Thinking Out Loud, Volume CCCXLVIII

Her name was Lou. That's almost all the personal information I can remember about her. I can't even recall her last name. However, there's one thing about her that continues to stand out in my memory even today. In the early 1980s, I was working as a store manager for a fairly large department store chain, and she was my office manager. That was a long time ago, and there's no way I can remember even half of the people I worked with during those years, but Lou was so conscientious about her work, a spot for her has been reserved in my memory for the rest of my life. As a result of the pride she took in her work, I still regard her as the best office manager I ever had. One of the most important duties of an office manager was to prepare a daily report known as a transmittal. Any errors on a transmittal could have an adverse effect on the profitability of the store, thus affecting my income as well. Each day when Lou finished it, she would place it on my desk for my signature. However, before I would sign the bottom of the page, I would go over it with a fine tooth comb, looking for errors. If there was a mistake, I was determined to find it, and Lou was equally determined that there would be no errors to find. We turned it into a game, and on the occasions when I did find a mistake, it would upset her. During that period of time, I could go to sleep at night with the assurance that we had turned in perfect reports....because we cared. More importantly, SHE cared, although it was not her income that was affected. If she had not cared, her job may have eventually been affected, but she was the type that wanted to do it right anyway. That's because she saw the big picture...that picture that shows how many lives and careers may have been altered by her actions. Not only that, she was concerned about how her performance made her look. I'm appalled when I look at social media and see the atrocious grammar and spelling errors on so many posts, but it makes me feel better when I see where someone has become aware of their mistakes and made an effort to correct them. What disturbs me is when I see obvious errors, and it's apparent that the person who made the mistake really doesn't give a rip. That reminds me of another former employee, although I remember this one for a different reason. She was a temporary employee who was helping us take inventory. We had an item in our store called a "Snug Sack," but when she listed it on the inventory sheet, she just wrote the word "Sag." When I asked her what it was, she looked at me like I was crazy. "It's sack," she said. I replied, "Sack is s-a-c-k." "Well, I spell it s-a-g," she said. I ended the conversation at that point, but about a month later I was in need of a permanent employee, and she applied for the position. I wouldn't have hired her if she had been the only person who wanted the job, and the reason was all because of her attitude. We all make mistakes from time to time, but our attitude about them determines whether we reduce them or not. When Lou first started working for me, I would find errors on practically every transmittal she put on my desk. However, due to her attitude toward them, by the time my company transferred me from that store to one in another city, her mistakes were extremely rare. That's the way she wanted it....and it's the way I wanted it. That made both of us happy. Preston