Sunday, a sin day for some people.
It was not an amazing day, but a terrible maze mess of a day. We had to let someone go (a renter) who was discovered to be stealing from our business. The person telephoned to ask for money but my wife told the person that we couldn't help them today because we had to use all our funds to pay a tax bill tomorrow and that we would help her just as soon as we got some money in on Tuesday, the neXt day. My son heard the telephone conversation and immediately told his mother that he was not comfortable with the situation at the store and he turned off the burners to the food he was cooking at our house and immediately went to our business, five minutes away. He had been downtown studying all morning and had just returned to cook our lunch. So he surprised the renter who was in our cash register and had a wad of bills in her hand. She started making up eXcuses and lies and crying. Up to this point I knew absolutely nothing had gone on until I heard my wife screaming madly at someone unknown to me (the renter) at that moment over the telephone from the other end of the house.
So ... it has been a difficult day. The person would never admit they were stealing even though they were caught red handed. We live in a relatively small town of about 14,000 people where practically all the cosmetologists know one another so I have no idea how she thinks she will be able to work in this town anymore. And we have poured hundreds of hours of training time and money into this person because they essentially can't seem to get people educated locally at the junior college cosmetology department. So it is just a grand disappointment in trust shattered and time wasted.
I don't think I have ever "fired" anyone before. It wasn't a good feeling at the moment by any stretch of the imagination but I had no hesitations, just a clear cut agenda, boom. On the way home I laughed because of the sheer utter stupidity of the person to do such a stupid thing as this to us after this entire year of development. She was getting good at her craft finally, people enjoyed her. Later in the day we got a message on the answering machine that a piece of glass of hers in a picture frame had been broken that either my son or wife had packed and delivered to her house, accusing us of breaking it on purpose.
WHAT?!?!? She calls about a two-bit piece of glass which we most assuredly did not break on purpose or for that matter, how could you even prove something like that, anyway, such a trivial matter.
Later in the afternoon we pieced together the timeline of events and calls and figured out that she was most likely casing our business in the morning waiting for our son to leave before entering, not expecting him to have returned so suddenly.
So I am looking forward to hearing the rumor mill in the coming days.
It is a good thing I enjoy mopping, and my other cosmetology renters would rather have me doing it anyway instead of her. I think I will get a new larger mop.
(I am not a cosmetologist, just a business owner with a wife who is a cosmetologist. I am originally a chemist and computer scientist, but now spend my time mainly in the printing business.)
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5 comments:
Wow, how disappointing. And people do forget that training is a gift in a way.
On the bright side - tomorrow will certainly be better.
Well that is a bit of a blow Mr ESB but such is the way of humans that this is quite common really. Having had our own business it always puzzled me that if folk were caught shoplifting they found it hard to think they were stealing from us. They seemed to think it was OK because it was a business and it did not effect us . . . .
I must admit it has been a funny few days here but normality is slowly returning.
I am glad I have never fired anyone I would not be good at it, although we were once very pleased when someone left to work closer to home.
Update: I found out today that our electric bill shot up quite a bit during the previous month. My wife told me that while we were gone for a week in December that the person that was fired had pushed the thermostat up to 78 F and didn't know (supposedly) how to set it lower. But she didn't bother to ask for help even though she had talked to my wife every day and my sister-in-law was available and knew how to work the system. I am going to look into getting a thermostat that I can remotely access and control.
It sounds like they were just not nice folk. At least it means you do not have to feel bad about getting rid of them.
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