamed - do so much "managering" that they force me to carry the bulk of the work. I ranted a little bit to the third manager, who confirmed my frustration and then told me that it's just their ability to rely on me that leads to their inattentiveness. I understand that concept, and it's not a new one to me. Because I can do a lot of things all at once, and reasonably well, managers assume that I don't mind doing many things all at once for several hours at a time. Not the case, friends. Some days I would enjoy not having to push hard to keep up our standard of service. Some days I would really love to be the one who gets to chat people up rather than constantly be moving.
Moral of this story: when you have the same number of managers as you do hourly employees, there are going to be problems. I experienced that with great frustration at Chick-fil-A, where I trained several managers and then had to endure them telling me stupid things to do. I'm actually not great at masking my frustration with things that I could fix if given control of. Or being the one who's admired for doing things quickly and in a friendly fashion, but then not being listened to or helped.
And I know how all this sounds - like I'm really arrogant. But in all seriousness, Sean tells me every day how much of a void is going to be left when I leave, and I know it's true. I pay attention. That's more than I can say for a lot of people. I guess this is the other side of the coin from last week's blog - this is my I-love-you-but-can't-stand-you-sometimes letter to Drip.
It doesn't take long for me to feel strongly about the concept of "efficient," either; within a few weeks of beginning work - really, right about when I've found what I consider to be efficient for myself - I start to get frustrated when people do things in a way that makes them slower or less clean than me. Different doesn't matter - training a girl today, I tried to make it really clear that I mind when you don't attempt to be efficient, not when you do things differently than me.
But all that aside, my pet peeve for the day is when two people - who will go unnamed - do so much "managering" that they force me to carry the bulk of the work. I ranted a little bit to the third manager, who confirmed my frustration and then told me that it's just their ability to rely on me that leads to their inattentiveness. I understand that concept, and it's not a new one to me. Because I can do a lot of things all at once, and reasonably well, managers assume that I don't mind doing many things all at once for several hours at a time. Not the case, friends. Some days I would enjoy not having to push hard to keep up our standard of service. Some days I would really love to be the one who gets to chat people up rather than constantly be moving.
Moral of this story: when you have the same number of managers as you do hourly employees, there are going to be problems. I experienced that with great frustration at Chick-fil-A, where I trained several managers and then had to endure them telling me stupid things to do. I'm actually not great at masking my frustration with things that I could fix if given control of. Or being the one who's admired for doing things quickly and in a friendly fashion, but then not being listened to or helped.
And I know how all this sounds - like I'm really arrogant. But in all seriousness, Sean tells me every day how much of a void is going to be left when I leave, and I know it's true. I pay attention. That's more than I can say for a lot of people. I guess this is the other side of the coin from last week's blog - this is my I-love-you-but-can't-stand-you-sometimes letter to Drip.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)