12:20 p.m. - 2007-03-31
Out of a European wood.

Little Woodland Creatures and those who supervise them

In one of my last posts, I told you all that I had become a boss and that after becoming a boss, which was a goal of mine, that I never wish to be a boss again.

I was given a part time assistant. Actually, this was not a plan of Nanoman but the result of a mistake. Nanoman put an ad in career builder for a part time assembler to help the guys in the back. He was looking for a mechanical engineering student whom he could hire as an intern for possible hiring at entry level in the engineering department after graduation. A person with a European first name (I won't put her first name here..but will call her "A"), applied and my boss figured that just because A was a mechanical engineering student and by the sound of her name that she must be a guy. I mean, who would think that a woman might want to become a mechanical engineer (the chauvinist).

Anyway, when he saw that "A" was a woman, his eyes glazed over and he decided right then and there that because she was not a man, she was not right for the job of assembling parts in a factory....then a light bulb went on in his pea brain....Woman=secretarial. He knows that I have way too much to do and figured that at $8.00 per hour hiring her as my assistant would be a good move and also expose me to some supervisory experience.

A is a sweet girl of 19 from The Netherlands. She is mature, highly educated (makes American educations look like a big joke) and newly wed to a US Service man who was stationed in Amsterdam. The only reason I call her a little woodland creature is her appearance.

She is the tiniest little thing I have ever seen in my life which makes her cute, although she is not particularly pretty. She is cute like a little woodland creature. Some winged-human like creature that you would expect to see in the pictures of a Brothers Grimm fairy tale flittering from flower to flower in a European wood.

She is highly intelligent and we have many nice conversations that one wouldn't expect to have with a 19 year old. She likes classical music and speaks a dozen languages. She is well versed in history, physics, math, computer science as well as literature and arts. She is getting all A's in her mechanical engineering classes and studies hard. But in the end she is still 19 and her interests lie outside of the work environment....in other words...she slacks on the job if not constantly supervised. She will put off some tasks she doesn't like to do in favor of others she'd rather do even if she is told the other task is more important at the time. She works at her own slow pace and doesn't seem capable of multitasking at the same frenzied pace of most Americans.

The nature of our company which is still technically a start up is that every employee must work at a frenetic pace and be a multitasker extrordenaire, capable of switching thoughts back and forth at the speed of light. Things can get confusing I'll admit but I go out of my way to explain things as carefully as I can and have told her that no matter who else gives her work to do, she must let me know and let me set the priorities. This is one thing she can't seem to get through her head. She will be working on something I need done that the President of the company is waiting for. The Vice President will sneak behind my back and give her something he wants done and because it is the VP that gave it to her, she puts all my stuff aside and does his thing. Hours later I will ask if she has completed my project and she will say "No, G gave me this so I thought is would be more important."

Again...I explain that although G is my superior, I am hers and that everything in our department must go through me for prioritization. G has been told this also, but G does his own thing and continues to use her as her own personal little secretary.

Another thing is we thought at first because of her intelligence and education that we could give her some of the more sensitive things to work on. Alas...the girl is mechanically minded and not administratively minded which is why her chosen profession is mechanical engineering, and can't grasp some of the things we wanted her to do. Some of these things were rather simple but she couldn't get past doing them the way she thought they should be done verses the way the boss wanted them done....and she would go just do them the way she wanted anyway.

I find that instead of being able to hand her a project and say "do this" that she needs constant supervision. There are some things that I would like her to do that I end up doing myself because it just doesn't pay to have her do them while I look over her shoulder. This has been a constant challenge.

Once we asked her to research some computer equipment and get the details on leasing them. She was merely asked to RESEARCH this. Before I knew it...she had entered into a lease agreement with Dell for 6 new computer systems that she chose herself and told Dell she had the authority to handle the lease. I got all these financial documents in my email and the lease was indeed a good deal....for DELL...not for my company. Good thing they give you 24 hours to get out of the lease.

Because she is pouring everything she has into her education, she often comes in wiped out from being up all night studying. She is in some sort of sleepy zone and sometimes I find her staring off into space. Another thing she did was spend time downloading all kinds of cutesy thing for her desktop...a weather station...a little clock....Firefox instead of Internet explorer (which caused us some computer problems as we are all on a network). Because of the twilight zone she is often in, she has had trouble completing some of the more complicated administrative tasks.

I now find that I can only really give her easy typing, filing and shuffling work to do. I am fast running out of this kind of work, so I don't know if we will be able to keep her. I do need help but I think maybe a mature woman who wants to work and not just come in to collect a paycheck might be a better deal.

Her hours change with ever semester. Nanoman said to use her to get caught up with then we will assess her future employment with us when she comes to us with her summer hours. I know what will happen....he'll let her go then expect me to take up the slack. I'll just grin and bear it...after all...it's my little secret that I'll be looking for employment else where...working for someone that I don't have to call Nanoman.

P. I. Yarnsmith

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