Mistake # 79: Create a sweat-shop environment

I signed off for someone to take vacation this past week. She is sales support and cranks getting quotes out and orders processed. However, all hell broke out. Someone (from another department) even recommended me calling her back from her vacation to help the overloaded staff.

What?! Did I hear that right? We’re not curing cancer, doing brain surgery, or landing men on the moon. We are selling products and processing orders for those products. Yes, it was chaos. Yes, it was not good timing. But when is timing ever great?

I realize that, as a manager, I need to focus on work flow, when people should, and should not, take vacations. I also realize that I have final authority to deny vacations at any point in time.

But even I had to be out that week (taking my son to move into his dorm as a first year college freshman); and another sales manager had to take her mother for testing and needed to be out most of one day. Further, the President of the company was out for two days at the end of the week to fly to a family wedding on the east coast; and the CEO was out for two weeks during this time (after being back only one week in the office after his vacation) for a family wedding on the west coast, traveling with his family, and seeing the California sights.

So I it really wasn’t necessary to even consider bringing this person back from her vacation. I think the company will still be standing when she returns on Monday. In fact, I’m certain of it!

Mistake # 55: Tell your boss that she made you look like an ass!

Yes, I had that happen just this week – by email! I sent out final quotas for 2009 to the sales staff and her numbers weren’t jiving with what she expected. So, she proceeded to tell me that all this time she was striving for a different goal in 2008, and “do you realize what an ass you made me look like?” The email had other rotten remarks in it, but this one, in particular, stood out.

 

I must tell you that, in a former life, she would have been fired by the next morning.  Why she didn’t pick up the phone and call me to communicate something like this: “I’m confused. These numbers appear differently than what I was following…let me explain.” That would have been the more professional route.

 

However, let me back up a second on this particular employee. There isn’t one thing that doesn’t set her off into a rage. Don’t ask me why, but she has temper tantrums. These go completely against my grain of nature, and the way I manage.

 

Of course, being Italian, Type-A, and ADHD, by now, I flew completely off the deep end. I was, to say the least, furious. I tried calling her, but got her voice mail, leaving a message for her to call me. She sends me an email back that she will not call, but that she’ll “calm down and will talk to me on Monday when she is in the corporate office (this happened on a Friday).”

 

I sent an email back which read: “This email message, as well as the one prior, are unacceptable. I asked you to call me, and you refused. We will talk on Monday.”

 

We did. She did calm down, and so did I. She’s still in the department and I didn’t fire her. Yet. She’s a terrific sales rep and continues to exceed her numbers. But, she has this temper problem.

 

Which is now my problem!

Mistake #32: Be a bad boss!

As a manager, I try my best to make work fun, with surprise pizza lunches, flowers, balloons for making a hit high-ticket sale, etc. But, there are days when workers don’t get it. Of course everyone thinks they can do a better job than the boss. Haven’t you thought that?

 

But, push come to shove, and put an individual in that role, it’s a different story.  I recently hired someone and am allowing her to “grow that learning curve.” However, five months later, I have arranged a time to sit and go through all of her top accounts to get a status. She couldn’t do it. She didn’t know last year’s sales versus this year’s, who the contact was in that company, when they usually order, constantly confusing one company for another. The list goes on. Now, I’m able to give someone rope, but hat is her job! I came down on her, but not to the point of throwing things or screaming. Believe me, I wanted to, but that didn’t happen.

 

So when do bosses become bad bosses? When workers are not performing? From a manager’s perspective it is tough. You try to find the best and the brightest (based on what your budget can bear, your location, applicant pool, and job needs). When you do you train the hell out of them to get them going (and so you don’t have to baby sit. More importantly, who wants workers in your office every five minutes asking how to turn left or turn right? The company can’t get anything done when that happens!

 

But when is it the workers’ responsibility to perform, rather than the boss to become a bad boss? When?!

Mistake #25: Don’t do what you are asked to do!

Me:  “This is just for 30 days, but if you can work with “Susan” then I’ll have someone trained by then.”

“Betsy:”  “I’m not working with “Susan.” She chews people up and spits them out. Not even for 30 days. Sorry, but I just am not going to work with her.”

I haven’t previously asked ”Betsy” to do anything ‘above and beyond’. But, now she refused to pitch in until I have someone trained. You can imagine what happens the next time we have a project, or a short-term phase where I need help. Can I expect her to pitch in? I don’t think so. She was the least likely person I thought would refuse. What happens when workers do that? It means that you are left to ask the very same people who put in inordinate hours. Again. I refuse to do it.

