Pizza Night

One of my administrative staff is on maternity leave. If people want to have children, they should have the courtesy to wait until they retire so they do not put their employers in a predicament. There you have it...now you know...I am filled with maternogyny (a neologism...meaning filled with hatred for maternity leave).

Oh well, given that I can do nothing about it, I went about trying to find a temporary employee (not from an agency...they typically send people whose crystal meth habits have eliminated most of their brain cells). I passed the word to lots of people I know and, surprise, I got several resumes.

As usual, though, my employee selection skills (coupled with feeling rushed and unable to devote the requisite amount of time to the search and assessment process) seem to have resulted in a bit of a problem. I hired (thankfully, I have it in writing that it's a short term assignment) a woman who seems very nice but who also seems to have a very serious learning disability. That is, she cannot learn. My very bright, happy, friendly, always-smiling, never-a-harsh-thought Australian administrative person was frank with me when I asked how she thought the new person is doing. She said, in essence, "She is very, very slow to learn. I can see she is really trying, but she just isn't learning. I can't get my work done because I have to show her how to do everything...over and over and over. And she is very nervous, she doesn't want to answer the telephone and can't figure out how to respond to emails." I thanked her for her candor and said I would have a word with our new person, which I did. I explained to the new person that she needs to jump in with both feet and perform, that I did not expect her to instantly absorb everything, but that I did expect her to answer the telephones, respond to caller inquiries, and get caught up on email. This is for one client, mind you. I tell everyone who walks in the door that they have to juggle a thousand details...and learn to do it fast.

Anyway, after my talk with her, things apparently improved. Rebecca (the Aussie) reported at day's end that she had seen a marked improvement. But Rebecca wants everyone to be fine. I hope she is right.

Let's see, other news...someone had the unmitigated gall to outbid my wife and me on the condo in Mexico! Imagine! Well, we will keep looking. Maybe next time our offer will be more reasonable...I just didn't realize how high the market must have gone.

Oh, my sister in law wrote a wonderful story about artisans in a village in Mexico. I won't give away what the article covered, as it could give away her identity (and mine), but suffice it to say that she's a good writer and gets to the heart of a story.

My wife is on the way home...tonight we have pizza. I will stop writing so I can prepare it.