Tonight I encountered a difficult situation and I can't decide whether or not I'm overreacting, perhaps it is simply that people on the West Coast were raised differently than those of us who hailed from the East Coast?
Here's what happened:
For those of you who don't know, I have move about 2 hours south of San Francisco and I am now the Director of Membership for a rather successful gym. With the new job title comes a whole lot of responsibility and a team of employees. Some are better than others, as is with any business.
A few nights ago, after sending the new schedule out, one of my employees comes into my office crying wondering why I cut her hours. I explained that she had a goal of 30 sales the previous month-she made 3. Representatives from other departments outsold her. She's been icy towards me ever since, this was mistake number one. She should be proving to me that she's an asset, not pouting and giving me, the boss, a cold shoulder.
I had today off. I went into work to take an exercise class and stuck around the extra half hour to help the team close. I was off the clock but felt this was the decent thing to do-it was only half an hour after all. Well, one member of the club was still there when we closed; she was waiting for her ride. We can't leave until everyone is out of the building. One of my new hires volunteers to stay; I mention that is anyone is going to stay alone it would have to be me. His reaction? He says, "OK, bye then" and clocks out. The problem employee follows suit. The only person who offered to stay was from a different department.
Moral of the story? Leaving me to close up the place alone, on my day off-not cool. Instead of getting angry though, I'm going to get even. The new hire is still on probation he has a 90 day trial period as is California law, so that one is easy. The problem child? Remember when she cried about getting cut hours? That was 15 to 12 hours. Can't wait to see the tears when she's cut from sales altogether.
Yeah, don't give the boss attitude. Not when there are people lining up for your job, who will and can do it 100x better.
So, venting aside, is this a Cali thing? I mean, at my old crappy retail job everyone ran out the door the second the manager told us we could clock out, I was always the last one out; I stayed to make sure the manager got out safely. There are some shady people out there. Was I simply raised better than people I've encountered or is this a Cali thing that I need to get used to? If it is a Cali thing, that's reason enough NOT to raise my future children here.
