It is the time of year when there are plenty of new faces at the local shops and businesses. Most of them are high school students who are out on break or just graduated and are using the summer to bank some bucks.
Good on them. I am perfectly willing to spend a little extra time at the cash register because they are learning the ropes. And I know a lot of them because I have written about them or photographed them during their school careers.
I applaud them for wanting to work. I appreciate the businesses who take them on for the short term. It is one of the best things about small town living.
But recently I was in a local business and witnessed a manager treating youngsters worse than I treat my dog. Shaming them in front of customers, saying they were lazy, accusing them of hiding instead of working, basically calling them everything but a child of God.
First, let me say if it had been my child that was being spoken to like that, I would have smacked the manager in the mouth.
Second, I knew the kid who was getting the brunt of the diatribe. He is a good kid; a gifted athlete and I just don’t think he has a lazy bone in his body.
But the worst of it is the bad taste for work this manager is building in these kids. If you know when you get to work you are in for a rasher of crap, why do you want to go? How long will it be before the employees are looking for a reason not to show up or to be tardy? This person is wrecking the work ethic the kids have and certainly isn’t building them up into good employees.
The old adage is ‘You catch more flies with honey than vinegar’ and it certainly applies here. What if instead of browbeating the kids this manager explained carefully what was needed, showed the right way to do things and praised good work, or even good effort? But they didn’t want to put in the work. So who is lazy?
The result might be a bunch of employees who would walk through hell with gasoline drawers for the company and their manager. Kids who will cover shifts for coworkers readily and do their best while they are on the clock. Will they still need guidance and supervision? Of course. They’re kids.
What will the current culture of this business grow? A reputation as a place no one wants to work, and eventually a reputation for having the worst employees in town, the surly bunch who no one can find when they need assistance, who don’t know anything about the business or about much at all. It will become a job of last resort.
All because one manager is on a power trip that began recently when they were elevated from the same job the kids have now to manager.
How to fix it? Hopefully someone will recognize themselves and change tactics. Maybe the students will say why they leave when they leave – and they will leave, probably pretty soon. Maybe someone will dress down the manager in public, shaming them like they have the kids.
But treating the help poorly is no way to run a railroad. You can’t build up yourself, a business or a community by pulling others down. Just cut it out, it’s disgraceful. I’m more than a little embarrassed I didn’t step in when it happened. But if I see or hear it again, that manager is going to get the dressing down they need from this customer.