THERE IS A HELL! - - - IT IS CALLED RETAIL SUPERVISORS | Page 17

My Experiences on People Being a Boss

I am going to share some of my experiences what I have observed in people becoming a
new boss, also people who have been in charge for a period of time. Some of these are
recent experiences too. No matter how many years of experience you have, I have to admit
you can never be prepared for every situation.
Here are a few examples of the “Do Not’s”………….
For simplicity of the article I have used myself (‘I’) to tell the various storeys and
examples.

Example 1 - I was in charge of three people and was considered to
be a 'working supervisor'

An employee decided to take a break in an unauthorized area and disrupted the work of
another employee. When this employee finished their break, I dressed this person down in
front of the other staff members. Bad idea. What did I do wrong? I disciplined this person
in front of others, instead of doing it in private. Soon after that, another employee took a
break in the same unauthorized area and disrupted the work of an employee. The first
employee I disciplined was upset I didn't do the same to this other one right away. I had
actually planned to wait until the employee finished their break. I didn't, I listened to the
employee and stopped it right away. That started another problem in itself. Anyways, this
event haunted me for years. The first employee always went back to that incident on why
she didn't like working with me. It caused bad blood for years. I humiliated her in front of
others, and I didn't establish taking breaks in an unauthorized area was wrong for my
entire staff.

This next incident was just a poor choice of words

By this time I was in charge of over 10 staff members. I was holding a staff meeting and
ended up talking about a new computer system. I was discussing it and stated that newer
employees wouldn't have a problem catching on, since they don't know how the other
system works and wouldn't confuse the two. But our older employees may have an issue
since they are used to the existing system. One of my employees who was older in age
took offense, assuming i meant I was referring to her age. It wasn't the case, I just made a
poor choice of words. But it proves that your staff will listen to each word you say and take
it to heart. That almost turned into an official complaint, but luckily it didn't.

Another problem when I took over an entire office was that I was
nit-picky from the start

If someone didn't initial something, or didn't put a paper in the right place, etc. I would
ding them on it. They wouldn't be written up, but I would bring it up to them. In time all of
my staff resented me and felt like they had to be perfect in order not to get in trouble. It
took a good year for me to drop that habit, but it took another year for staff to realize I
didn't do that anymore.

dodie ste®eo p®odu©tion ™

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