FAILING AS AN EMPLOYEE: FIXING MABEL
The real Mabel in our story ended up being fired. Several
months later, we were having a discussion with a supervisor
who had similar problems with an employee. After the first
week, when this employee had been late for work twice and
called in sick once, our friend, Pat sat her down and had
this talk.
"Listen, I am a single parent and I know how it is to
have to handle being mother, father and breadwinner all at
the same time. BUT ... we need you here to do the work and
I am going to give you some rules right now that you need
to learn to follow.
1. If you have a doctor's appointment, dentist appointment,
eye appointment or any other kind of appointment for you or
your child, do it after work. If your doctor's office isn't
open in the evenings or on Saturday, try to find another
doctor who is. If you absolutely cannot do it after work,
do it on your lunch hour when our office is closed.
2. If you have an appointment, unless it is because you or
your child suddenly got ill, you should never (and I mean,
never) just give a day or two notice. If you need to get
your son's check up for school sports and it has to be
during the day, ask me a couple of weeks ahead of time what
day would be most convenient for you to miss and then let
me know when you will be gone so I can plan around that.
3. You will not take off during work hours for any errands
- banking, grocery shopping, getting your car fixed. You
have an hour for lunch you can use for those chores. When
you leave at 3 p.m. to go shopping, it makes me think that
it is more important for you to have fresh tomatoes for
dinner than that our clients have someone here to answer
their questions. What that shows me is that this job is not
very important to you.
4. Get gas in your car the night before. Leave early enough
to get to work. You know how long it takes to get here. Get
maintenance done on your car when you need it (and get it
done on the weekends or after work). That will make it much
less likely you will have car trouble."
If you cannot come to work regularly and on time, then that
lets me know that your job is not important enough to you
to make accommodations in other areas of your life. That is
your choice. However, if you make the choice to put your
job as less important than other things like picking up
your dry cleaning or having your eyes examined when it is
not too busy, then you are making the choice not to work
here.
Click here to read more on building work habits by SLC
President Dr. Erich Longie