There are supposed to be two guys in my position where I work, but I am currently the only one on staff. We just opened a new location, so I guess they want to settle in and see what our workload looks like prior to bringing in additional staff. Naturally, this means I am swamped most days as I'm the only point of contact for our technicians, customers, AND insurance companies. I have to juggle all three angles for every job that we have. That's not what grinds my gears, though.
What grinds my gears is our office administrator. She's the front desk. She's supposed to answer the phone, provide updates to customers and insurance agents based on the calendar we keep [meticulously] updated for her, and she's supposed to receive our parts orders. Just the tiniest bit of effort from her would save me 2+ hours per day of not having to deal with the minutiae of our communications needs.
She will let the phone ring 4 times to see if me or my manager will answer it before she has to. She will sit at her desk playing Candy Crush and listening to Pandora, but as soon as she sees a delivery coming towards the front door, THAT is when she has to get up to go do something... that way she doesn't have to sign the paperwork, scan it into the digital file jackets, or put the delivery into the staging area, all of which has to be done immediately upon delivery. We can't just let it sit and wait until she gets back to her desk, so that's another 15-20 minutes of work for me or my manager whenever we have a delivery, which is several times per day.
When she really doesn't feel like doing her job, or when there is a customer in the waiting area where her desk is, it's becoming more and more frequent for her to leave the front office without an explanation, and then later say "sorry, that guy was making me really uncomfortable." There have been a few instance where we've had strange guys in here, and I don't mind if she clears out because it's a strange situation and she's feeling weird about it. Take care of your people and all that. But recently, it seems a LOT of people make her feel uncomfortable. I'm starting to think the idea of basic customer service and communication is what's making her feel uncomfortable, and she'd rather me deal with customers in our waiting are while I've got another customer on hold, and an insurance agent waiting for a call back.
The worst part, though? She does this thing where she gets up from her desk and then comes to stand in my doorway, and stares and my back until I turn around and ask her what she needs. She will shuffle her feet, jiggle her keys, huff-and-puff to let me know she's agitated about something, or even do the fake cough thing to make her presence known. JUST ANNOUNCE YOURSELF AND GET ON WITH IT. I don't have time to play communication games.
My first few months here, I just thought she was a timid personality, and excused a lot of her issues.
But now I know she's just lazy and poor with interpersonal communication.
Getting an office admin that is actually productive and capable of managing a calendar for updates themselves would probably increase our productivity by a not-insignificant margin, and would in turn result in improved profits. BUT, she's the daughter of a friend of our GM's, so she's here until she decides to leave or until she starts stealing from the company, I guess.
