I told you before that I hated participating in religious activities, and my parents tried everything to get me to want to change my mind. They sent me to religious groups, they made me participate in religious tutoring, they sent me to the previously mentioned religious camp, and when none of that worked they tried, bribes, force, yelling, screaming, and when none of that yielded the result that they wanted my mother used guilt. By the by, jewish mothers use guilt all the time, and this is not an just some sort of opinion or stereotype, this is a proven scientific fact.
By the time I was twelve (my bar mitzvah was completed by now) my parents had run out of ways to make me participate . So like any other parents at their wits end, they found religion, and went to the Rabbi to ask for advice. So the scheme went like this. My parents would give me an ultimatum. I could either go to Sunday school and confirmation, or I could work at the family business every weekend. So after some long deliberation and thought..... o.k. who am I kidding, my parents no more then said the words then I said, "WORK."
By the time I was twelve (my bar mitzvah was completed by now) my parents had run out of ways to make me participate . So like any other parents at their wits end, they found religion, and went to the Rabbi to ask for advice. So the scheme went like this. My parents would give me an ultimatum. I could either go to Sunday school and confirmation, or I could work at the family business every weekend. So after some long deliberation and thought..... o.k. who am I kidding, my parents no more then said the words then I said, "WORK."
My fate was sealed, and I have since then always held some sort of management or supervisory position. Now everyone claims that they would like nothing more then to be the boss. They say things like, the boss gets all of the perks, the boss never has to take responsibility, and the boss never really has to work. There is also my favorite comment, "I wish I was to the boss so I could (fill in the blank here)."
The truth of the matter is I have never as a manager had it easy, and I have never been able to sit and watch others work. Now don't get me wrong, I have over the years said the same things about my past bosses, that they are lazy or stupid, but...well, they were stupid and lazy, so there. One caveat, I will take the opportunity to mention, that after all of these years of working, I finally have a boss that I like, so the possibility of working for a competent person does exist, it is not just a myth perpetuated by all of those books about businesses.
Now I could just keep expounding on the virtues and challenges of employee / management relations, but that really is not funny or any fun. What is fun is talking about the excuses that I have gotten from the brain trusts that want my job over the years, so I will share those with you. Enjoy.
1. An employee who had been late and was on her last and final warning called me with this excuse 15 minutes before she worked. "My plane coming back from Las Vegas flew slower then normal so I won't be able to make it on time."
2. An employee who had been sick on Monday failed to show up for their shift on Friday. When we called the employee to see where they were their answer was, "Well I called on Monday to say I was sick that should cover me until I come back."
3. An employee who worked the night shift called to tell me that she would not be able to make it because, "Her mother had an emergency tax situation and that she would not be able to make it in." I have still to this day never been able to find out what an emergency tax situation is.
4. An employee came to see me to tell me that there was a family emergency. The employee told me that he would not be able to make it in for a few days. Apparently someone in his family had gone missing and he gave me a card from the police officer in charge of the case if I needed to contact someone to corroborate his story. Needless to say it took me three days to reach the officer in charge. In the mean time I covered all of the employees shifts, and made other arrangement. When I finally reached the officer I told him that I just needed to know if the story was true and that I did not need any details. The officer did indeed corroborate the story but then offered this one little fact. The missing family member was not some cousin or sister it was my employee. He left home to live somewhere else and his parents called the police. I let the employee go. I am sorry you cannot call me to claim yourself as a missing person.
So If you need to call out from work, you either need to be clever or truthful, I would choose truthful.
The truth of the matter is I have never as a manager had it easy, and I have never been able to sit and watch others work. Now don't get me wrong, I have over the years said the same things about my past bosses, that they are lazy or stupid, but...well, they were stupid and lazy, so there. One caveat, I will take the opportunity to mention, that after all of these years of working, I finally have a boss that I like, so the possibility of working for a competent person does exist, it is not just a myth perpetuated by all of those books about businesses.
Now I could just keep expounding on the virtues and challenges of employee / management relations, but that really is not funny or any fun. What is fun is talking about the excuses that I have gotten from the brain trusts that want my job over the years, so I will share those with you. Enjoy.
1. An employee who had been late and was on her last and final warning called me with this excuse 15 minutes before she worked. "My plane coming back from Las Vegas flew slower then normal so I won't be able to make it on time."
2. An employee who had been sick on Monday failed to show up for their shift on Friday. When we called the employee to see where they were their answer was, "Well I called on Monday to say I was sick that should cover me until I come back."
3. An employee who worked the night shift called to tell me that she would not be able to make it because, "Her mother had an emergency tax situation and that she would not be able to make it in." I have still to this day never been able to find out what an emergency tax situation is.
4. An employee came to see me to tell me that there was a family emergency. The employee told me that he would not be able to make it in for a few days. Apparently someone in his family had gone missing and he gave me a card from the police officer in charge of the case if I needed to contact someone to corroborate his story. Needless to say it took me three days to reach the officer in charge. In the mean time I covered all of the employees shifts, and made other arrangement. When I finally reached the officer I told him that I just needed to know if the story was true and that I did not need any details. The officer did indeed corroborate the story but then offered this one little fact. The missing family member was not some cousin or sister it was my employee. He left home to live somewhere else and his parents called the police. I let the employee go. I am sorry you cannot call me to claim yourself as a missing person.
So If you need to call out from work, you either need to be clever or truthful, I would choose truthful.
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