Back By Myself

My employee's last day was today as she's moving out of state for a little while. And I'm not really sure what I'm going to do without her. After all the worry and angst about hiring an employee, I found her to be truly invaluable not only for the work she was able to do but also just a great person to be with in the workspace rather than simply talking to myself for hours at a time.

What's more, on her way out today she paid me the best absolute complement. I had asked her to "rate" her experience with me as her manager as I explained that since she was the company's first employee I was sure that mistakes had been made and I wanted to improve on them going forward. Instead she told me that one of the things that made the biggest difference for her and made her really excited to come to work every day was the fact that from Day 1 I trusted her to work independently and didn't feel the need to breath down her neck with every move. Of course I countered with the fact that I trusted her because she is so skilled and, essentially, trustworthy. But still, to hear that I - Ms. Type A, hyper hands-on, and for a long while convinced that no one could do this work as well as I could or would care about it as much as I do. Not only did she prove me very very wrong in that but she was also the type of person which enabled me to let go and loosen up a lot. I guess it's what happens when you get really good employees - you end up learning more from them then you ever imagined. Unfortunately now the next person up to bat is going to have enormous shoes to fill.

Ironically, my employee also used to work retail during school for a number of years at a large but luxury store. So I told her that if the stars aligned in just the right way I may do some more serious research into opening up a production space/retail storefront and in which case I'd be hunting her down to come back and help me run the place. Especially since she has more retail experience then me (I managed to work retail for approx 6 months while in school before realizing that it was not the career option for me...yeah, there are some issues with that I need to work through before going forward with this latest idea)! She was excited by the prospect so perhaps the stars will align just right...