Work work work

Okay, because I hate to leave things undone I am going to crank out the rest of the work series and then move on to the next batch of blogs banging around in my head!

So when we left off (MONTHS AGO)I was working for the agency for my first go round. As you might remember I told Jack the most I could promise him would be two years. Shortly after my second anniversary I let him know that I was giving notice. We were moving to Colorado Springs in two months (lots of notice) and thank you for the experience. Jack responded in a completely Jack like way. He said "I don't suppose it would help if I called you a miserable bitch and told you to leave your husband." From Jack this was high praise and translated to, I will miss you very much. Thank you for all of your hard work. One of his daughters told me that he took my leaving harder than he took his first wife leaving. I took it for the hyperbole it was and was grateful for the compliment.

What I am going to cover here isn't really something I learned by doing a job but what I learned by leaving one. Hiring decisions are so incredibly important. As I was leaving one of my responsibilities was finding my replacement. Now I had done some interviewing for receptionist positions and giving second opinions on other new hires in the company so this wasn't completely new territory, but this was finding someone to replace me. It's kind of odd to do that. Don't we all sort of think of ourselves as irreplaceable? And here I was not only knowing I was replaceable but having to find the person to do it as well!

The first thing we ended up doing is redefining my job. Jack didn't want the new bookkeeper to do anything other than keep the books. Since I was handling all of the interoffice personnel issues as well. I was full charge bookkeeper/office manager/den mother and I was handling a large load of the KFC account as well. The way big companies like KFC work is they have more than one advertising agency. They have the national agency that creates most of the ads you see on TV. Then they have the local agency that actually places those ads and creates local print, or local TV or radio ads. With KFC a lot of the work we did for them was in tracking how effective those ads were. So sales, customers, coupon redemption. Part of my job when we took on the KFC account was to streamline this reporting and then handle it. Now that I was leaving it was going to all be turned over to the account assistant to handle.

So after taking out the personnel issues and the KFC piece I really felt like we were looking at a part time position. I was already only working from 9-4 each day so it wasn't too much of a stretch to me to imagine someone could handle the remnants of my job in 3 days a week, or half days every day. After interviewing a LOT of people it came down to two women. One woman was working another part time job and would be able to work W-F at L/N. The other woman was really hoping for full time work but would settle for working half days at L/N. The first woman was my choice. She was my age (this is important in a minute) she had a really stable work history (I thought Jack would like this) and she just seemed very laid back. The second woman had worked as a bookkeeper for advertising agencies in the past (plus for her) she was very buttoned up, professional looking, older than me by a few years. But in my opinion icy and rigid.

So I sent both people in to meet with Jack and with Scott as he now owned 5% of the company. My recommendation was strongly for Option #1. After reviewing resumes and interviewing both women Scott let us know that he had actually worked with Option #2 before. And then proceeded to tell us stories about the Agency Principal and Option #2 having screaming matches in the hallway over issues. Screaming matches in the hallway. Okay, well that settles it, Option #1 it is! But wait...he doesn't like Option #1 because she seems old. Excuse me? She's actually younger than O2 and she is MY age! Well...she's just...it's hard to explain. So then I figure it out. She's not quite as style conscious as O2. She wore a plain khaki skirt and blouse to her interview instead of the business suite O2 wore. She wore her hair down in a loose ponytail instead of styled into a helmet.

As soon as I pointed out that he was choosing style over substance he switched his track and said it was really because O2 had the agency experience and O1 did not. I pointed out that I didn't have agency experience when I started and I worked out just fine. Like petulant children we both turned to "dad" and argued our case. And Jack being Jack told us to figure it out. So I told Scott again that I highly recommended O1 but it was ultimately his call since I was leaving and he was the one that would have to work with the new person. So O2 was hired. And like the drummer from Spinal Tap this started the revolving door of bookkeepers.

She was just as awful as she had been the first time Scott worked with her. She made the office a miserable place to work and eventually they let her go. After that came Kathy. Kathy was the Cassandra bookkeeper. She tried and tried and tried to get Scott to hear the truth when he wouldn't listen or believe her and she finally had to leave to keep her own sanity. Then came the drinker, then the nutcase, then the thief. Eventually Laurie came into the picture and if only she had been there either after I left or after Kathy left things for the agency might have gone better. But sadly it was too late.

Now, I am not saying that that one bad decision in hiring O2 over O1 made the difference in the agency surviving. But I did take the lesson that hiring the right person for the job is the most important thing you can do for any company. Skills, aptitude and attitude are important. Style can be worked on. Heck, skills can be worked on if the aptitude and attitude are strong enough! So if you are in a position to add to your company, make sure what you are adding is positive and not negative. Option #2 had proven herself to be difficult to work with in the past, people don't generally change enough to make bringing them back worth it. And chemistry, especially in a small company, is so very important. These are good lessons to learn and I am grateful I got the chance to learn them. And especially grateful I learned them via panicked emails to Colorado instead of by actually having to work with O2!