"She's Weird."
"She's very talkative."
"She was late twice."
"She's too friendly with the residents."
"She is scattered."
And so it went.... We had a temp come to work at my two senior communities. My usually affable, yet very rule bound and serious Assistant, complained repeatedly. Sam went on and on.
Crazy busy with a new property, I did not have a chance to meet "Grossy Josie" (his term), but I kept hearing about her from his point of view. While the Property Manager vacationed, the criticism mounted.
In the meantime, I hired a very professional woman with experience to permanently fill the position. She had " the look." She wore conservative clothes, came beautifully packaged with a perfect coiffure and had real estate experience. Greta was hired to fill the role.
I finally met Josie on Greta's first day. Definitely not your average little bear, but I liked her sweet spirit, her can do attitude and the unquestionable keen intelligence emanating from her gaze.
I decided to keep Josie for a few days while he trained Greta since my Property Manager still had a few days of vacation left, much to Sam's chagrin. He practically danced a jig when Josie took a long lunch and didn't exactly return on time.
"Pleeeeeeze I'd rather work by myself than have her around."
I finally gave in and called to cancel with the temp agency. Perhaps Josie was just too out there. Plus, I was just way too busy to fight the battle. I tend to look for agendas and give new people the benefit of the doubt before I pull the trigger. From experience, I know that brand new employees can be exposed to unfair pack mentality and tribalism from long term employees.
Monday, perfectly perfunctory Greta walked off the job when she encountered Flo with advancing Alzheimer's, Alveah the angry resident and Dale our resident schizophrenic.
Upon her return, I met with sweet Jane, the Property Manager.
"Well, she's eccentric for sure. And I need to counsel her on keeping a professional distance from the residents and on timely arrival, BUT do you know what she did last week? We had a swarm of bees and the residents were FREAKING out. I told them the bees would go away in a day or two, but they were frantic with worry and insisted the bees be exterminated.
"And Josie? Well, she came after hours that evening dressed in her beekeeper's suit and collected them to come and live on her land in Vista."
So, Josie, welcome back! I hope you work out. I learned a lesson this week in taking time, even when I am extremely busy, to listen to my heart and go with my instinct.
