Tuesday, April 21, 2009

Tales from the Trenches: It has all blown over.

My bosses love me again. Remember last week when I was talking about the chewing out episode? Well, I'm going to chalk that up to my boss getting overwhelmed by the whole show that we had set on Saturday and being a little irritated at me. It's all good, though. I had e-mailed her, thanking her for talking with me about it. I'd rather have a boss tell me that they were a little irritated, then a boss to sit and stew. I explained a little further what my point was with the "shy away from Chinese made product" for a while. I also told her that I only wanted the best for her and her artist husband. I certainly didn't mean to offend. She thanked me for the e-mail and we're all good with everything.

I'm happy.

Then I did something extra nice for my bosses. I caught a $250.00 tagging error before I sold the item and was able to handle it and not take the loss. A special order gold ring was miss marked at $251.00 when it was supposed to be tagged at $501.00. When I compared paperwork and the deposit paid, the prices didn't just differ by a few dollars-- they differed wildly, which sent me on the double check goose chase. Sure enough, I was right. The customer was so kind, that he would have probably mentioned the difference if I hadn't caught it.

See? Having an anal retentive Virgo on staff is a good thing!

My one boss had a commission meeting today with some local hospital staff and we were having difficulty tracking him down. His vehicle was there, but neither one of his phones were reaching him. I knocked and knocked on the studio door. I rang the doorbell. I had nothing. In the meantime, I had these folks with an appointment patiently waiting. His wife told me that he was in another building, so I went to go track him down there. She was yelling that I would get soak and wet as I trotted off to track him down.

Heavens me. I couldn't get the darned dog gate open. I was actually talking to the gate and I heard my bosses voice. I yelled to him, "Thank God, --! I've been looking for you!" "Well! Why didn't you call me?!" "Your cell is shut off." "No it's not!" (He opened his pocket, took his cell out, found it shut off and felt horrible.) So there I was left, standing in the pouring down rain trying to convince my boss that not only did he have his cell shut off, but that he had an important meeting with the hospital people about a commission. I made my way back to the store, rounded up the commission folks, trotted them back across the street and directly to my boss. When I was able to finally return to the store, I was very damp and my curly hair had gone into a frizzy frenzy.

Whew.

As I was walking to my car, my boss stopped me to thank me for tracking him down and getting the folks to where they needed to go. Extremely apologetic about the whole thing, it was very nice to get kind words. My boss is a nice guy, but a little light on the ataboys.

Another nice work thing today was finding out that our cash box that was $20.00 off on Wednesday really wasn't off after all. Somehow, our Tuesday box was $20.00 over and then there ended up being some mysterious shortage. It all evened out and they were just fine with it. It truly is a mystery. The two of us on staff have been there for a combined dear sweet forever, so they knew that the shortage was an incredibly weird and rare thing. Again, another nice thing about working in a Mom and Pop. Anywhere else, we would have been written up for that.

Have I ever mentioned how much I love working for a Mom and Pop? I do!

4 comments:

Rach said...

I loved working for a Mom and Pop. They loved me, I loved them, we were able to sort things out more easily if there were problems. It was wonderful.

I'm glad you and the boss are on good terms again. I hate that feeling of worry that someone is unhappy with me.

And, kudos for catching the money issues! :o)

Jamie said...

You do have cool bosses, even if they are tight with the compliments and a little flakey. Good catch on the error, too. Whoa.

I worked for a mom & pop in high school and the owners children hated me (they were adults). The owner died and when his kids took over things went downhill and all of their long time full timers quit. Then they fired me when I had Mono (which is against the law, I could have sued them for my job back, but I didn't want it). I'm surprised they are still in business but as an educated consumer I refuse to support them. It was good life experience and I know not all mom & pops are like that.

Kaycee said...

I love working for small companies too.

Every time I think I should look for a better job I remember how "corporate" most places feel and change my mind.

Bailey's Leaf said...

Kaycee,

I couldn't have said it better myself.

Amen, sister friend!