The Lessons Life Teaches, A Collection of Short Stories.

Balance

This is a short story about an actual event. It took place a couple of years ago. The incident lasted less than five minutes. Less time than it will take me to write about it now. For some reason, every now and again, like tonight, it comes to mind. I will take this as an omen and write about it tonight.

Where I work is a 24-hour, 7 day a week facility. There are three shifts. The night owls, early birds and the afternoon shift. Most all the line staff are very considerate to one another. They will arrive from fifteen to thirty minutes early, so the previous shift can get off a little early or at least be to the parking lot on time to go home.

The previous facility superintendent, even though he was extremely well educated, for the most part had a "gotcha" mentality. He often attempted to catch people that were doing something wrong or inappropriate. One morning, at the end of a very long night shift, I was in the administration office checking out with the shift supervisor. The shift ended at 7:00am and I was running a little late, checking out at about 7:05am. Having been relieved early, all the other night line staff had already left. I was just getting ready to leave the office when the facility superintendent walked up. He was furious. He said he had parked on a side street along the highway coming to the facility. He said that he watched night staff leaving work as much as 10 minutes early. He then threw it into the shift supervisor's lap by asking why he had allowed people to leave that early. The shift supervisor did not make any excuses. He just said he would address it. Which to my knowledge, he never did.

On the way home, and many times thereafter, I have thought about this incident and this superintendent's actions. I thought if he were alongside the road, he must have seen the morning staff coming in early. He did not acknowledge that positive action. If he had been along the road at the beginning of night shift, he would have seen the night staff coming in early to relieve the swing shift. He did not do that. He did not acknowledge that I had been relieved late that morning and was still there. He only complained about the rest of the night staff. After his tirade was over and the shift supervisor said he would address the problem he left disgruntled to his office. Nothing was ever done, and nothing changed. Years later, it is still the same. The reason why is because it was a nonproblem. The day shift supervisors were already there doing their job. Besides that, I thought, a good manager should address problems and issues, but they should also acknowledge positive actions and behavior. The suggestion here is that if you only confront the negative or only acknowledge the positive then you are not a well-balanced manager of people. Also, if you confront something as a problem and it is not, then you are doing yourself and everyone else a disservice. The previous superintendent did a lot of good things during his tenure and kept the ship upright. I give him that. I do believe it would have been better if he had recognized the positive achievements of others rather than only focusing on the negative.