B365V3.11 - Karma much?

Vacations aren't supposed to be like this.  As most of you know by now, I took one a couple of weeks ago, spending nearly a week in Vancouver BC.  I must admit I fell in love with the place.  Of course I am not trying to make a living there, they have booming housing costs and higher prices than we do here in the states.  That doesn't include the fact the Canadian dollar is weak compared to the U S dollar right now (so it is a good time to vacation there kids, great currency exchange).   One of the things I did before I left, on a day Brian took off, was that I fired someone.  Mind you this was now the sixth call off in three weeks for this particular employee, plus he had walked out on us twice in the past right in the middle of a shift.  For me, firing was a no brainier at this point in the game, I made the adjustments to the schedule, got all of his shifts covered for that week, which was the week before my vacation.   Of course Brian hires this guy back again with my pending departure, and what happens when I am in Canada, but his second day back he walks out again.  

This would be one of those "i told you so" moments except I saw nothing but bad things coming from this decision.  You have entrusted me with running the store, at the same time you step on my authority to do so, so what is the rest of the staff supposed to think?  That I have no authority here whatsoever.   Now this week Brian is on vacation, Aruba to be precise.  Perhaps we should be running a travel agency instead of a convenience store.  But you can guess what is happening in his absence, I can't do anything because no one expects anything I do to have any lasting effect once Brian returns.  So far this week I have had one employee's drawer come up $160 short, Monday I have a call off, Tuesday I have a no call no show, Wednesday I have someone leave early.  Thursday I have another shortage, this time $220 from the same employee.  Hell, even my cell phone isn't working properly, arbitrarily just shutting off, even when fully charged.  I could take it in and have it replaced, but it is a cheap flip phone and the contract on it ends in June, so I am tempted to just ride the storm out for a few months before getting a new one and starting from scratch with a new contract.

There was a slight good karma moment for me though, someone called this week to verify information regarding a former employee.  Now this employee was a pain in the ass, and with me having no say so on employees as evidenced but my firing/non- firing a few weeks prior, I told the person who answered the phone that the caller would have to call back when Brian was in next week.  I suppose it was a passive aggressive thing on my part, in that as much as this person disrespected me at work, if I could put a delay, however temporary, in their plans I could feel a little vindication.  What can I say, I am not inclined to help people who made interacting with them so difficult in the past.  Just not sure I can derive enough joy from it to make up for the rest of the week.  Maybe I should have stayed in Vancouver.