How Unsure Becomes Amazing
There was something about my post about Matt this year that just did not sit well with me. I just could not put what I was feeling into words. Because of that, I kept thinking about Matt probably more than usual, and I already think about him a lot. My thoughts brought me back to this post, that I figured I would just go ahead and share now instead of saving for later.
When I was first introduced to Matt, it was after some managers met with me and said something like “We’re just not sure about this guy, so we are going to put him back here with you for a while.” That was not an uncommon practice at my job. I often got the misfits, questionable folk, or just plain bad workers. They did not want them out on the floor, so why not just hide them in the back, right?
Well, this time, that one “misfit” coming to the back was one of the best things that happened to the back of house and to me. Things happen for a reason, and I do not think anyone who knew his work in the back would ever deny that Matt was placed right where he should have been.
No matter who was sent to the back, nor what their skill set was, I put everyone to work and trained them to do the best job possible. Matt fell right into the work, and he probably ended up being better at it than anyone else that I ever had in the back. Like I said before, many were “dumped” there. Some survived, and some did not. One excelled.
As we went along day by day, I, myself, started to see that the right place for Matt was in the back. I started to give him more responsibility and training, and he flew with it. Always striving for accuracy, and surprisingly attentive to detail, especially for a guy, I could always count on Matt to do the best job possible. He also pushed for our systems to be updated, and for us to have more systems so that our team could do several different things at once.
Matt also came up with a lot of good ideas and ways for things to run better in the back. For instance, we used to have a communication board in the back that told associates about popular products that were out of stock or in low stock, new products coming, and general product updates. We filled out this board every morning, and updated it throughout the day, so that people would not come asking about these things every five minutes while we tried to work. The problem was that no one ever read the board. Matt had an idea for that, too.
On his own time mostly, Matt built a web site that specialists could check during the same time that they were supposed to check other internal sites before going to the floor daily. If that did not show some initiative and creativity, then I do not know what does! Specialists seemed to like it and actually read it. Unfortunately, it eventually had to be taken down because of security and privacy concerns, at least that is what management told us.
And who can forget the beating stick, which was a thick metal stick about the size of a yard stick that Matt kept handy to remind specialists of the importance of following procedure and how not doing so made our job unnecessarily difficult. While I was never to keen on the whole thing, it did get results a lot of times. Of course he did not beat people with the stick, but mess up, and the table where you were sitting, the cage next to which you were standing, or the desk where you mistakenly laid an item might be whacked with the beatings stick in response to your ignorance.
That is just to mention a couple of the great things that Matt did for the back of house. I cannot forget about all of the laughter and fun that Matt brought to our days back there, too.
I knew that I was not staying in the job forever, and, after watching Matt work, I was never unsure about who should take my place when I did leave. I prepped him for it, and when the time came, I pushed to make it happen. Let me be honest about it. In the end, he was probably better at the job than I was. I think that it is a good thing when the student becomes as good as the teacher or becomes even better than the teacher. 
It should not have been even a question for management, because their “unsure,” had more than proven to be a sure shot. Rather, their “unsure,” had become my “absolutely amazing.” That was Matt exactly–amazing.
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