Tales of a Mean Boss

So, I feel a bit like a hag today. Yesterday evening, I had to become very direct and short with one of my employees. What I said to her needed to be said, but I hate feeling like a mean person. I will elaborate...

There have been some budget cuts that have made it necessary to reduce our expenditure in wages. In other words, some people have been laid-off and we've had to get creative with scheduling to ensure that we are operating efficiently. This essentially means that all of the full-time employees are wearing several hats.

This week, by the time Friday arrived, most of us had put in some 10+ hour days. So when the teenager that works the front desk on Saturdays called me and told me that she wouldn't be able to be there because her cousin was in the hospital, I was trying to scramble for a solution that didn't involve a full-time person working seven days this week (some of us are going in on Sunday to do some computer training). I couldn't come up with any ideas for who could cover her shift, so I called her back. Here's the part where I feel like a meanie...

I told her that I didn't have anyone who was trained well enough to cover her shift, and that she needed to visit her cousin either Friday night or Saturday after work. I know she thinks I'm a troll. I could hear it in her voice. I hate it when I have to be the enforcer. But, I'm like: why should her cousin being in the hospital keep her from being at work? Is she going in to donate a kidney or something? I realize when family is in the hospital, you want to be there to support them. God, I wish I could be back in Tennessee to help my mom take care of my grandpa! My mom gets up early every morning, feeds Grandpa, changes him, changes his bed, gives him his medicine, waits for hospice care to arrive, gets ready for work, goes and works a full 8-10 hour day, comes home, changes Grandpa, changes his bed, makes dinner, feeds Grandpa, eats herself, cleans the kitchen, does work that she's brought home with her, maybe watches a half-hour of television, goes to bed. The next day, it's exactly the same routine. I'm sure that my mom would much rather be able to spend her days making sure that Grandpa is comfortable and happy, rather than go to work. But, when you have a job, you go to that job.

The only reasons for NOT going to work, in my opinion, are being so very ill that you cannot do your job and/or being contagious, or an immediate family member dying or being so ill that you are NEEDED to be at their side. Maybe I set my standards for work-ethics too high because I have such a strong mother. But, I just don't see why her visit to her cousin HAD to fall into the 5-hour window that I needed her to do her job. And I said as much. Therefore, I will probably always be a bad-guy in her eyes. It's unfortunate. Was I wrong???