The Common Room: Economic Education

Luckily for us, most of our employees have a good sense of where the money comes from and where it goes in our business, and they keep an eye out. We have a pretty good team. In fact, we have such a good team that we sometimes just have to get out of their way. If they feel like swapping hours with another employee, by golly, we're happy to let them switch hours. It's a little odd not always knowing who's running the store at any given time, but somehow or another it all works - because our employees make it work. Somebody's always there (okay, once - just once - everybody thought somebody else was opening the station on a Saturday morning...), and they make sure not to bankrupt us with overtime. I love these guys. You give them responsibility, and they've got the common sense to apply to it, and the decency to look out for each other.

But, man, when you do get an employee who can't see anybody else's needs, it can drive you crazy, not to mention the fact that it can drive the business into the ground real fast if you aren't careful. In short, I really identify with the title-linked post.