Raising Employees

Handling employees is akin to raising children.  There are rules to follow and if you let them get away with ignoring the rules they learn that nothing you say matters.  How do you deal with a three year old in a full-blown tantrum?  Time-out is one way.  What's the grown up equivalent of that?  Suspension.  You get the idea.  Just like I have to parent each of my children differently, each employee must be handled differently as well.  The difference is that adults SHOULD be old enough to understand that the rules are applied fairly to everyone and the consequences are the same for everyone, but sometimes they don't.  Worst-case scenario... when one parent undermines the other.  This also happens in business... HR says you must follow the rules and the manager vetoes it.  It's infuriating and can lead to the HR Pro having a tantrum of their own.

Last night I sent my four-year-old to her room.  She and the two-year-old were playing outside and the baby ended up crying.  He can't articulate what happened, and appeared to be fine, but she wouldn't tell me.  I stressed that if it was an accident she wouldn't be in trouble.  To no avail, she refused to spill so she went upstairs until dinner.  After pressing and watching which questions made her go silent, I'm pretty sure she pushed him down after an argument of some sort.  Luckily when Dad got home he sided with me.  We make a conscious effort to present a united front at all times.  I desperately try to foster this with my managers as well, but sometimes it just doesn't happen.

Preschool

My middle child had an orientation for her new preschool today.  We had a fabulous morning!!  We Mom slept in a little, we sent big sister to school, dropped little brother off to daycare, drove through Mickey D's for a parfait treat and took it to Mom's office.  Everyone fawned over her and at first she lavished the attention, but gradually decided it was too much and shied away.  I had a few things to accomplish, so she happily sat at my desk and chatted a thousand miles an hour and ate her parfait while Mom did boring things on the computer.  When it was time we held hands and skipped to the car (dropping the parfait in the parking lot, which made both of us giggle and hope local wildlife enjoy strawberries) and went to orientation.  We skipped into the building, met her teacher, played tag in the gym, had a snack and listened to the rules, then skipped back to the car to join little brother at daycare.

Thanks for the best morning I've had in a very long time, my way-too-big-too-soon baby girl.  I hope you have an amazing experience in your new school, and while I know you probably won't remember today just know that it meant the world to me to share it with you.

New Directions

I'm switching things up a bit here.  For more professional content, please visit me here.  I also want to keep this one open for personal musings, but after stalking reading tips from some of my favorite bloggers and having a conversation with one of them I've decided that using too much personal in my professional blog just isn't gonna cut it for what I want to do.  No matter how much I want it to.  

I made the kids pancakes last night for dinner.  Dad was at a dinner, so the kids and I had scrambled eggs and apple cinnamon pancakes.  We also had a picnic in the front room while watching a movie.  All sorts of rules were broken at my house last night, but sometimes we just need to switch it up a bit.  I do, however, miss the time we spend at the table.  I still talked to them about their day and they helped make dinner, but there's just something about sitting down and sharing a meal together that solidifies our connections.  Mostly because they're all forced to sit still for 30 seconds.  I have this magical fairy-tale vision of us sitting around the table eating together, but let's be honest.  Out of seven tries a week, more on the weekends, this happens once, maybe twice.  I serve the kids first because they've been screaming at each other and at me like hungry savages and pillaging the fridge, making getting an actual meal put together nearly impossible.  Dad gets his next, because he's close behind desperately herding them and making sure they have forks while I dish.  By the time I get to dish mine someone realizes nobody has a drink, so I fill three cups with whatever beverage is demanded.  Typically three different beverages.  Just as I get my food and settle into my place at the table to enjoy some quality family time, three children announce they are, "ALL DONE!" and race off to their former squabbling over the same toy.  Well, so much for family time, but I can still spend the time with Hubby.  Nice try, Mom.  This is when they all decide that I need to know RIGHT NOW that Baby wants to give me a hug, or I have to break up a fight, or they start asking questions like, "What is the meaning of life?"  This doesn't happen all at once, of course.  This happens as soon as I'm ten seconds into telling Hubby about something that happened today, or he's just beginning to tell me about his, and continues in 30 or 60 second intervals throughout the rest of the night.  Yes, dear, my day was fine.  I hope yours was too.  Call me at 10:00 tomorrow morning after you've had your coffee and we'll discuss it then.  For now we need to hug Baby and explain life, because too soon my babies won't need Mom to break up their fights.