To gauge the leadership qualities with which our nation will be governed in the 21st century, we need look no further than positions of management in the sprawling service industries. It should be obvious to anyone who gets out to town now and then that we have two perceptions of employment in the workplace: jobs that matter and jobs that don't. True, lazy youths have been around as long as there have been youths, but the personnel demands of the sophisticated and highly technical landscape of modern labour has left none but the least capable - both physically and morally - to manage our eateries and shops.

Time was, a young man would get a taste for leadership while performing such mundane tasks as flipping burgers or delivering prescriptions. He would do his level-best job, no matter how demeaning the labour, because he could do nothing else and keep a clean conscience. His natural ability would recommend him for promotion, and for the time he remained in that lower management position, he would ably represent the interests and desires of his employer while ensuring that his customers kept bringing their wallets back through the door. The primary job of an employee, it is said, is to make his employer look good - management included.

We are all fairly familiar with the maxims describing what we used to call the work ethic. 'An honest day's work for an honest day's pay,' I had always heard...and as much extra as it took if you had any ambition in you. But more is expected of a manager than physical effort.

A manager not only works for his company - as do the rest of the other employees - but he 'federally' represents his superiors in their absence. When the owner [or higher manager] of an establishment is away from the shop, the next manager has, not only duties, but responsibilities - that for which he is responsible in every sense of the word. They are, including but not limited to:

 

• Rule Enforcement - The manager enforces the company's rules on the employees as if he wrote the rules himself. The manager is not just a conduit for messages from on high, but he is to utter commands as if there is no other authority.

   

• Customer Policy - The manager relates to the customers and enacts the company's programs and commercial benefits as if he carries all the risk on his own.

   

• Fiscal Management - Compensation for services performed are handled with the same care as if the money were the manager's own. Refunds are granted with the larger picture of customer satisfaction in mind, and not handled in a flip or inconsequential manner [nor withheld as punishment for 'poor behaviour' on the part of the customer, no matter how true.]

The manager, in essence, is the company, both to his customers and to his employees. If a company grants a man the title manager, they should be preparing the individual to represent ownership's interests in every facet of the business [save the contractual.] The manager should be a rock of confidence in steering the ship of business. This sounds silly when we think of some of the goofy kids we see wearing manager hats - the very people in whom this sort of training is sorely lacking.

Just the other day, I ran into one of the aforementioned goofy kids disgracing such a position. I drove my family through the pickup window of a local fast food outlet, seeking primarily to secure a milkshake for a son who had just lost his first tooth. With the extras we tacked on, the bill totaled six dollars and change, for which I wrote a check [knowing that this establishment had previously taken my check.]

Upon the cashier's return from seeking 'management approval,' I was informed that they could not take my check as it was less than their "ten dollar minimum." I left, promising to return after a trip to an ATM, which I could see from the drive-through. To avoid the then-longer line, once arriving back I walked up to the counter to pay with cash and receive my collection of drinks. I also saw fit to tell the, at most, 20 year-old managerette that her ten-dollar 'maximum' made no business sense, and accomplished only two things: 1) if they loose on a bad check, they loose big, and 2) the annoyance of the customer, who then has to go to the ATM, pay the $2.50 in service charges due to ignorance of a policy theretofore unknown because he was accustomed to writing twenty-plus dollar checks at said establishment.

Her prompt and flip reply was that she didn't make the policy and couldn't do anything about it. I was flabbergasted, so I simply took my drinks and left, eager to get home. It was then that the above management principles flashed back into my head, with a wish to turn around and unload them on this poor excuse for a manager. Then returned the original desire to leave, and visions of 'pearls before swine,' etc. I left in disgust.

Going back a few months - while driving to work one day, I heard a commercial for the local GNC store [a vitamin shop, usually found in malls.] It featured their weekly specials, one of which was a cream for, shall we say, enhancing the experiences of procreation. The product was described in such graphic terms that if I had my children in the car, I would have no doubt had to refuse to answer a number of embarrassing questions - questions that should never come to the mind of a pre-schooler. On my next trip to the mall a few days later, I popped into GNC to relate my horror at their commercial. Of course, the lady at the counter promptly identified herself as the manager, until she heard what I had to say...then suddenly she was no longer in authority. I even had to beg her to relate my story to someone of consequence.

Dear small businessman, entrepreneur, vice-president, all holders of corporate responsibility; the public begs you to train up managers amongst your ranks - managers who will actually manage your business and represent your company to us, your customers. We are tired of your paid representatives acting like government-employed clerks. We want action on our complaints, and would love to see some of the 'service' promised by the service industry. We understand that the pool of talent is lacking, but it is up to you to pressure your people to measure up...perform or leave should be the ultimatum. Somewhere the buck must stop.