I will (hopefully) get a new coworker soon.
One of my coworkers at RHA has just been wearing me out lately.
Like most of the front desk assistants we've hired in the past couple of years, she's from a temp agency. Unlike the others, though, she's very pushy when it comes to the schedule. She only wants to work certain weekends because she has custody of her teenage daughter on other weekends - which would be fair enough if she'd been upfront about this when she was hired, but she only started bringing this up in January. (She was hired last summer, before I left for Utah.) I've tried to accommodate her when I can, because I do understand that it's difficult to juggle children and work. But teenagers are capable of looking out for themselves, and it's getting really inconvenient for my schedule to constantly switch between morning and evening shifts.
She'd also make a stronger case for herself if she was good at the job - but she's not. She's lazy. Not lazy in the way that I'm lazy at work - I spend a lot of time reading or blogging, but when I have projects I get them completely finished by the end of the shift. She just doesn't do stuff. If I leave the filing for her to take care of, it just sits and sits in its inbox. Paperwork is done sloppily or left incomplete. But the biggest problem is that when she doesn't know how to do something, she doesn't call or text me. She doesn't ask my boss or the CEO for instruction. She just ignores it. It took me a while to catch on to this - I thought it odd that she never called to say, "Hey, how do I do this?" or "What do I do with this form?" It wasn't until my boss called and realized that this worker had never learned how to transfer voicemails that I realized the temp's basic response to things she hasn't learned is to ignore it.
She also doesn't dress professionally. You don't have to wear a fancy suit to work, but clean jeans are nice. T-shirts and sweat pants really aren't to code. Flip-flops are rather inexcusable. My boss has talked to her about it, but I've noticed no improvement.
So I've been complaining/whining for months, asking if we can pretty please trade this temp in for a new one. (What's the point of having temps if you can't get rid of one that isn't working out?) Next month we'll be switching to summer hours, and my boss says if we like the summer temp better, we'll swap the current one out for her. My fingers are crossed we find someone good! I do feel badly for trying to get rid of a single mother trying to support herself and her kid - I really, truly do - but this job isn't a good fit for her. If you can't work consistently without a supervisor around, and if you don't want to work during the hours we have available...well, there are other people who can and are willing.
Like most of the front desk assistants we've hired in the past couple of years, she's from a temp agency. Unlike the others, though, she's very pushy when it comes to the schedule. She only wants to work certain weekends because she has custody of her teenage daughter on other weekends - which would be fair enough if she'd been upfront about this when she was hired, but she only started bringing this up in January. (She was hired last summer, before I left for Utah.) I've tried to accommodate her when I can, because I do understand that it's difficult to juggle children and work. But teenagers are capable of looking out for themselves, and it's getting really inconvenient for my schedule to constantly switch between morning and evening shifts.
She'd also make a stronger case for herself if she was good at the job - but she's not. She's lazy. Not lazy in the way that I'm lazy at work - I spend a lot of time reading or blogging, but when I have projects I get them completely finished by the end of the shift. She just doesn't do stuff. If I leave the filing for her to take care of, it just sits and sits in its inbox. Paperwork is done sloppily or left incomplete. But the biggest problem is that when she doesn't know how to do something, she doesn't call or text me. She doesn't ask my boss or the CEO for instruction. She just ignores it. It took me a while to catch on to this - I thought it odd that she never called to say, "Hey, how do I do this?" or "What do I do with this form?" It wasn't until my boss called and realized that this worker had never learned how to transfer voicemails that I realized the temp's basic response to things she hasn't learned is to ignore it.
She also doesn't dress professionally. You don't have to wear a fancy suit to work, but clean jeans are nice. T-shirts and sweat pants really aren't to code. Flip-flops are rather inexcusable. My boss has talked to her about it, but I've noticed no improvement.
So I've been complaining/whining for months, asking if we can pretty please trade this temp in for a new one. (What's the point of having temps if you can't get rid of one that isn't working out?) Next month we'll be switching to summer hours, and my boss says if we like the summer temp better, we'll swap the current one out for her. My fingers are crossed we find someone good! I do feel badly for trying to get rid of a single mother trying to support herself and her kid - I really, truly do - but this job isn't a good fit for her. If you can't work consistently without a supervisor around, and if you don't want to work during the hours we have available...well, there are other people who can and are willing.