I opened my little shop late last year and it’s been doing well. At first, I was doing the books myself, but as we started getting busier, I realized I needed to hire someone to do them for me. I only needed someone for 10-15 hours a week since it was a small business with only nine workers, myself included. I hired you six months ago, while you were still in school pursuing your accounting degree. You were a good little worker. But then you got a full-time job in some accounting position about a month ago. To still keep you on with me as well, I got you to put in your 10-15 hours from home and on the weekends (rather than during the week, since this new job was Mon-Fri, 9-5). Unfortunately, lately you’ve been just putting in 5-7 hours a week and are falling drastically behind. I just found out this weekend there were some invoices from July that are still not in our accounting system! WTF! And you don’t seem concerned at all about it. Then you have the audacity to request to have Saturday off working for me because you have to go in to count inventory at your other job for a few hours. Outraged I said “You work for me on Saturdays. You need to work HERE on Saturday because you’re falling behind! I hired you before this other company did, and I’ve been accommodating to you with switching your hours around so it didn’t conflict with your other job. Why are you putting your job with me on a back burner?” To which you snarkily replied, “You’re paying me $10.75/hr, they’re paying $14.50. Do the math.”
I was dumbfounded. How dare you talk to your boss like that! You ungrateful little brat, if it wasn’t for the job I gave you before you graduated, you probably wouldn’t have gotten this other job because you wouldn’t have had any experience for them to consider you! I’d give you a raise if you would get your damn work done.
I’m sorry, I run a small business and I can’t afford to pay you $14.50 an hour like the big cats can. I get you’d want to be paid more, but you made a commitment. How about keeping that commitment? Is that type of thing lost on young people these days? ‘Fraid so.
I’m giving you one more chance, and if you don’t get this shit caught up, I’m gonna hunt for another bookkeeper who will do the freaking job! —Small Biz Owner
This article appears in Aug 30 – Sep 5, 2012.
why on earth did you post this on a public forum?
given the specifics presented… if she reads the coast, you and your books are absolutely fucked. I thought this was gonna be a public firing, but the one more chance part…
ouch. You’ve only yourself to blame for ranting and raving and then letting them continue to have access to your livelihood.
g’luck with that.
Agreed with the above. Also, when a person gets a full time job while already having a part time job, it is only a matter of time before they leave.
WTH …. why post something like this about a person when you as the FUCKING BOSS are responsible for ALL your employees ….. you created this situation and now put the blame on someone who has been doing YOU a favour by working weekends on your fucked up bookkeeping ….. please share the name of your company so I never frequent your door – what a cunt!
I would have told you the same thing, OP – for all we know, you could have been a total prick to work for despite all your ‘kindness’ – fuck, if I was offered $14.50 per hour, you’d be eating my dust trail too. Personally, I find many small business owners are petty little tyrants, most of them as tight as a duck’s arse and, as we all know, that’s watertight.
Agree with the others with airing the laundry. OB, you are an idiot boss. Do you think you own this person and that they were going to work for you forever. A partime, minimum wage job is just that. Very few will continue doing it, especially those that go fulltime to a higher paying job. A smart boss, on learning an employee is going to take a full time job (for more money), is to hire another person. A smart boss will know that the position will be needed to be refilled on a regular basis.
being a small biz owner has it’s ups and downs. the down on this one is that you have to get someone to take over a job, that you can/could do better yourself. believe me, i know the feeling. when my ex-partner and i started terra nova landscaping a very long time ago, we were okay for the first year. but when thngs started to get real busy in year two, we decided to bring in some extra help.
in the 5 years we owned it, the biz grew at a fantastic rate, and we had to have legal advisors to take care of a bunch of shit. land buying, and licenses and stuff like that. then we branched out further into other things, like contracting and buy and sell outfits. our biggest mistake, was to put all faith in this one guy, that did the books. son of a bitch cooked them, and we lost over 50 grand over a period of a year.
when we finally found out, it was too late. we had creditors knocking on the door and a loan company wanting money. we never borrowed a cent from them, but they had all the paperwork showing we did. so we sold the whole outfit and paid off what we sposed to owe.
beware the ones that want to help you, they will rip the fuck out of you. and i hear a construction/demolition company in dartmouth, just got some of the same, i believe from the same person.
You’re giving him/her one more chance because you realize it’s impossible to find someone thick enough to do book keeping for $10.75 per hour. You’re getting what you pay for jackwagon.
Of course, they’re going to put you on a back burner. The other job is offering full time employment for nearly $4/hour more while you’re giving part time for practically min wage. I’m willing to bet the other place gives them benefits too, while you don’t. Don’t act like you’re doing them a favour and think that the position you gave them was the sole reason why they eventually got the better job. If anything THEY are doing YOU a favour, working for that shit wage. Fuck sakes, some fast food employees get paid better than that. You’re getting them for peanuts, you self-entitled jackass! You want them to keep working their ass off for you, pay them a decent wage, you cheap fuck! Your post completely ruined the rest of my day!
OB, spare us the lecture on commitment. You are only hiring her for 10 hours per week instead of full time, and you aren’t even paying her a premium wage. All you idiot bosses want low pay and low hours. Grow up, it doesn’t work that way in a competitive market where your employee is free to go elsewhere.
OB…as a small business owner myself.
The solution is SIMPLE
Hire another part time book keeper, tell the other one, thanks & good luck with their new job.
any bookkeeper with half a brain can do a payroll & invoicing in less than 15 hours.
unless of course yer so called small business has grown beyond a small business & has hit mid size or larger !
Lol, 10.75/h. Pbbbbbffffftttt… I’ve had 15 dollar dumps. 14.50 is the going rate for an accountant? Even that sounds grossly underpaid for something you need a degree for.
You don’t need a degree to be a bookkeeper in most places.. you can take a two year course at community college. $14.50 is still pretty cheap for that.. and for $10.75 they should just get a job at Tim Hortons.
When I took my business degree, accounting was a designation for a major.
Never hire a person under the age of 30 for a job that requires more than ‘How can I help you ?’
Don’t start the “what’s wrong with young people today?” angle. It takes quite a bit of commitment to do a full and a part-time job. Your bookkeeper is making a sensible decision. The part-time position at minimum wage (thereabouts) or the full-time job for $4.00 more. I mean, which would you take?
Another thing, it may be difficult to snag an accountant at that wage. Best of luck to you though.
THE MIND OF THE BOOK-KEEPER
What we have here is a classic debate based on different perceptions of morality or, perhaps more accurately in one case, no perception of morality at all.
On the one hand we have the poster who, in return for hiring a book-keeper to help her get through her college “degree” in accounting, expected a modicum of loyalty and commitment. And rightly so.
However, for someone with the mind of the book- keeper, such concerns as commitment and loyalty are alien concepts. They do not register on the book-keeper’s moral screen. For the book-keeper, it’s always a matter of number one, of maximizing their personal gain regardless of any moral commitments. For the book-keeper it’s just about that, keeping the books, and nothing more.
The mind of the book-keeper might be said to be exemplified in Adolf Eichmann, its highest embodiment, who pleaded at his trial in Jerusalem that he was only “doing his job,” only expediting the railway traffic into the camps. That was as far as his “morality” extended.
Get rid of the bum, OP. Don’t waste your time with people who only have the minds of bean-counters, of book-keepers. And a college “degree” in book-keeping? What a laugh.
A pleasure as always.
Cheerio!
Glad to see this employee stick it to tha man for one. You want an account for minimum wage, BYITCH?? You get what you pay for, tightwad.
*once
*accountant
sorry – half crunk.