20% of this is real concern. The other 76% is employees wanting paid time off. We're a mom and pop firm. We have 5 employees and bend over backwards to give them extra time off for little emergencies or events. If one needs to run home real quick because of this or that....no problem. We've given paid time off countless times for true emergencies. Right now, we're seeing the true side of them and a total lack of loyalty. I'm ready to fire the whole lot of em' and start over.
That's the truly disheartening part. They demand loyalty from you. Expect you to treat them like your own children. Over the years I've been hit up for a new set of tires because they were in bad financial shape, I've loaned personal money to two different employees because they needed it to get divorced/establish themselves after (never got paid back), continued to pay salaries for people who were on extended personal leave, granted every time off request you can imagine (including four years of letting one mother leave at 2 pm every Friday in order to make her son's football games), paid outrageous bonuses, paid random performance bonuses just because they did something above the call, helped pay for graduations, vacations, births, and who knows what all else, I've let them work from home for months on end because their kid was having issues and they needed to be there. Because we're a "family" you know. In the early days when money was tighter, who didn't get a paycheck? Me. That's who. Several times I paid them and didn't pay myself. During one ridiculous span when one of our state contracts went into "furlough" they didn't pay me for six months. I took money out of my personal accounts and also borrowed money to make sure they got paid. It would have been much easier and better for the company to lay some of the fuckers off.
So we're a great big family. All working together. As long as I'm doing the sacrificing, that is. Ask them to do something? It's a big old pile of "fuck you"
I've got one employee out who had a stroke. I need some of the others to pick up her work temporarily. But they can't be bothered. Will they be getting a portion of her pay for doing the extra?
I asked one of them to sit in on a sales meeting because I needed a little technical backup. With a client that wanted to add an extremely lucrative add-on piece to their system. Employee is mad, because that wasn't in the "job description" and during the call, in front of the client I had to cut the mic off because the employee kept suggesting ways the client could accomplish the same thing without adding the additional component and even wondering aloud if they'd priced a fucking competitor. After the call was over, I had to deal with that employee accusing me of being hostile, and humiliating them in front of the customer. That employee is on a break now. My lawyer (you guys suck) said I have to be careful firing and do some mediation first. Improvement plan and a chance to get things right again.
I once turned down an offer to sell it all -- one that had the potential to make me happy for a while -- because I couldn't get an agreement that they'd take care of my people. Now? I'd almost burn it down for spite.
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