Author: Bill Gorden

This is not a workplace question. I was working for a doctor where I was the only one doing the work while the other lady just played on the computer or her phone. I finally had enough and left. That might not have been right but the doctor was not going to do anything about it.

A question submitted to Ask the Workplace Doctors about a workplace family matter:

I have been an Assistant Manager at a local car wash for about 6 months. Before, I was a regular line employee. It is a very high volume car wash with a lot of top dollar luxury vehicles. We wash anywhere from 25-90 cars an hour, so it is very important to trust your employees and give them the proper instruction. We must keep the same quality from car to car. I have never really had a problem with employees after being promoted except for 1 particular employee, my sister.

Because I am a high school student and do not have a job yet, I chose a hobby of mine. Something that I picked up this past year has been filmography. Creating short videos of things both big and small, and then posting it on YouTube. The way this connects to other people, is obviously when they choose to watch a video I’ve made. Another is when they like, comment, share, or subscribe to my channel. When they respond positively,

I know that I am doing something right, be it, I’m inspiring them, or bringing them a smile. If they respond negatively, I know that the negative reactions come from one of two things: 1) I did something wrong, whether it is moral, political, etc. or 2) the reactor has a different opinion than my own. Another, I suppose, could just be the reaction of a spam/ troll account on YouTube…I enjoy this hobby and it allows me to express my creativity while also connecting with others. 

There have definitely been multiple times when I was at work and felt good afterwards based on actions that were taken. But one that stood out to me was when I was working at Target, and it had just started to pick up, meaning more people were coming in to shop at the store. Typically, we only have one cashier scheduled, but everyone on the floor is cashier trained, so if they need help they ask for additional cashiers to come to the front lanes. So it started to get busy and I responded to back up, but once my line is clear I would go back to what I was doing. I responded a few times to back up because no one else was, and I knew I wasn’t the only one on the floor. After my third time responding to backup, someone went over to the walkie and said someone else needed to respond so I could get done what I needed to. This felt good to me because they noticed that I was the only one responding to backup.

I feel good when I work hard and can see myself improving in my work. I am a hair stylist and I am newly on the floor at my salon. The other stylist that I work with are quite older and have been doing hair for much longer than me. When I say quite older I mean that they are all between 22-31. A specific instance that I would like to talk about just happened over the weekend.

I had a girl in my chair that had very coarse, very thick curly hair. I am not used to working with hair like this as those clients are usually given to the upper level stylist. I did not know what products to use or how to do her hair. Luckily, I asked one of the stylist that is used to doing curly hair and she gave me exactly what products to use and how much to use of them. She told me how to blow-dry and straighten it to get the best results. It came out amazing! The other stylist (Ashley) gave me a compliment on it which is a pretty big deal as Ashley can be hard to warm up to. My client left feeling very happy and she even told me that most people cannot get her hair as straight as I did. It made me feel very good inside to help someone feel as beautiful as she did when she left the salon that day!

Question to Ask the Workplace Doctors about a threat:

I work in a retail store as a ASM . I received threatening text messages from my supervisor. One of his text states If you value your life. He is sending me text messages every day threatening to suspend me or change my shift. Today he sends me a text that says, “You want to play lets play.” Do you think I should go to HR with this? I am sick to my stomach every time I have to go to work. Quitting is not an option. I need this job.–

A question to Ask the Workplace Doctors about communication across time zones:

My coworker moved voluntarily to Hawaii which our leadership approved. Hawaii is in a time zone 6 hours behind where I live on the east coast of the United States. Her relocation was not related to a spouse having a job change but simply to escape the cold weather. We work on a very demanding project with two team–the business team based on the east coast and the IT development team from India. Because India is 10 hours ahead of eastern standard time, many of our meetings begin at 7 AM. My Hawaiian coworker doesn’t join these calls. She doesn’t have a very good understanding of the project because she doesn’t collaborate with the entire team.