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Staff Stress

December 5th, 2005 · Posted by Skuds in Work · No Comments · Work

It was a bad day today.

A couple of weeks ago I was given a new job. Actually it was my old job from a couple of years ago which has been re-created and I have been asked to fill it for a while until everything can be sorted out permanently.

Just before I stepped in, my boss got authority to hire 6 long-term temps to boost the productivity and three had aleady been offered jobs before I started. They all joined after I had only been in place for a few days. Since then I have been trying to fill the other 3 posts and today had two new people due to start. The final one I am just waiting to find out how soon he can leave his current job.

Sounds good, 5 in place and one on the way, but today was a total disaster.

First of all I turned up to find that one of the current staff had got another job and was not coming in. She did not call me, nor did she call the agency: she just sent a text message to one of the other temps. That was not too bad. I had already decided that I needed to have that difficult conversation with her – the one that starts “you don’t seem to be getting on with the job. Are you sure you really want to work here”.

By 9:30 only one of the new joiners had arrived, and even now we have had no word from him. So thats me potentially 2 staff down by mid-morning when one of the other temps says she has had a job offer from an interview several weeks ago and they want her to start tomorrow. A shame as she was shaping up to be very good at the job, but a much more professional approach. I told her I could see no advantage in holding her to her 5-day notice period and said she would be welcome back if the other job does not work out.

So by lunchtime I had two staff gone, one missing, one not yet trained, one not yet started and the last one away for a week taking some exams which were pre-arranged before he joined. I will be so pleased if he comes back after taking those exams as, after today, nothing would surprise me.

Not a great start to my new job either.

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