employees

lately i'm learning a lot about what i value in an employee. sure, there are the easy ones that i knew were important. being good at your job, being reliable, being on time, etc. i've recently discovered a couple more that were not so immediately apparent.

one of these is sense of humor/attitude. when a certain employee of mine opens his mouth to a customer, half of the time, i just shake my head and wonder. but 99% of all customers he interacts with end up smiling. my favorite line: "i don't say this to just anyone, but *you* are my favorite customer"...he says that to almost all of them in a very dramatic tone. they both know he's full of shit but the customer gets a kick out of it anyways. they leave with a smile which is about the best that i can hope for.

another trait that is becoming increasingly valuable the ability to modify behavior having only been told once. one of my girls is the poster child for this. I have never had to correct her more than once. mistakes happen, sure. everybody makes them. but she will only make them once. and anything that i want done differently, is done that way from the second i ask for it. it's not an ability i have and to me, it's amazing.

the last, but certainly not least, is foresight. in my business, you regularly have to be thinking at least 1 week down the road and in some cases 9 months (ordering christmas stuff in march is wierd). it was a very hard adaptation for me to make but i'm getting better at it. on a smaller scale, i get giddy when an employee walks in the door for their shift on the weekend, sees that we only have 20 strawberries left (knowing that lead time is about 1 hour to make more) and starts to rush around to be sure we have more before we run out. i love it!

and the education of mike continues.

cornish hen flambe

i'm not sure if everyone does this but after a date, i tend to replay the whole night in my head reliving the stupid mistakes, the foot-in-mouth moments (and boy were there a lot of them) and the downright retarded things i did.

And now, back at the ranch, for your further enjoyment, i bring you: Mike's Retarded Move of the Week:

on friday night i had a few folks over for dinner, including one person that i'd like to fool into believing that i'm not a complete idiot. i know my strength in the kitchen is not in the kitchen at all, but on the grill so i go to the bible and pick out a recipe.

Midway through cooking, I go out to check on the hens and walk into a whole lot of smoke. i open up the lid and there is a hen on fire. and not just burning. the thing had ignited. i move the chicken away from the flame and start turning it to try to put it out. nothing. i start swearing and sweating. i can't fuck this up. no way. so i do what any normal person would do, i pick the thing up with some long tongs and shake the piss out of it. flaming pieces of bacon, formerly wrapped around the hen, chicken skin, and mini haley's comets go flying all over the balcony, the house, and me. i succeed in putting out the poultry, go back inside, change, and own up to my mistake.

with the exception of that, dinner went pretty well. now if i could just think before speaking, then i'd be set.