I only had to work from 12-6 today, which is a common occurance.
When I got to the shop, there had only been 5 cars prior to that. The shop was a mess! There had been a small shipment from our filter supplier come in, and it had not been stocked. There were open boxes of oil filters all over the counter. There were air filters scattered across the shop floor. There were several jugs of used oil sitting in the middle of the floor in the second bay (which hardly gets used).
As soon as I got there, I noticed "Dude" and "Big Dude" were standing in front of the window. As I walked in, Dude had made his way over to the shelf of bottled oil and acted like he was doing something productive. A car came through almost right after that, and it took them for-ev-er! After it left, Big Dude loaded up some boxes in his car and headed towards the north shop. Dude then went over to the radio and began his usual act of flipping through each and every channel.
The whole "slow car, radio flippage" thing went on all the way until about 4:30. At 4:30, a lady brought her car in for an oil change (big surprise!). I went down in the pit to drain the oil and change the filter, but I had a bit of a problem: The drain plug had been rounded off and was VERY tight -- too tight. I had Dude come down in the pit to give it a try, and after 5 minutes of him not being able to do it, I explained the situation to the customer and called Boss Dude. Boss Dude said that we should try as hard as we could to get the plug out, and if we couldn't, have the customer come back Friday before noon.
Ten minutes later, I told Dude to give up and explained the outcome to the customer. She, luckily, wasn't too upset about it, and agreed to return later this week. After she left, Dude went over to the counter (which was now clean, thanks to your's truely), laid out his cell phone and a piece of paper, and began transcribing his "Phone Book" entries. After he was done, I asked him what he was planning, and informed him that I would make sure his life was a living Hell if he messed with my day off. He said he wasn't planning anything, and that he'd get fired before he quit.
At 5:00, I told him to clean the bathroom, since he enjoys it for some odd reason. At 5:40, I had told him several times to get the job done, and he still hadn't. He finally gave me a response: "To be quite honest with you, I could care less if that bathroom ever gets done and it won't get done tonight." I made sure he was aware that I would be hearing about it if it didn't get done, and informed him that it was to be done tomorrow first thing.
The shop wasn't in too rough of a condition when I left tonight, granted, the trash needed to go out, the windows needed washed, and things needed wiped down. There's only so much that I can do during the day, especially when I have to clean up after lazy co-workers, so there was quite a bit of the little things needing done yet.
At 8:00 tonight, less than an hour ago, Boss Lady called me. She said that they had stopped in at the shop just to check in on things, and they were not happy with what they saw. Personally, I can't blame them! I was blown away when I got in the shop today, because with only 5 cars in a 4 hour span, a lot of cleaning should have been done already, and it wasn't. It was all left for me when I got there, and they knew that the afternoon would be busy and not all of it would get done.
The bosses have not yet told anyone at the shop about my new managerial position, so I've not taken the steps that I should be as a manager. I would very much enjoy it if they would give me the power so that I can make sure that this kind of day won't happen again. I'm really hoping that after the crap today, and the crap that will happen tomorrow, that I will be able to start calling the shots. Without the title, I can only go so far with the orders. I need to go further. I need to have less of the discussions with the bosses being of the matter they were tonight. I want to be able to have good discussions with them.