Treat Your Crew Right
This post (hat tip to waiterrant) reminded me of an experience I had that made me proud. The post above is about a group of employees that walked out on their job.
My deal was that I was having trouble with my boss and got into a yelling match with him. I actually raised my fist to him, and walked off the job in front of my crew. I guess I can get wound up sometimes. I got a call at home about an hour later-- from the local bar, where my crew had retired after they walked off the job in solidarity. Wow. I naturally joined them and basked in the glow.
It was a warehouse job and my crew was non-union. A few of them made more money per week than I did (as their boss) as we all worked minimum fifty hour weeks with a guaranteed ten hours a week of overtime. Real overtime was really nice, for them. I didn't get any extra pay for it. I would occasionally get down in the trailers with them and throw boxes or drive a lift, sometimes when I thought they were moving too slow, other times when it was real busy. I also was one of the few managers in the company that actually fired deadbeats. It got me some respect.
When I got home there were a few more messages, one from the president of the company telling me he wanted to talk. I went back to work the next day with the knowledge that my boss was banned from coming to my warehouse any more, and I had the most loyal crew a guy could ask for.
