Tea in the Library by Annette Freeman

Author:Annette Freeman [Freeman, Annette]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Autobiography
ISBN: 9781742980096
Publisher: Port Campbell Press

Chapter Nineteen

The “R” word

“ R” stands for “Roster”.

As you will have gathered by now, Tea In The Library was generously equipped with staff. We had way too many staff in books and café, and they were costing the business far too much. The absence of a strong overall manager was also fatal. The various personalities began to grate on each other, and feuds broke out.

At this point, I tried something which may or may not have been a good idea. Certainly it was well-meant, even altruistic (when you consider what it cost me), but I did believe in it. I hired a coach for one-on-one sessions with Todd, Louise and Jo. Call me naive, but I wanted so much to make this work, and getting the people all on the same bus was essential. I wanted to do the best by my employees, and I believed that the right guidance would help. Emma was a personal and business coach, who I knew to be very professional and effective — she had several large companies as her clients. She also had experience in retail, having been a buyer for a large enterprise in London. She knew retail.

The coaching sessions went on for a few weeks. As befits the coaching relationship, I am of course not privy to what was discussed, although I do know that Todd’s sessions included a lot of technical education about stock control. As to the outcome, the coaching may have helped, but ultimately it didn’t solve the problems. Perhaps the clay wasn’t there. Perhaps I had ineptly assembled a team that was never going to work.

One of the most intractable feuds was between Louise and Todd. This developed for a number of understandable psychological and personality reasons (to say nothing of my inept staff organizational plan), but inexplicably crystallized over the issue of the staff rosters. Louise was responsible for drawing up a roster for the book staff, and ensuring that Jo had a workable roster for café staff. This seemed to not only be a task of Herculean proportions, but also to take up a large chunk of the working day. Having completed the roster, it was then displayed on the staff notice board. For reasons that still escape me, there was general discontent and the view of the majority was that the roster “wouldn’t work”. Todd became frustrated with the slowness and ineptitude, and muttered that he could draw up a workable roster in half an hour using a computer program he was familiar with. At one point — I now forget the details, having probably blanked them from my mind in a self-preservation reflex — Todd took down Louise’s roster from the notice board and replaced it with his “improvement”, thereby causing the maximum possible trouble. The trouble was characterized by Louise making long phone calls to me in the evenings and at weekends explaining how she was going to “assert her authority” and “tell Todd calmly but firmly” who was in charge of what.

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