Staffing issues
September 17th, 2009 by
cowgirljules
I’ve spent a lot of time working for other people, thinking that this side had to be easy. I’m learning that it’s not so.
The latest lesson has been in hiring and firing. My part-time backup operator is moving, so I had to get someone to replace him so I could take weekends off now and then. It’s too small of a job to advertise for, and we’re a pretty small industry anyway. I figured I’d put the word out on the good-ol-boy network.
The one guy I really wanted wasn’t allowed to do side work by his regular employer. Nuts. So another local operator gave me a reference for a younger guy that just got laid off due to the economy. What the hell, he’s licensed and comes with strong references; I’ll give him a shot. He interviewed fine and did a good job when I had him come in to work with me for a day. I had no qualms about his technical competence. I hired him. I gave him a set of keys to the site and to my truck, as he was going to have to use that when I wasn’t around.
But to do this job, one must have specific training to drive on the flightline. Someone fairly high up the food chain has to give this class, which takes about two hours and for which I was going to pay him. The first two times I tried to schedule him, he had other obligations – job interviews – and couldn’t make those times. That’s fine; I completely understand that a full-time job has to trump a part-time job. He gave me a week that he was free, so I had the airport manager rearrange his schedule to fit this guy in on that week. I called him and let him know that date and time, and requested confirmation that he would be able to attend.
Of course, this is when he dropped off the face of the earth. No calls all weekend, no calls or response on the day of the class, nothing. So my last call to him right before the class was to start was that this obviously wasn’t going to work out and that he needed to contact me to bring back my keys. I would have had no hard feelings had he simply called me and explained a conflict. I wouldn’t have hired him, but that’s the way it goes.
But no, he’s still missing. At this point I’ve escalated through polite voice mails, not-so-polite voice mails, and have called his father, an operator at a neighboring system from whom I originally got his phone number. Still no response. I know he’s not in the hospital or in jail or anything as the kid’s googleable and has been active all week. He’s just avoiding my phone calls. This kid has the keys to my system, which is a huge liability.
I don’t know what to do next. I talked to his father, which is unprofessional, I know, but I am running out of options, and also called the guy who originally gave me the reference. I wanted him to know what was going on in case he decided to hire him back again. The kid has just shot himself in the foot as far as working in this industry in this county goes, as we’re all fairly well connected. Do I send a certified letter? Do I talk to the sheriff’s department and see if they’ll do a civil standby with me to pick them up at his house? Do I now have to get a lawyer, and spend some more money? Re-key everything, which includes some county property? I can see that I should not have given him keys until he was fully trained, but this could have happened at any time even if he’d been on the job for a year. I’m just lucky that I hadn’t had him on-call when he decided to stop answering the phone and let the water tower overflow or something.
I was going to have him work for me while I went on vacation. That’s obviously not going to happen, but I desperately need the vacation, so I’m taking it anyway, I just can’t bill that time to my client. So he’s cost me a significant amount of money right there.
How does one handle staffing issues when one is as small-time as I am? At some point, I have to trust people. I guess I’ve been lucky in my employees so far, as the one I’ve got is great. But all I would have to go on with future people is character references from others in the industry, and I think we’ve just seen what that can get you. It’s got me nervous and unsettled about starting all over again, but I have to. I can’t do this job seven days a week for the next however many years uninterrupted and not go insane. I need the mental break sometimes. So when I get back, I’ll call another number I’ve got in my pocket, of another operator willing to do side work, referred by another business acquaintance. And we’ll start this whole circus all over again.
But he won’t get my keys until he can actually do the job.
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