Smiles

So, two Tuesdays ago I was asked into my boss' office for a 'meeting.' When I arrived, my manager and her manager were both present and I was asked to sit down and close the door.

Their first question took me a little off guard: "Are you happy here?"

They were concerned because, to them, I seemed grumpy all the time. I was confused, because I like my job about as much as someone can like a job like this.

We had a half hour chat during which they brought up two tenant complaints about me: one tenant wanted free laundry money because I had hung up on him and was rude to him on the phone. Another tenant complained that I was rude to her on the phone and hung up on her and then laughed at her when she called back.

They made it clear that they weren't taking the complaints seriously, that tenant complaints always have to be taken with a grain of salt--especially ones where the tenant is asking for money or something for free. But still... it was kind of unsettling. I mean, I've never intentionally hung up on a tenant or potential tenant or former tenant, no matter how much I've wanted to. I can imagine certain cases where the tenant may feel hung up on--like if they're calling from the front door, the buzzer hangs up by itself when the door opens, so it could have hung up when someone else used the door. Or they may have felt hung up on if I was trying to handle multiple incoming calls and unintentionally dropped one--it happens.

As for my being rude to people on the phone, I have to admit that I may have a history of seeming rude on the phone. Once, while I was working at Little Caesar's a woman called complaining that the pizza she had ordered was not the way she had ordered it. I apologized and offered to make a new one for her, if she could come and pick it up, or if she liked, I could record that we owe her a free pizza. (This was after we stopped doing delivery.) She was angry because she had to come all the way back to Little Caesar's to get her pizza and was being sarcastic and snarky to me on the phone and I asked the person standing next to me, "Should I hang up on her?" Because, really, I was trying to help her and she was being unreasonably mean to me. Anyways, she heard what I asked because I hand't covered the mouth piece or put her on hold and she totally flipped...

As for hanging up on a tenant and laughing at them when they called back ... I really don't see myself doing that. I mean, what's so funny about hanging up on someone? "Haha, I hung up on you, isn't that funny?" It just doesn't fly, I don't find that funny. Maybe Janelle was tickling me or something, but I doubt that too because Janelle just doesn't tickle me when I'm on the work phone. Anyways, I just don't get it.

The tenant complaints were a side issue, it turned out. My managers weren't taking them seriously simply because the complaints weren't consistent with what they had seen of my character. But they were concerned because I sometimes seemed, to them, grumpy and generally unhappy and sometimes uneager to work hard. And I agreed with them, with some reservations, one being that I do work hard and I try to put my full effort into my work here, whether I like to or not.

Anyways, I left the meeting and thought about it for a while and came upon two simple solutions to help my boss' perception of me.

The first thing was that, whenever my phone rang, no matter who was calling, I'd smile to myself before answering so that I would sound cheerful on the telephone. Because, if I'm picking up someone's disgusting garbage when the phone rings, when I answer it, it just sounds like I've been picking up someone's disgusting garbage. Not pleasant at all, or cheerful. So I started getting into that habit and since my boss is the one who calls me the most during the daytime, she got the full experience of my "newfound cheerfulness."

The second thing I decided to do was to make myself more visible and communicative in my workplace. It takes me about an hour and a half to sweep one staircase in this building from top to bottom and another forty five minutes to mop it. And there are three staircases. Also, there are no security cameras in our staircases. So if I'm working on the staircases, that can be up to six hours and forty five minutes, plus breaks, that my boss doesn't see me during the day. And if she doesn't see me, she doesn't know what I'm doing. So, I've started popping into the office periodically during the day. If I finish a job, I go to the office, chat with the receptionist or the boss for a bit, let them know what I'm up to, what I plan to do next, and then head back to work. I also tell them when I leave for lunch and at what time to expect me back and what I plan to do after lunch.

So that was two weeks ago now and already I've seen some huge improvements in my relationship with my boss. She's much more friendly with me. She seems to trust me more. I'm more comfortable with her and I find it easier to talk to her about some things. She also seems less cranky. So I'm impressed with myself. Yay.