U r fired!

Things have been quite busy lately.  With surprising weather in the 70's this weekend, eveyone assumed it was summer and that means time to eat ice cream!  So Friday/Saturday/Sunday were extrememly busy days!  Not to mention all the other things that I have to keep up with in addition to customer volume.

But one thing stands out from the weekend, and it is a text I received from a minimum wage employee.  Now, here's what I don't understand.  When I was in college, I never would have thought about texting a prof, or a boss, because I respected their time, authority, and position.  I was even hesitant to send them an e-mail.  But today's kids don't think twice about texting me.  For a while I had a rule that they could only text me in emergencies.  Now I have made a "no texting" rule.  Period.  Here's why:

I got to our store at 7:30am this Saturday because we had a staff meeting then a staff cleaning day.  I wanted to prep everything for the meeting and the store for customers so we could focus on the tasks at hand.  The meeting lasted from 9-9:30, then we broke up into teams and cleaned sections of the store until 11:30.  At 12, I got into our mascot costume and stood at our intersection light for an hour (during which I got called an f***ing homosexual faggot).  After that, I had lunch, tried to nap, then returned to the store at 4 to work until 10pm.  A long day to say the least!

We weren't busy, just steady that night.  I had 4 people on staff, myself included, and one on call in case we got busy.  Around 8-8:30, I decided I didn't really need to stay.  I had errands to run at Wal-Mart for our ice cream shop (buying ingredients we were running out of) so I decided to leave.  As soon as I did, a line formed, so I stayed and helped with the line.  Once there were no customers waiting, I left.  When I returned with goodies in hand, there were 4-5 customers in line, and 4 employees behind the counter.  It was safe to leave, in my opinion.

The NEXT day, when I got home from church, I had 5 text messages on my phone: 1 from the employee who was in the store at the time, 2 from the owner, and 2 from one of the employees who worked the night I left early.  His messages caught me off guard, "I just want you to know how terribly under staffed you left us.  As soon as you left (early) the other employee and I had a constant line out the door until 10 and I know you know what I’m talking about because you came in and dropped off chocolate chips and left without an offer to help.”

Let's poke holes in his plot, shall we?

1. First and foremost, you should never send a text to your boss like this.  If you feel this way, it is best to have this conversation in person or over the phone
2. He is not in a position to reprimand me
3. How am I to help 12 hours after the fact?  Had I known they were busy, I would have gotten in my car and returned to the store.  I can't help if they don't ask for it.  So they have no right to be mad.
4. He was not the person in charge that night.  If it was a concern, I could understand it coming from them, but not from an ordinary, minimum wage earner.
5. When I left, there was no line.  When I dropped off the food, there were 4 people there.  I didn't need to help because they could handle it.

I called him on the spot, and basically communicated the afore mentioned points.  Then, I fired him.  To which he responded, "Ok, bye."   Funny enough, my husband and I had been talking about his complacent attitude lately (like asking me if he really had to do something when I told him to) and not showing up to work in his uniform.  My husband suggested I sit him down and give it to him straight and threaten to fire him.  But this was the last straw.  He was already in hot water.

I then found out the employees at the store had 63 gallons of ice cream to make (a lot) and this newly fired employee was on the clock (although he was not scheduled!).  So my husband and I got in our car and raced to the store.  When I turned the corner in the back of the store, I found the fired employee at my desk, finishing up a note on paper.  I told him he could leave.  The note was his 2 weeks "notice" which he dated the night before!  So it's the "you're not firing me!  I'm quitting" routine.  Except I fired him 20 minutes before he wrote his notice, which he dated the day before!  I stayed on my day off to make all that ice cream, at which time I received a text from said employee.  He wanted to know if he was still going to get his hours for the next 2 weeks!  I replied, "No, you are fired.  I am ceasing communication with you via text."  

And that was my weekend!