Uh Oh! Superbowl!

You would be suprised how slow people are ... I can make excel sing me a song if need be .... she said she knew it ... it is not like you plop down a comp and say "show me".

She had references ... i think they just wanted her out. On top of that her daughter is a total slug and works at the winery right now.

disapears for hours ... not in my jurisdiction now though so I can not term her. I would just because of her mother ... in all honesty.

In the infinate wisdom of my company they had held off even looking for someone to fill the position until next year.

The company is in CA too. I think the commute would be a b*tch. )

wow... who does the recruiting at your place?

Well.. i'm glad to say that what I'm experiencing is not as bad as you have... and since we don't deal with cash money in my line of work, I haven't really faced any problems with robbery.. Our accountants deposit checks and process wire transfers which go straight to the company's account, and our debits are the usuals… salaries, bank liabilities, office rent, employee vehicle rentals, travel expenses.. petty cash expenses.. etc.

I know I said "loyal", but I should have said "dependable" instead. They're my right hand men when I'm away, and I'm constantly on the phone with them to follow up as to if the job is getting done. See in our line of work, these two employees are responsible for attending to our larger clients and becoming the link between us and them. My task is to locate these clients and win them over, and then turn them over to these 2 employees. They then spend weeks attending to their every need providing consultation and working on long term campaigns, and I then jump back in to negotiate a package and sign the contract.. and that's the last I hear from that client. They now belong to these two employees.. where in reality these two employees belong to them.

Smaller (or 'less larger') clients meet with our consulting agents and designers instead who directly attend to their needs. So as you might imagine, these two employees are actually the ones who I would most expect to set an example for everyone else. Although tardiness is not really an issue in our line of work, I do consider myself rather strict when it's on my home turf.

To give you a quick idea, the company I work for currently handles 2% of all the advertising, PR and marketing consultation performed in the GCC. The company has been in the region for five years. My branch only started 18 months ago and we already contribute 32% of the total net income of our total 2% market share. We're doing almost as well as our Dubai office is and we're much smaller than HO. Our Bahrain branch is 9 months older than mine, and they only contribute 12% of total net income. I have the best and most imaginative designers in the region, and I'm less than a week away from signing a contract with the fifth largest telecommunications company in the region.

I'm practically begging HO to raise the budget a notch to allow me to hire an extra executive to handle this new account, but they're telling me to shove it where the sun don't shine. What annoys me most is that they have 3 times as many employees as we do, yet with this new contract we should advance by 4% and be in proximity to rise above HO in terms of sales by mid 2008.. unless they're in the process of signing a hefty contract I don't know about (which I highly doubt).

I've been to all four of the region's locations, and by far my branch is the one almost everyone wants to be transferred to. It's a fun environment, it's a great city, and I like to think of myself as a fun dude. I give my people the freedom to express themselves and be imaginative in their work instead of butting in everything they do to be the master and commander.

The new Qatar office is actually our second location and was originally established 4 months before mine, but was closed down in March because they were losing. HO performed a market study and decided to re-open the branch but this time I was given the task of running it. My target for Qatar is 4% by December 07, and 7% by December 2008. I’m already at 4% last week, and working on a couple of biggies which should take me comfortably above target. So here's what annoys me most; I’m certain that by year's end 2008, both my branches should amass for at least 55% of our total regional net income.. yet HO which will drop to 30-33% (depending on how well Bahrain is doing) will continue to ***** and nag and continue sending belligerent faxes questioning why our water bill went up $2 from last month when I should be the one telling them to kiss my ***. They continue to call themselves HO although we're the ones who are expanding the fastest. To be fair, they're expanding too, but I'm doing it as a much faster and consistant rate than they are. Besides, they definitely have the edge.. they have a larger market in Dubai, and they have twice as many employees than both my branches combined, and they've been in the region for much longer than we have..

So BA.. I guess in someway I am a perfectionist and pay attention to the most microscopic detail. I've designed a structure which has proven successful, yet I'm a trusting and flexible fella.. I wouldn't have thought twice about it if an employee showed up late knowing I'm in the country.. but the minute my staff starts getting stupid and challenge the system, threatening what I've built is when I go nuts and make it my duty to get rid of the rotten apples regardless of how well they're performing. Its hard to trust an employee who walks in the office 20 minutes late holding a bag of McDonalds breakfast and Starbucks coffee thinking I should be traveling. So to further explain, thinking i was out of town, they decided to first stop at starbucks and get their Mochiattas, and then drive all the way to midtown McDonalds to get their McBreakfast. You should have seen the look on their faces when we made eye contact.. "uh-oh… busted".. now that's ****ed up. :grrr:

What you need is to employ my other half Leanne. She is an accounts wizard running an accounts department for multi million £ steel construction company.

My uneducated dumb @ss could work round the back bare foot in a barrel of grapes. :ha:

Oh yeah

our pickers during harvest make up to 60/hrs a week in double .. not a bad check if you like labor in the sun