Tales from the water tank

This is a long one - so bare with me please.

Over a year ago, our long time office secretary decided to move on. She had worked here for 9+ years - and we had gotten quite used to the ins and outs of how she worked. Once her position came up - I offered the job to a friend. He was hesitant, liking his no work/student/living with his girlie-friend - but his girlfriend/soon to be wife/paying all the bills - insisted he jump on it and take the job. It's part time - with very low stress and not a lot of tasks to do. Read - self motivated/entertained people need only apply.

There was a little learning curve at first - like watering of the plants. (This was his first office job, in his defense, so he had a couple of basic ideas to learn.) We have some plants outside the building that are not on the sprinkler system so they need to be hand watered. If they are not, then they die. It costs us money to replace dead plants. Simple solution - water the plants. On a couple occasions, I had to check and make sure the plants had been watered - even though we had explained the importance of watering the plants. I felt bad calling him after hours to check and make sure he watered one day. Was that a breach of our friendship?

Anyway - life continued. He got heavily involved with school and was able to fill his spare time with studies. Our office is a small property management office - and on occasion we have little emergencies come up that need to be addressed immediately. If you are asked to do something for work, it is assumed that you put that on priority and school work will have to wait. Unfortunately the inevitable happened and the ball was dropped a few times in lieu of making a school deadline. A couple tenants got pissed - a couple issues put on the back burner when they were boiling, etc. Water under the bridge though.

We were pretty understanding - school is super important. But we are not paying you to be a student, we are paying you to maintain your office duties, which are very minimal. I had to give my friend the "talk." It was hard to come up with the appropriate way to address it - so I ended up finally saying, "how much do you want to keep this job?" Right then and there he knew I meant business. He shaped up and quit pushing the envelope for a little while. He even admitted he had been absent mentally from work and asked for another chance. Chance given.

Then, one day, after a couple suspicions, I came in early to see if he was here on time. The clocked ticked by - then he strolls in 45 minutes late. No reason - he lives 10 minutes away. Busted. And unfortunately I had suspicions this wasn't the first time either. But that's not what matters. He was given another chance. Strike two.

The plot thickens. He graduated school - with not a clear exit strategy. Instead he told me he would think about what he wanted to do with the job and let me know soon. All I asked was that he give a two week notice so I had enough time to find someone and have him train them. Two months went by - and then he had to take a couple of days off for vacation. Not a big deal though - I told him so long as he gives me advance notice it wouldn't be a problem. He was extremely vague with his plans - not only to me but with other people he talked with too.

Does advance notice mean calling the night before you are headed out of town? Borderline to me.

How about leaving a message saying, "well since there's nothing going on and it's dead at the office, I don't see any problem with me not showing up Friday." Wait a second - who made you the boss? Not to mention I was out of town when the call happened. And I hear from other people that you had known about this engagement for weeks? That hurts.

What other option did I have then to let him know I was unhappy and going to cut his hours so someone could cover Fridays? The pattern started developing weeks ago - but you were not willing to admit it so it ended up leaving me in a situation to find someone else. He didn't react the day I told him that - instead he came in the following day and trained the next person and told them, not me, that he was no longer going to work at the office. He's the one who quit - which I'm glad I didn't have to fire him. It was hard enough having the "talk" with him initially.

What do you do when you give a friend a job and they screw up several times? Lesson learned - don't hook your friends up with a job.

Now to look for a replacement on monster. My only requirement for the next person - save the drama for your mama.