Chapter 3: Now Open!

Workin' the Laundry

The key to being a good manager is simple: hire good people. For centuries, idiots have been hiding incompetence behind competent employees and, when done right, this strategy can work rather well. Geniuses who hire morons are doomed to fail (see bad guys from any Bond Film for reference). Even worse are morons who hire morons (see current United States President for reference, or for that matter - all those republicans who voted the moron into office **twice** in the first place - thanks for that).

I, on the other hand, don't pretend to be a genius, and I generally do a good job of hiding my incompetence, so hiring employees could have gone either way. Add on the fact that I am opening a brand new store that has the burden of luring people away from the well established competitors and you will see why good employees are key.

So with all that in mind, I placed tiny help wanted signs in the window and waited to see what would happen. After receiving 61 applications in less than two days, I took the signs down. So many people fighting for a close to minimum wage job seems depressing, doesn't it? Don't get me wrong, I'm not judging them, I'm merely shaking my head at the situation that quite a lot of people find themselves in. Ahh well - I suppose it's more important to spend $10 billion a month on Iraq than to figure out how to help people here. Wow - I just realized that I've been making way too many political references - OK, no more - on to more important topics like the red head who works at the coffee shop down the street. Mmmmm Red Head.

Back to the employees for a moment - I consider myself particularly skilled at putting good teams together. Maybe it's intuition, maybe it's luck. I don't know. With the Emerson Mafia I've had outstanding luck thus far. With Audrey Appleton, my team has performed better than I had even hoped for. So now, with the laundry, I find myself quite pleased with the results - for the most part anyway.

The crew...

Nicole:
The first employee I hired was a girl named Nicole. Between you and I, I probably wouldn't have hired Nicole if I had stopped to think about it. In fact, the only reason I did hire her was because I was in the laundry one day bitching to myself about the fact that I needed a helper to get everything ready to open - and low and behold, at that exact moment, this girl named Nicole came knocking on the window asking if I was hiring. We chatted for a few minutes - she filled out an application - she told me about her experience working at Home Depot and presto. That's about the gist of it anyway.

Nicole is fantastic. She's a good worker. She gets along with customers. She's great ... uhhh ... when she shows up for work that is. In the first two weeks of employment, I think Nicole actually worked maybe three complete shifts. The first day she worked the whole day. The second she worked for a couple of hours and then told me her mother just called and informed a family member just died ***I of course let her leave*** Next day she couldn't show up because she needed to attend the funeral (next day??) ***I of course let her leave *** There was that time she needed to leave early to take her drivers exam , she failed. And that time she was late because her building lost power and her alarm didn't go off. And more recently ***on a saturday morning mind you*** she was terribly sick and constantly running off to the rest room to throw up. I asked her what was wrong and ... well ... she thought she may have been pregnant. I snapped a picture.
I had a chat with her and decided to give her one last chance. So far she's been good. Oh - and in case you were curious - she isn't in fact pregnant. I'm shocked.

Carmen:

(PICTURE TO BE ADDED LATER)
Carmen is a gem. She's Puerto Rican. She speaks fluent Spanish. What more can I say? She has a bit of an attitude sometimes. Not a bad attitude mind you. Just an attitude that comes out as if she doesn't realize she's giving it. Anyway - I don't have much to say about Carmen other than the fact that she's great. The manager of the Family Dollar informed me that on the day I hired her, Carmen was dancing in the aisles and telling everyone that she's going to be working at the laundry. She also likes to work nights. This surprised me considering the area and considering that she has to walk several blocks home at midnight. I was worried at first - but Carmen is a tough cookie and I doubt the gang bangers and drug dealers would stand much of a chance against her. So nights she wants - nights she gets.

Yvonne:

Yvonne is the most recent hire. She's quieter than I expected her to be. She doesn't speak spanish, which is a shame, but she's personable and I've seen her able to communicate well even with the language barrier. Yvonne mostly works in the mornings - which unfortunately at the moment are relatively slow and boring (I'll have to work on that). Of course, Yvonne likes the mornings and asks for them - so - mornings she wants, mornings she gets.


Don Juan:

Don Juan (along with Carmen) is my MVP. He wants to work as much as possible and doesn't care what time of day it is. He used to be an electrician before carpel tunnel, he claims, screwed up his arms and he also used to work for a local sign company. Needless to say he's a good handy man. And yes, his name really is Don Juan. He says that he's gotten a lot of shit for that name and prefers to be called just Don. I think I'll keep calling him Don Juan.

He has a 3 year old daughter, Sammy, currently living with his mother and sister just outside Boston. He has this interesting story about how the mother called him up one day and told him that he needed to come to the hospital. When he got there, she had just given birth and told him that the baby was his and that she wanted nothing to do with it. And so, Don Juan - who hadn't always been such a nice guy - suddenly became a single parent. Sounds like a movie, doesn't it? Anyway, apparently Sammy changed his life. She lived in Chicago with him for two years and then had the opportunity to live with his mother and sister in Massachusetts, and so he sent her off. I asked him why he didn't go as well but he said the opportunities were better in Chicago. I don't know - doesn't make much sense to me - I'll investigate further.

I schedule myself for shifts here and there. I think its important to work in the store and not just in the management capacity. I also really like talking to the customers. There's so many fascinating characters that come along and a lot of genuinely nice people. I mainly work the morning because, unlike Carmen, I happen to be terrified of the gang bangers and drug dealers.

And now I'll leave you with something I stumbled into. Not sure I really want to know what this is.