Blood boiling

Tuesday 5 July 2011

I had a rather 'angry' Saturday at the Shop.

Nora is away on holiday.  Billy, her son, was down to come and work on Saturday.  Saturdays are a two-person working day - it's typically the busiest day of the whole week and quite often we'll get brief quiet spells followed by three or more people coming in at the same time.  (I do wonder whether they congregate outside and only come in when there's a lot of them.)

It's too much to expect for one person to cope with a Saturday crowd.  People get impatient and walk out, so the shop loses money.  It's also difficult to let people see the jewellery up close because, for obvious reasons, a member of staff needs to supervise anything that comes out of the displays.  One pair of eyes, one pair of hands.

You can already see where this is going, can't you?

Billy normally gets to work around ten or sometimes a bit later.  10 o'clock rolls around and he's not here.  Ok, perhaps the train is running a bit late.  Half ten - I'm getting a bit concerned so I phone his mobile.  It rings and goes to voicemail.  I don't leave a message as I presume he's on his way and will be here shortly.

11 o'clock, I try again.  The phone is answered and there's a lot of rustling and a groggy hello.  Billy has overslept.

Not overly impressed by that but I can appreciate this happens, so I ask him to just get here as soon as he can.  He asks 'Is it busy?' in a tone that suggests he's actually asking is it worth him coming in?   Not really the point, is it?  You're meant to be in work and just because there's no one in the shop at the precise moment I'm phoning you (it would have been rude to the customers otherwise!) that doesn't mean I'm not going to get a mad rush of customers in the next ten minutes.

So he says he's on his way.

Come 1 o'clock in the afternoon I then commence phoning him again.  This time with mixed feelings - did he nod off and not get up?  Has he fallen down the stairs and is lying unconscious in a heap at home?  Is there a problem with the trains?    I'm pretty damn concerned about him.

No answer on the phone.

I try to reassure myself that he'll see that he has a missed call on his mobile and will call me back.

Throughout the afternoon I try to contact him several times; once the line is engaged, several times it goes through to voicemail, and I leave a message telling him to call me immediately to tell me when he's getting here.

No reply.

Billy does not come to work.  He never once phones me back and I can not get hold of him - which for him is probably a blessing because I would have taken hold of him around his neck!!

So I had the joy of a busy Saturday crowd. All on my own.
  • Customers come in in large groups and several getting impatient because I physically can not serve everybody at once and walk out in a huff.  I  even had one glare at me and shake their head as they walk out!  Pardon me for there being two people ahead of you!
  • Deal with a massive delivery of jewellery boxes that needs counting and sorting, then storing which involves lugging them up and down stairs.
  • The cleaning of several cabinets in preparation for an upcoming sale.
  • The phone keeps ringing with customers demanding to know where their repairs / orders are and is it in yet (they are told very clearly that we will phone them as soon they arrive - literally, within ten minutes we're on the phone!)
  • Periodically checking the website for orders that will need to be processed.
So I'm running around like a lunatic all day long.  Nor does it help that the shop floor is uncomfortably warm as we have no air conditioning, just a fan and opening the door but that opens onto the street with the roar of the traffic which makes it hard to hear what people are saying sometimes.

I did not get a break all day.  I had to snatch mouthfuls of sandwich and sips of water whilst running in and out of the stock room for customers.  I did not once get to sit down so my feet was so sore I could barely hobble to the car park at the end of the day.  I was exhausted physically and mentally having been pre-occupied with trying to get in touch with that lazy sod.

My blood was boiling.

I don't give a monkey's behind that your mother is the boss.  She no doubt gave you the job on a plate.  But that does not mean you can just decide not to bother!

Had I dared to do that, I would fully expect to be fired!  At the very least I'd get a serious telling off and a threat of being fired should I do anything like it ever again!

Nora has now returned from her holiday and told me today that she hasn't really seen him since she got back but will get him to phone me to apologise.

So, he didn't have life-threatening accident then.  He just couldnt' be bothered.  How nice that he obviously still has a job.

I used to think he was a nice enough lad - I appreciate he doesn't want to spend the rest of his life working at the Shop but I don't think he has a clue how lucky he is to even have this job!  Plenty of teenagers are struggling to get work and he thinks it's ok to only turn up when he feels like it?  No sense of honoring commitments or supporting colleagues.

He's going to be in for a nasty shock if he ever gets a job somewhere else.  What employer would stand for someone not turning up when told?

I have decided that from now on, I'm not allowing him to leave early to catch his train, as I've done in the past - he can damn well stay and cash up (properly I might add, considering he still won't do it right), and tidy up until everything is done and then he can leave.  It's only twenty minutes until the next train, that's plenty of time to finish work properly and still get to the station so he can just suck it up.

Honestly, whatever respect I had for him has now evaporated.   And he's going to have to work bloody hard to earn it back.
.

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