Excuses

Back to hiring.....and firing. We have lots of long-term employees (long-term for retail, anyway) but when one of them leaves or increased business leads to the need for more employees, we go through SO MANY employees until we find someone who will stick around. Many times if we need one employee then I'll hire two because chances are at least one of them won't stay.

Last week's new employee: worked one week with perfect attendance and more or less punctual. He did an adequate job with minimal training, but did only what he was asked to do instead of looking around to see what needed to be done. That's OK, we can fix that.

Week two…..first day he called in sick. O…..K……personally, if I was sick with a new job I'd go to work anyway. I've had many people out "sick" for a day or two while they decide if they want to quit or not. On the second day there was a death in the family (half-brother's grandmother's sister's sister-in-law's great-nephew's wife's dad's dog) so he couldn't come to work. I've been down "excuse road" before.....at that point I started interviewing to replace him.

On the third day he actually showed up, more or less on time, and did his adequate job again. On the fourth day he didn't show up or call at all until after his shift was scheduled to begin. He claimed that his alarm didn't go off so he didn't get up on time but that his dad needed help with yardwork so he couldn't come to work at all that day…??? You're fired!