On another note...
My friend Jenn stepped in as bartender this past Saturday for a wedding my work place was doing at one of our properties. She pretty much saved our asses because we are stretched so incredibly thin right now, and we needed one knowledgeable employee at the hotel/spa as we have complete newbies working right now. And as part of the management team, that fell to me. My boss is trying not to work herself to death so she was at the hotel/spa until 2pm when I started - at one point she would work at the hotel for eight hours and then go help with the wedding/event until food service was over. She was stressing out over every little thing and while she couldn't recognize it, I sure did and told her as much. Sure enough...within a month after the last big event we put off she went out on stress leave for two months.
Mind you, those two months are also how I proved myself to be a very valuable asset to the company because I took on a good portion of the normal management duties. The only one that would have seen my lose my mind is events coordinator, but thankfully that role was given to another of my coworkers. Out of it I got a raise and a promotion, so I'm certainly not complaining!
Anyhow, back to my friend Jenn. It was her first time working an event for us, and she absolutely loved it! She actually wants to work with us part-time, and I KNOW she'd be an asset. Thursday evenings and Saturdays would work around her regular job's schedule, and be enough to get her the staff discount on esthetician services!
Everybody she worked with at the event on Saturday is completely impressed with her. And when she told them how she got the gig, apparently everybody sang my praises about how fair and reasonable I am, and how hard I work to make everything work. As well as how calm and likeable I am. She told me this yesterday during our adventures, and I couldn't help but beam. It's one thing to hear from my boss and her boss how appreciated I am for all the work I do, but it's entirely another thing to hear that the staff really like me too!
I had an inkling that at least the estheticians and massage therapists liked me because they asked for ages when I was going to come back up to work in the spa, or at least do all their laundry. Apparently, despite my jacked up knees, I was the only one who managed - by myself, no less - to mostly stay on top of all the laundry produced during the course of a shift, even if all I was able to do was get it all washed, dried, folded, and put into bins in the staff room so that somebody else could take them up after my doctor wrote a note saying that the stairs were destroying my knees even further. And now they love having me up in the spa, either on the front desk or in the back room dealing with cancelation calls, messages, email, chat, and other social media contacts.
But I was never sure about the folks working at our other accommodations sites or even the one guy who works directly with me at the hotel in a different management position. Well, now I know and I'm STILL grinning about it!
I've always strived to be the kind of manager I always wanted to have when I was an underling. I firmly believe in teamwork, and I will never make an employee - even if I don't particularly like them - do something I myself will not do. And I also firmly believe that micromanaging employees is the quickest way to piss them off. I'm big on communication in both directions - if you don't like something I'm doing, tell me so I know not to do it anymore or so I can explain to you WHY I'm doing it. Treat me with respect, and you get that same respect back. Disrespect me and I'm quickly looking to get your ass out the door. While I don't have firing permissions yet, that does not mean that if I send you home and then recommend to my boss that you never return that you will ever come back to work with us ever again. Of course I understand that everybody can have a bad day here or there, but when it's a constant thing I'm done with you and your bullshit. As it is, we have somebody who returned to work recently showing total attitude and I'm less than impressed with her as a result. My boss and I have already been discussing how we're going to be replacing her as soon as feasible...just have to wait on some more esthetician applications to come in!
In the meantime, I'm at the spa all day tomorrow and I start at 9:30 so it's time for me to crawl into bed and try to get some sleep!
Comments
Post a Comment