THIS IS WHAT I DO. I KNIT, I COOK, I SEW, I MAKE THINGS, AND I TRAVEL, AS OFTEN AS I CAN.

Friday, February 11, 2011

FO Friday 2.11

Here's the socks... what a crappy picture.  What was I thinking?  Ehh, they don't need to see the toes, everybody's got 'em.

I have seriously got to take some photography lessons.  I suck!

That's just a tiny bit better.  I think maybe I'll go scope out the trash bins at Macy's and Dillard's for a mannequin. Is that word spelled correctly?

I have decided I prefer to have a 3 or 4 day weekend over having a 6 day weekend and then a 2 on, 1 off, 2 on, 2 off week.  I know that's confusing, that's exactly how my week has gone.

A blogging buddy had posted about her job this morning.  Heather aka Hevvar is having problems adjusting to new management and all that comes from a company buyout. Read about it here. 
Maybe you can suggest something.  Like I'm about to below....

Heather was saying that they aren't treated very well by the new administration.  You know, change is different that's why they call it change.  When the Principal before Big D left to go off to St. Louis, I was worried.  It had been about 28 years since I'd worked for a man.  We all know how women can read each others minds, and between the lines and fill in the blanks for each other.  Guys are different, guys can be weird, guys can have huge egos, especially when they are outnumbered.

So I just flat out told Big D... bare with me Dude! and he did, he understood.  It helped that he'd already worked with me more like around me for 2 years, he knew I was honest to a fault and sometimes brutally blunt.  I can only beat around the bush for so long and then I'm getting the weed wacker.

When I was open with him, he began to be open with me.  He felt like he could ask me anything and I'd tell him what he wanted to know or tell him "Hell, you got me, I have no idea what you're talking about."  This prompted him to start having monthly meetings on Customer Service!!!

So after a couple of months had passed the Honeymoon and he and the Assistant Principal, MP were feeling really good about things, as they should, everyone had hit the ground running.  That's when I commented at how well they had both done getting the school year off to a great start... smoothest start I'd seen in quiet a few years what's that they say about giving a complement before you start laying down the comments?

I suggested that he step back and watch his support staff.  For those of you not in the School Business, the support staff are those hourly pay, non-professional and sometimes with a teaching degree, people who do the dirty work that makes the Professional Educators look so well.  We have about 18 on our staff who fall into this category.  From Teaching Assistants who sometimes teach better than the teachers to the Administrative Staff us gals in the office.  A lot of people don't really know what we do. It's not their fault, they just have never had time to stop and watch us do our thing.  Now Big D was in the position that he could do this.  C former Principal would do this all the time.

It really opened his eyes.  He learned just how hard our jobs were, just how serious about our jobs we were and how hard we worked to make sure we did our jobs well.  He also noticed how were constantly interrupted throughout the day while we're trying to do our job.  Interrupted by people who are always needing something or someone that they expect us to hand over to them, immediately.  And most of the time these people are not happy, or they are anxious, or scared or just down-right mean.   They bring their problems from outside with them and want to shed those problems at our feet.

Big D, came away with a whole new perspective of his support staff.  He now knows that we'll jump through hoops to help him, because we know he really needs US to make his job successful.

No he can't really show us his appreciation like my old boss, Mr. Plumlee from years ago would by walking into the shop at 3PM with a couple of cases of beer and shout in his booming voice "Let's shut this Hell Hole down and drink some beer and talk it up!"  But Big D will buy us pizza of our choice when we hop to and all do Lunch Duty like we did today all the cafeteria monitors were out sick today!  The kids probably thought I was weird because I told them "are you tattling on someone?  I can't hear tattling... I'm wearing a head-set... I'm on the phone."  A cannon could have gone off in there and we'd not hear it. That place was a zoo.

What I would tell you Hevvar, is ask your supervisor if you can talk to him/her... person to person, not boss to peon employee.  Tell them you stayed with this company because you loved working there and wanted to continue working there.  Tell them you want the place to succeed as much as they do, or what ever you feel you need to tell them.  Think long and hard about it first... you are going to have to be careful that you don't stomp on their toes, but a gentle little toe bump or nudge won't be too bad.  Maybe they have been so involved with getting everything changed over to "their way" that they haven't had time to stop and make sure the little people are doing alright.  They need to get to know their work family. 

I told Big D when he was concentrating on customer service.  Yes, we can always give better customer service to the people we deal with, but WE, the employees deserve good customer service too.  And if you can't give good customer service to the ones who are holding you up, you won't give good customer service to the public. 

We get 5 star customer service from our Administration!  I hope it works out for you Hevvar.

3 comments:

THIS IS ME....ONLINE said...

REALLY good advice as usual. I had always had female principals,too, until the last 6 months of last year when we had an interim principal. It was different, yet a breath of fresh air for us. Our previous principal had so many personal issues going on, plus she had just become out-of-touch. I got along fine with her but sadly I was the exception. With the gentleman, I had the bonus that his wife had my job in another school district. Good customer service is huge in a school. Gotta have it.

Do you ever watch Undercover Boss on Sunday nights? I think it could be a big plus to business as it reminds the "top" to look at the "bottom". Hopefully, more people will get the idea.

Anonymous said...

Thanks for the advice Jomamma! It's really hard to reason with the new owners. They both (men) have giant egos. See our biggest compeitor bought us, they own 90% of us and these two men own 10% but they have a work contract that stipulates that they are the figure heads of the company. It puts the 90% corporation in a hard spot. They sent their lawyers & HR out last month to interview us because two of our managers up and quit just like that because of these two guys. I told them that their egos are what hold them back as managers. When they want somethign done they want it yesterday. And when they do projects, they put the cart before the horse. We can't operate like that. We are a small company. And we can only do so much. I did tell one of the owners that when he comes in he flys in like a tornado and he intimdates people, and people find him unapproachable and that's a problem. He overracted at first but he has since calmed a little. But I really feel like it's all an act because the corporation that owns 90% is putting the heat on them. They wanted to reduce our pay and put us on comission! We are not sales people! I'm not a sales person. I DO NOT DO SALES. I was furious. And I let it be known. So that plan did not happen this year. But that is his plan for next year. I told him I didn't have the luxury of NOT knowing what my pay check was going to being every month.
I'm at a point where I just don't care about the place any longer. I used too, but I don't any more. They don't care about us. The new manager they brought in she is a two faced back stabbing b. And she really pushes my buttons. I hate two faced people.
So that is my problem...that is my rant.
I know of 6 of us not including myself that want to leave....that is a bad sign.

judith said...

@ MeOL, I knew you'd relate.
@ Hevvar, I hope it gets better for you, either at the current place or some place new.

Jobs are so scarce though, and in Texas the schools are in a hiring freeze and will soon experience many lay offs of both teaching and support staffs.