The key to being a good manager is keeping the people who hate me away from those who are still undecided.--Casey Stengel

Apparently, our hardware store has something called an employee communications plan. The plan calls for the manager or assistant manager to have a ten minute meeting with each employee, each month. The purpose is to allow the little people the opportunity to air their concerns, comments, etc.

On Friday, the assistant manager summoned me to the break room for one of these meetings. Since it was my first monthly communications meeting in my four month hardware career, I'm guessing that this is one of those tasks that seems like a better idea in theory than in practice.

Personally, I love these opportunities, because I generally have an opinion on every subject and am short on people wishing to hear them. Also, as my dad used to say, when they lose the power to fire you, work takes on a whole different meaning.

I'm fortunate to have bosses at the hardware store who are good to work for. What makes it interesting is that no one in the chain of command seems to be looking to move upward. When no one craves anyone else's job, the assh*le quotient goes way down.

I told the assistant manager that I only want to work three days a week. I was hired to work twenty-hour weeks and I am up to thirty-two at the moment. The additional hours are because a longtime employee is off work with a serious illness and they cannot make the decision to replace her just yet, so I am willing to go along for awhile. But, when she gets back or when she is replaced, I want to go back to three days.

He seemed very sympathetic to my request. He even asked me what my ideal schedule would be. Since I was hired to work all day on Friday and Saturday, it seems reasonable not to try to weasel out of those, so I told him that my ideal schedule is Wednesday, Friday and Saturday, three eight-our days.

I think it will eventually work out that way, because he wrote what I said in a big binder.








Things in this blog represented to be fact, may or may not actually be true. The writer is frequently wrong, sometimes just full of it, but always judgmental and cranky