Win Some, Lose Some

Working with young people is very interesting. Despite the generation gap, the good ones still stand out. In fact, one of my favorite was fired by me once while the other was almost fired.

JV couldn't get along with one of the previous cooks. He got drunk at work and left one of the kitchen equipment running all night. I fired him.

I felt bad when I fired JV because I said I would take care of him. But drinking while working is a serious no-no. JV begged me to rehire him. I did. Now JV is one of my best kitchen staff.

HJ had some attitude issues. She often cussed loudly within earshot of customers. HJ was also very calculative. I cut her schedule and was going to let her go. I had a talk with HJ and gave her a chance before making my decision. Now, HJ is one of my best front line staff.

HJ has potential to be successful. HJ does't let criticism affect her emotionally. She is able to accept criticism and move forward.

CK was let go by me recently. CK was a sweet girl but she was very forgetful and couldn't focus. She was slow at packing and had an error rate of about 20%. That means that 1 out of every 5 bags had a mistake (I caught half but the other half went through). This was a logistical nightmare as the drivers had to make extra trips to fix her mistakes. Also, CK was slow at taking orders.

Being slow at packing and taking orders means the drivers aren't able to take as many orders per trip. This also increased the chances of an order being late.

I tried talking to CK but she was very defensive. CK takes criticism very personally and exudes a bad attitude.

Once, there was a box of brown rice left over after packing. I asked CK to check if any of the bags was missing a brown rice. She was so adamant that all the bags were packed right and didn't check. I checked the bags and found one that was missing a brown rice. CK got defensive about her mistake.

I can deal with slow learners (to a limit) but I won't tolerate bad attitudes.

Can't win them all, but I'm really glad I gave JV and HJ a chance.