The Daily Gripe #35 - Can't Find Good Help Anymore

The Daily Gripe Is Back! It's been a few weeks, but I'm back with more gripes.

I'm a Retail Manager, and I have two key-carrying Assistant Managers working for me. One of us has to be in the building at all times during business hours. That can make for some really hard times when someone is unable (or unwilling) to work.

That's exactly what happened yesterday. One of my Assistant Managers was at the hospital attending the birth of his grandson. No problem, I would have done the same. The other Assistant was scheduled off. When called and asked to come in to cover the evening shift, she stalled and created excuses. She said she had to pick up her son and four other boys. I don't know when or where. She called twice during the day and claimed that she was unable to reach any of the other parents to pick them up, but that she would keep trying. She never called with a final yes or no about whether she would come in.

I expected this. She is a highly unmotivated, severely overweight (which in itself doesn't mean anything -- it's everything else about her that perpetuates the obesity stereotype), low performing person who can't spell the word TEAM without substituting a couple of I's for the E and the A.

What really gripes me about this is that she always finds an excuse not to cover someone else's shift, but she's been out several days for back problems caused by her obesity, and she expects others to happily cover for her.

Another thing that really gripes me is that her husband -- who doesn't work and is on disability because he's also obese -- was home and perfectly capable of picking up the kids.

I didn't hire her, but I'm trying like heck to get the blessing from above to fire her.

Joe