Remember, although I’m a boss, I have a boss, too, and need to run a department – efficiently and effectively. I can’t do it when people refuse to do something that I ask. After all, could they do what I do?  If so, could they do it better? I even asked for a solution to working with “Susan”, but “Betsy” didn’ have one.

Could you do your boss’s job? And, if so, what would you do?

Mistake #23: Walk in and tell your boss you are worth it (without proven results)

Before you walk into your bosses office and demand a $100 week raise, think again. No, don’t think, do leg-work. Put a document together that shows your value and to show your boss your that you’ve earned it. Give bulleted lists of how you saved the company money; brought in revenue; increased revenue; increased the client-base; improved a product; enhanced customer service – whatever it is, document, document, document. Why?

Because. (I know, it sounds like my mother…“Because I said so!”) It’s not that no one notices what you do, but you better have good reasons on why you are worth it. I just had an individual

Is he worth it?

His sales are down. Well, no, I take that back, his sales are up by $30,000. But, $27,000 is with one client. The other clients are down. Significantly down. We just had a several-day meeting with this specific high-roller client. This guy (who asked for the raise) didn’t lift a finger. He didn’t “know how to put on an event; had never done it before; wanted to learn from me…” Lots of reasons, but, damn it! I had to do all of the work! And, I am the supervisor!! Instead of asking others for help, he leaves it for me. And, why weren’t contracts finalized this month? “These are ‘beyond my expertise.’ Damn it! And why are the contracts late? “I sent them to “Bob” (the CEO!!), but he never had a chance to read through them. Damn it all!

Want to hear one of the reasons he asked for a raise? “His wife had to take a second job…” Pardon me? Did I hear that right? We know he is making slightly less than he was making at his previous job. However, he works from home in another city. Thus, no commute to an office. He doesn’t have a degree (which is not a good reason to being paid less, but, sorry, I had to get that in there.)  To me it’s all about performance – but there are tons of skilled people with degrees out there that will read contracts and rewrite contracts and it would not be beyond their expertise, and is not required to move to the city in which the company is located.  So, for the money he makes, the effort he puts in, the sales he generates, and the other areas that are “beyond his expertise,” I believe that he is well compensated.

So, before you ask for a raise, be sure you are worth it. Very sure. Be very sure that you can demonstrate that you are very, very worth it. Keep reminding yourself that timing is everything. And, please, ask for a raise, and get it like a man.

 

 

 

Mistake #22: Are you adjusting during maternity leave? Rather, I mean your wife’s maternity leave…

I had to do it. I felt badly, but on the other hand, he was constantly doing the opposite of what I had asked. Actually, the last straw was when he called and started out like this: “My wife is all over me… because you asked me to travel out of town back to back.” What? Wait a minute! You aren’t the one on maternity leave! She is! As a woman, and I can’t say this directly to employees, I went straight back to work after delivering twins – I had to travel on overnight trips, I had to work 70 hours a week (for a corporation) plus weekends when necessary, and I had reports and infants keeping me up non-stop every night. And, I was the one who had the C-section and had to function.  And, let’s not forget, I had TWO at the same time!

He was very young, very green, and very un-ambitious. Given he was in sales, that last description didn’t go over well with me. So, I had to ask him to resign. It wasn’t the first time he was doing the opposite of what I had asked. It was happening all along.

Was it the wrong thing to do when his wife just had a baby and he was having problems traveling while she was on maternity leave?

I’m sure his wife was following all of the guidelines on her maternity leave. CareerJournal.com gives guidelines on the first 90 days following maternity leave and back to work. But what about men?! What were his guidelines?

By the way, check out Invisible mothers: a content analysis of motherhood ideologies and myths in magazines, by Deirdre D. Johnston and Debra H. Swanson. It is extremely interesting.

What are your guidelines for couples who are going through a maternity leave together?

 

 

 

Mistake #13: Evil bosses!

We’ve all had weirdo bosses. I’ve had fat bosses, bald bosses, Latin-Italian bosses (with a short, hot temper), blah bosses, blond bosses, and one that always lied.  The liar was the most interesting. She told her direct reports that the VP gave orders that no one was allowed to be promoted in the department. And no one was. No matter what.