why bother to be nice?

it never ceases to amaze and disapoint me to see how badly some people have been treated by employers. Like former residents of battersea dogs home some new members of the team arrive disgruntled, suspicious and fearful of my intentions when they are offered a post. Priding myself on providing a decent, fair and flexible workspace with minimal expectations of professionalism, teamwork and communication with as as a start - my expectations get dashed by recruits who are sure I have an evil ulterior motive. I wish!!!

On Monday, I need to put a recent recruit down and out. In December I hired what appeared to be a highly competent and professional manager who had been working as a contractor for 3 years and was now looking for a more permanent and stable position at a higher salary. I liked her attitude and agreed terms and she started in January. We even invited her to the office christmas lunch to help her get to know her colleagues in advance. Come January, a different person arrived - quiet, suspicious, no enthusiasim and little comuniciation with the rest of the agency. After taking 3 days off sick last week at a really really critical time, I enquired about her atitude with her colleagues and discovered the truth. Like a stray dog she could not cope with a supportive enviroment and rather than spoil the ship for a h'peth of tar ... on Monday she is toast.

Why am I doing this?

ok, I figured I would give this a go as it might relieve my issues - painful headaches ( boyfriend) nervous tension ( employees ) general anxiety (clients) it might make me feel better and put the day to day roller-coaster in perspective. Not that I don't deal with my issues of course but if my issue left me, quit or fired me then what could I blog about? So let's see where this takes me before my normal short attention span kicks in and I find resolution in that bottle of wine I just opened.

For the record, I am a big gay boss running a moderately successful agency in London with about 40 headaches (oops! loyal employees I mean) and range of great/awful/challenging/horrific/generous/mean/intelligent/moronic clients. My life is about solving everyone's problems but no time to solve my own. Boo Hoo! I feel better all ready ....