Beginning in June of 2008,
lasting until June 2012, I worked as a Careers in Science Intern at the
California Academy of Sciences in San Francisco. It was an exciting adventure
as I learned more about science, myself, group communication and facilitation,
and leadership. After my second year, I along with some of my cohorts, received
a promotion as shift supervisors for the younger interns. I soon learned some
of us did not deserve the promotion.
Once, after a long couple hours supervising, I went to the break room to
take my lunch, when I found two interns in the break room as well. I noted on
my paper that everyone had already took their breaks and lunches. One of those
two interns was a shift supervisor as well. She told me that they just had decided
to take a few extra minutes for their break. This was only the first incident.
The next incident, the same shift supervisor was caught again with a different
intern doing the same thing. The rest of the shift supervisors decided to come
together and discuss the issue at hand. We all expressed our opinions and ideas
about how to deal with the issue and came to the conclusion that we needed to
meet with her and speak with her about the issues. After we did that, the
problem still was not resolved I went to my supervisor and he dealt with the
issue. It was risky of us to deal with a situation that involves our friend.
Hello SigmaLove, thank you for sharing your experience with us about your time as a manager. I know from personal experience as well that being a manager can sometimes put a wedge between friendships, your employees, and other managers. I believe that you took the proper steps to figure out how to solve your problem with other employees and shift managers at your job. The fact that you sat down with the group of managers before making assumptions really seems like you wanted to make a logical and informed decision. Although it ended in telling a supervisor, sometimes that is what has to happen to solve the issue, and that is okay too.
ReplyDeleteI'm glad to hear that you handled the problem the way you did. The shift supervisor that was taking advantage of her position shouldn't have been doing what she did. If you guys brought it up to your supervisor the first time the problem occurred, I don't think it would have been fair for her because it was only her first time and everyone makes mistakes. Since you and the rest of the shift managers already tried talking to her about the problem, yet it still didn't get resolved, I think she deserved to get penalized because you guys already warned her a few times beforehand. You and your co-workers handled the situation well because even though she was a friend, she shouldn't have been taking advantage of her promotion and her job.
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