The other day at work, a co-worker was remarking about the clothing of one of the younger workers. Being fairly new to this company, I wasn’t sure who she was referring to and, of course, what they were wearing that she was about to critique.
The particular item in discussion was a pair of shorts that were probably 3 sizes too large for the young man. She was wondering why on earth anyone would want to wear those types of shorts when they had to hold them up with one hand while walking.
I told her I didn’t understand either. Since we were on the clock, it was not the time to share with her a memory I had of when I was the manager of the warehouse of a direct importer of fine oriental furniture. This company was located in the southeast, and one of the best companies I have ever worked for. The owners were from a small town in the mid-west. They had one of their daughters and just five other employees working for them. The store was huge and set up in different vignettes. The prices were fair and the clientele came from all parts of the country.
I learned a lot about who I was from this family.
As I said earlier, at the time of this particular memory, I was the manager of the warehouse. I had been with the company by this time for about 4 years. The owners and their daughter, at different times, referred to me as “the right-hand man”. I had been their top seller (and that is a whole different story!!) for the first 4 years of my employment, even though I had been originally hired as a secretary.
Back to the young employee. One of our furniture repair/delivery guys had asked the owners if they would take a shot and hire his 16 year-old son as a warehouse helper. It would be his first job and he was hoping that he could kind of be around for him while he was being trained. His son was very shy, but a good worker. The owners agreed and the young man came to work for us. His first day happened to fall on my day off. When I arrived the next day, one of the owners was on her way to the warehouse part of the store. She was clearly agitated about something, but I never dreamed it was going to be about the new hire.
She said to me, “That young man has shorts on that are just not acceptable! They are just about falling off. We can’t have him in the store in front of customers looking like that, or Heaven forbid, delivering furniture to their homes! I am on my way to tell him right now!” I was horrified that whatever she was going to tell him would scar the poor kid for life. This was his first job, he was a shy kid, and there was no way I was going to let her out there near him. I reminded her that she and her husband had made me manager specifically to keep things in order back there. I told her that I had a plan and to please let me try it first. Thankfully, she agreed.
I went out and introduced myself to the new hire, and immediately felt nothing but total compassion for this young man. I said nothing about his shorts, but basically asked him a few questions about how he felt doing specific things he would be asked to do. I also told him that I would be counting on him to be honest with me. He agreed. I went through the basic list of lifting, organizing and then climbing ladders. Watching his reaction to each of his answers, I was able to discern that this young man had no conscious idea that his shorts were a safety hazard. He had calmly said he had no issues with any of the above tasks.
I then walked him over to our step ladder and the shelving units. The step-ladder was more like a portable, metal mesh stairs with a banister on the outside and a platform on top. It was on wheels, but the wheels could be locked in place. It was completely safe to climb as the stairs were also wide. I told him to start things off, I wanted him to climb the stairs to the top shelf and bring one of the boxes down. I assured him the box was not heavy. He turned to climb up and when he took hold of the banister with one hand and held his shorts with the other, I knew this was going to go exactly as I had hoped it would. When he got to the top, he grabbed one of the boxes, and turned to come down. That was when it dawned on him this was going to be awkward. I had not moved from my position a couple of feet from the bottom of the ladder and had no plans to move until he was safely at the bottom. Since the stairs went as high as about 15 to 20 feet in the air, it probably looked pretty scary to him. He tried to position the box so that he could still hold on to his shorts, because he knew he was not going to let go of the railing. He could not reach his shorts because the box was too bulky. That poor kid never complained and he never gave up. It took him a few minutes to get back down. And when he did, I complimented him on getting both himself and the box down in one piece. Seeing how embarrassed he was, I then continued in the most compassionate way I could find, to tell him that I am always concerned about safety, and having just experienced what he did, I would hope that he would understand that it was his safety I had in mind when I told him that starting the next day, he was not to wear those type of shorts to work. He totally agreed, and he seemed to look more relaxed with me.
The rest of that day that poor kid found himself in more situations that were even worse than what I had purposely put him through that morning. But he made it through, and the next day, he was properly dressed for work with excited anticipation to learn.