At 7:00am, my prayers will either be answered or not. This is when I will find out if the assistant assigned to help me with my seminar has experience. I’m expecting over seventy people to attend today and guiding a newbie makes double work for me.
“Hello, Jean. My name is Kate. I’ll be assisting you to…oh! I think we’ve already met.”
Yes indeed, Kate was very memorable. Six months ago when I was last in Perth, she was assigned to me. It was her first day on the job. She was eager to help, did the best she could and (here’s the memorable part) was exquisitely beautiful and inappropriately dressed.
This time Kate was more experienced at the job. The other two qualities remained the same. Kate arrived to work in a little black dress with lots of cleavage, red lipstick and tall high heel boots. Her makeup was flawless; I could tell she spent a lot of time to look as she did – like she was on her way to a nightclub rather than to register participants for a business seminar.
She was careful about her work and took pains to do a great job. We were wrapping up our day. I was reading customer evaluations and one attendee remarked about Kate’s attire. Here was my dilemma: was it my place to make a suggestion. I was her manager, but only for the day. Was it worth the awkwardness?
Then it occurred to me, Kate is new to the workplace. Could it be that she doesn’t know? If that’s the case, it would be a gift to her to receive some feedback. I took the risk and spoke to her about it. Here is what I learned:
First, that Kate was 17 years old. Second, that she has financial stresses, limited clothing options, and that she chose to wear “the classiest clothes” that she owned.
Kate’s choices were an attempt to honor the job she was hired to do. The result was not what she intended. I felt protective of her and sad, too.
Kate’s evening plans were to head to a favorite pub for a beer. Mine were to read in my hotel room, brood a bit, and blog.
