Happy

One of my best employees got a disturbing phone call at work. Luckily I was already in the area to take over her for her while she took the call. She NEVER gets personal calls, so I suspected it was something bad from the start.

Sure enough, when she emerged from the office a few minutes later she looked pretty shaken. She apologized for the personal call. (Are you kidding me? Emergencies are fine. It's the employees who have friends calling ten times a day every day to make evening plans who get disciplined.) When she explained what was going on she began crying in the "I'm at work and I don't want my boss or my co-workers to see me upset" kind of way. All I could say was, "I'm sorry. Do you need a few minutes?" "Would that be all right?" Uh, yeah!

Now I hate drama in the workplace and people who can't handle things and "oh, my boyfriend broke up with me for the tenth time this week, the world is ending" and all that kind of nonsense. But this was entirely different.

It was so hard to see this particular employee upset. She's normally cheerful and enthusiastic and even the most annoying customer doesn't phase her. She's optimistic and improves the mood of everyone around her. (Except for in the morning. There IS a thing called being too cheerful in the morning. It's early-thirty. I'm not even awake yet. SHUT UP and STOP SMILING. She has gotten better at that, though, realizing that I need a couple of hours to wake up before having any kind of meaningful conversation.)

She handles customers beautifully, gets along with all of her co-workers, is well-liked, works hard, thoroughly does anything you ask of her in a timely manner without complaint, does things WITHOUT BEING TOLD TO, etc. I've NEVER seen her in even a slightly bad mood or anything. But with this news it was hard for her to hold it together.

But she did……more or less. She tried hard. Some employees will call in with a "I can't come to work today. My third cousin sprained his ankle a month ago. I have to go visit him at his house instead of coming to work." But she was extremely accommodating. She didn't want to leave us short-handed, so we arranged for her to leave early when a replacement could come in. She did her job, but the issue obviously weighed heavily on her mind.

The next day I half expected her to call in, but she showed up. She showed up with swollen eyes from being up most of the night, but she was there. Again, she left early, but it was a true give-and-take that left both sides satisfied.

She was scheduled off the next few days. The next time I saw her I wasn't sure how to handle it. Should I ask her about it? Should I wait? I don't want her to think I forgot or don't care, but I also don't want to get her upset again. After all, if it was good news wouldn't she have shared it right away? Later in the day she shared the bad news, the news we were half expecting. A tear or two escaped, this time without the embarrassment of the first day. She tried to put a positive spin on it…….that's the employee I remember! I again expressed my regrets, genuine regrets. You know…..there's the people that you say "I'm sorry" to because you're expected to, and then there's the people that you really do feel sorry. You feel their pain because you know them so well or perhaps because you've been there yourself.

Funny thing, wait, poor choice of words, weird thing is…..I feel like we got to know each other a lot better through this situation. We saw a side of each other that we haven't seen before. Because of the transitory nature of the retail worker, I don't get to know people until they've been here awhile. Seriously, no personal questions until they've worked at least a month or two. It's just not worth the energy to get to know someone who might be gone tomorrow.

Anyway, the way she handled the situation showed her commitment to the store and a strength that I didn't realize she had. We've been considering her for a management position, but weren't sure about it. I didn't feel that she was ready and favored Duh boy instead (who has improved immensely). After this, I've become a lot more open to her as a manager. It's possible. She needs lots of practice on some of the technical aspects of the job, but on the interpersonal aspects, she's light years ahead of Duh boy.

We had a few touchy days with an ultimately bad outcome, yet a good outcome for the store and for relationships. I can almost see us as friends, but then there's the boss-employee thing. I'm never sure where that boundary lies. Ultimately I feel like I handled the situation as best I could and was I imagining it or was she glad that I was on duty and not one of the other managers when all of this happened?

Perhaps she needs a nickname. I've already got a "Friendly," so for her, I think she should be called "Happy."