On a Roll

Took another big step yesterday.

We make rules for employees at the salon but don't stick to them. Not lots of rules. Not unreasonable rules. The kind you need to make a business work. For example, an employee has to work an average of 32 hours a week to receive full time benefits. (Yep. A mere 32 hours week.)

When it got time to do the payroll after the holidays, I reviewed the schedules and hours worked for the people we think of as full time. Turned out that two of them are averaging about 20 hours a week. I did not pay them for the holidays. As always, I discussed it with my sister first.

When the checks were issued, both employees questioned me. I explained and offered to review the books with the first one. A day or so later, I got a note from the second one and talked to my sister about it again before responding.

Immediately, she wanted me to back down and pay the holidays. "What would it cost us to pay her two holidays?" she asked. My answer was that we wouldn't be just deciding to pay those two days. We'd be deciding to pay holidays for anyone who demands them without earning them. And sick days. And vacation days. And subsidized health insurance. Doing those things for employees who work 32 hours is generous. Doing them for employees who work 20 hours is business suicide.

Rather unbelievably, she persisted. Said she wasn't absolutely sure I'd made the rules clear enough and that I might be penalizing this young woman for my failure to communicate.

I took a deep breath and tried to feel you all standing with me. Then I told her (politely) I had no doubt whatsoever that every employee knows and understands the 32 hour rule. Took another deep breath, imagined Prema's hand on my back, and (politely) said I was not going to pay the holidays.

Then I went back to the salon and vaguely asked a couple of employees about the full time rule. Every one of them knew it down to the dots on the is and the crosses on the ts. Turns out there have been many discussions of this rule and how to work it.

So...I held my ground with the employee. She didn't even flinch. Clearly, she wanted paid holidays if she could make it happen, but it was just as clear that she knew she wasn't actually eligible. (It's mostly our fault, really. We established the precedent.) The conversation was amicable.

I've written a lot of detail here, but it's not the details that matter. This is just one more situation where I see that my sister will take any, any, side rather than support my opinions or decisions.

But guess what?

I can (politely) do what I know to be right, even when she disagrees. And the roof doesn't cave in. No blood is shed. I do not disappear in a puff of her disapproval.

The other day I said there might be hope. In a comment, Go Mama said there's always hope. She's right. There's always hope.

For us all.