"You don't know how to run a business..."
(sent in a group text to me and all my employees)
"You need to pay me more."
(came from someone in college who was making $12 per hr. + tips)
"You act like we don't have kids to feed."
"I'm not sure what you do with your time, but you don't work on your business."
(from my manager)
"I wish I had the luxury of staying at home with my kids when they were sick."
(from an employee in her 20s)
"I've never worked for so little money."
(employee in her 20s making $13.50 per hr.)"You can ignore me all you want. I'm going to call the cops."
(from an employee who was unhappy with having to wait 5 minutes for a response from me)
Comments that came from a mixture of employees over the years. Comments that were made out of anger and frustration and aimed at the one person throughout history that shoulders such ugliness....
...business owners.
When I became an owner, I did it simply out of need. I couldn't keep up with the amount of work I had. My first employee was delightful. She was hard working, honest, diligent, funny, and always respectful of me though I was younger than she. She spoiled me for those who followed.
I had to pay unemployment to an employee who simply abandoned her job. She didn't return calls or texts. She took my supplies with her. She disappeared for three months and then came back and demanded her job back along with an increase in pay. When I refused, she filed for unemployment. I was on the phone with the Louisiana Work Force for hours defending my case. She received the benefits anyways.
I've had multiple employees over the years who left and started their own cleaning businesses. They took clients, connections and knowledge that they learned from me. And left in their wake stinging remarks and jobs undone.
I remember the first time I received an insensitive remark. I was too stunned to react immediately. After it settled for a bit, my face got hot and tears threatened to spill. I was sweaty and dirty from a long day's work. We had just finished cleaning a house. I was right alongside her scrubbing toilets with an aching back and raw fingers. But because I signed her checks, I was the enemy. She was done for the day. I still had to go to the store to buy supplies, pay bills, invoice clients, collect payments, tweak my website, answer emails, schedule appointments, return phone calls, fill out paperwork for employees. My job was very far from over. It was 5:00 p.m. and I had a baby at home that I was nursing. And she was paid before I was. I sometimes went weeks without seeing a dime.
I suppose I felt this way before I became a boss. I remember demanding more money from an employer. I didn't know how the world of business worked. I just knew that the people I was serving were paying a lot for their services and I wasn't paid a grand salary for my work. I answered phones at a construction company. I was 22.
Pause for dramatic effect.
My husband and I often argued over his treatment of his bosses. He was frequently late. He was frequently ill. He was disrespectful to his bosses. He did just enough to get by, yet when bonus time came around he expected half his salary.
But he was the employee. I was the boss. He had never experienced what I had. And I couldn't remember what it felt like to be the employee.
All of the comments that I was on the receiving end of were from young employees. They were all races. They had few similarities between them, but the one common thread was that they weren't business owners.
After years of off-handed comments, I became numb to them. I found solace in friends who were also business owners. We all had similar stories about the behavior of employees. I probably deserved some of the things that were said to me. But the negative remarks weighed so heavily on me that I became hardened to the possibility of truth in them in order to simply survive the attacks.
I am very different from the young girl who used to weep when she saw homeless people on the streets. My experience has made me so. (side note...movie scores should not be played on a Chopin pandora station...)
My hard outer shell means protection for me. It is the reason I'm able to bow out of nasty disagreements that are unnecessary. It is the reason I block people. It is the reason emails go unread and voice mails go unanswered. I requested that my employees remove me from a group text where they were ranting over their job. It wasn't that I was upset by their remarks. I was fine with them trading horror stories about working for me. But I knew they probably forgot that I was included in the texts and would be embarrassed if more was said. One employee apologized for it and my response was, "No worries! Just figured that was something you girls needed to talk about without me being a part of the conversation."
Now that my time of being a boss has come to an end...or perhaps just paused...I am still paying on old debts. But as I told my dad, at least for nine years I have supported countless others and their families. So it's a good debt. Not a bad one.
I'm still very far from the misconceived idea of what it means to be a business owner....I don't spend my days counting my money and watching Netflix. I'm just a girl. Sitting in front of a computer screen. Trying to make ends meet.
Don't judge a man until you have walked a mile in his shoes....or something as cliche applies to this scenario. My feet hurt. I'm sure yours do, too.
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