Patterns of Success

We had an employee abruptly walk off the job today. I had mixed feelings about it. I can't say I don't actually feel a slight sense of relief from his leaving, but I never like it when a work relationship ends like that.

He wasn't the best worker, and he moved like a snail, but I was willing to be a bit more patient about the time I invested in training him because he is a very young man and this was his first legitimate job. He seemed like a really nice kid.

He had a tendency, which was growing worse, to "hide out" a bit, and he liked to talk, but could not work while talking. Spending time talking on the job is a typical tendency among the social type of creature that we are, especially among teenagers, but it usually isn't to hard to break the habit.

It is kind of disappointing when somebody young leaves the job without seeming to take something valuable with them which they have learned there.

As look back on how I learned to work, my parents and others whom I worked for all seemed to be trying to help me to create a pattern of successes. This helped me to be able to work through circumstances to try to achieve success with work by myself.

This is what I tried to help this young man do as well. I will not miss trying to keep him busy when I had things of my own to do, or trying to get him to work up to speed, but I do admit a sense of loss and perhaps a little failure with the fact that he left not learning to do those things for himself.

I tend to believe that as the first job goes, so likely will the next, and the next. I hope that is not the case here. I only hope he will look back on the experience and take something positive with him to his next place of employment.

"And whatsoever ye do, do it heartily, as to the Lord, and not unto men;" Colossians 3:23