Learning to manage your boss (Cumberland saga)

Between the money Blain brought, what Gregor had saved from working and what Sig had given Gregor to spend, the two had spent an eye-popping amount of money. And the bed of the truck was far from full.

Gregor had to explain to Blain what CFE-223 and SRP were and why a gallon jug of the one cost $1000...and Gregor had purchased five of them and 10k SRPs at $500 a thousand. Yeah, that was a lot of money. And that was after the discount. Gregor had what he called “Friends in low places.”

Gregor was driving slowly because there had been a spate of government regulations that made possession of such things felonies with very long prison sentences. It would not do to get pulled over in a traffic stop.

“You wanna make a lot of money for somebody, you make the things that go into their hobby illegal or tax the hell out of it. Just like the prohibition. A gallon of alcohol costs about as much to make as a gallon of gas...and after taxes it costs 30 times as much” Gregor explained.

“Brother Samson knows how to turn those things into items that will be a pretty hot commodity. Let’s just say it is his hobby” he concluded.

“Ok, so I get that you have never had a good boss” Gregor said as he slowly piloted them home from their far-flung shopping trip. “And maybe I have been luckier than you in that regard, but I wanna tell you about some of the bosses I’ve had.”

“One of my first jobs was installing shower surrounds” Gregor said. “I was helping to unload the truck from the supplier and I noticed that the boxes were marked 60” x 36” x 72” and I knew for a fact that I was supposed to install them in alcoves that were 40” deep.”

“So I called my boss and he came over and checked it out. We loaded those boxes right back onto the truck and the boss gave me other work until the right shower surrounds showed up. Saved him a bunch of aggravation, too.”

“I thought I had it all figured out. The next time I ran into something that seemed wrong I brought it up to my boss and he went off on me” Gregor mused. “I figured ‘What the hell!’”

“I found out later that he was dealing with an employee who had been stealing from him. Seems like I shoulda asked him if he had a few minutes. He’d a said ‘No!’ and we could have sorted it out afterward. Took me a while to figure out what had gone on.”

“I guess what I am tellin’ ya is that you gotta let the boss know that something is on your mind that might be worth their time. Let them know how long it will take for you to tell them. In fact, make your best-guess and then double that amount of time because they might ask questions.”

“They will let you know when they can give your concerns a fair-hearing and they will tell you where they wanna talk about it. Sometimes they wanna hear about it but you brought it up next to a blabber-mouth with good hearing. It don’t pay to push things. Be patient. Then, when they have the time, just give them the facts and at the end give them a recommendation. Step back and let them decide.”

“Don’t take it personal if they don’t follow your recommendation. Likely they got other things going on that you don’t know about.”

“Where I think you got cross-threaded is you got to thinking your boss was the enemy, sorta a us-vs-them. Thing is, neither of you will have a job if the project loses money. Sort of like a life-boat, both the captain and the person yanking on the oar will be swimming if the boat sinks.”

Blain pondered what Gregor had told him for a good fifteen miles. He realized that Gregor had far more experience in dealing with bosses than he did.

It also occurred to him that most of his bosses had been young. Very young. Most of them no older than he was. Certainly they had been overwhelmed. The businesses were hyper-competitive and the only way to remain competitive was to pay all of the employees peanuts and to cut staffing to the bone...which meant there would never be a “good time” to talk about things.

Even if it was to discuss the clip on the safety-chain of the man-lift being broken.

“Do you think Sarah and Sig would be interested in what I have to say?” Blain asked.

“I know for a fact that Dad is losing sleep over being able to feed folks if things get worse. He will give you a fair hearing as long as you catch him at a good time” Gregor said.

Blain thought on that for a bit.

“What will make him listen?” Blain asked.

“Don’t talk about the up-side. He heard all that. Tell him how you are going to manage all of the things that could go wrong. Tell him how HE won’t be stuck holding the bag” Gregor said.

“Should I bounce this off of Sarah first?” Blain asked.

“Absolutely” Gregor said. “But when you talk to dad it has just gotta be you. Relax. Let your facts do the talkin’.”