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Location: Jonquil City (aka Smyrna) Georgia- by Atlanta
16,259 posts, read 24,848,648 times
Reputation: 3587
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Sometimes teenagers get killed. Sooner or later a teenager will get killed that is from your suburb, town or school. It happens where we live sometimes. It happened a few weeks ago and 700 plus other teenagers went to the funeral of the dead teenager. This makes me wonder how employers of these teens handle funerals. Assuming that all, or the vast majority of your employees are from the same high school and knew the deceased teenager (maybe the teen was even one of your workers), what do you do when virtually ALL of your employees want Saturday afternoon off to go to a funeral? How delicately do you handle such a thing? Do you close up for the afternoon? Do you do a random drawing as to who can have the time off? What options do you have?
What kind of business are these teens employed in? Fast food? Manufacturing? Landscaping?
Can you get temporary workers who are removed from that teen community?
Can the manager (you) fill in for a couple hours at reduced output?
Can you close the business for a few hours?
If you have other workers, ask them if they mind filling in on an off day to go to the funeral. They may like the extra hours and if they get overtime from it, even better.
Location: Jonquil City (aka Smyrna) Georgia- by Atlanta
16,259 posts, read 24,848,648 times
Reputation: 3587
Quote:
Originally Posted by Charles
What kind of business are these teens employed in? Fast food? Manufacturing? Landscaping?
Can you get temporary workers who are removed from that teen community?
Can the manager (you) fill in for a couple hours at reduced output?
Can you close the business for a few hours?
We need more information.
It is not my business. I am just asking how a business owner would handle such a situation when put in such a tough spot. I honestly don't know what I would do. When I was a teenager I worked at a car wash but the only teenagers we lost in high school were buried on weekday nights and I only knew one of them who died of Leukemia and went to one of the services. The other teenager- who drowned- I did not know. But even at that, the car wash employed teenagers that were from 3 high schools. I just thought about this after I saw that 700 teenagers went to a funeral. That would pretty much "shut down" a small town or suburb. I would hate to be the boss that had to say "no" to an employee going to the service of a friend. I think I would probably try to operate reduced or even shut down for the afternoon before I would do that.
If that many kids are going to a funeral it's going to in essence probably shut down a small town anyhow. How productive do you think they'd be if they had to come in to work? I think I'd just close the doors fora few hours. Post a sign outside saying why you were closed, I can't imagine anyone in a small town not understanding--chances are they wouldn't notice as they'd be at the funeral as well.
I agree with those who say just shut down the store. Most likely it's going to be a fast food place or a small mall store and you could just put up a sign saying "temporarily closed". Funerals don't last that long.
What difference does it make if the mourners are teenagers or not?
A few years ago someone in my industry was killed in a horrible boating accident. Most of the businesses in our field and related to our field had numerous people absent one afternoon because of the funeral. Some people stayed behind to man the phones and get a bit of work done, but with so many people gone, including coworkers, vendors, clients, and suppliers, there wasn't really a lot to do or that could be done. The whole industry slowed for that day.
Teenagers aren't the only ones who will have overlapping connections with work and their personal friends. This happens to adults too. And the businesses generally just deal with it on an as-needed basis. Some may decide to close. Others may deal with a reduced staff. Others may split the funeral time and allow some to attend the funeral and others to attend the burial (or wake or whatever other events are happening in association with the death).
Location: Stuck on the East Coast, hoping to head West
4,641 posts, read 11,993,642 times
Reputation: 9890
Quote:
Originally Posted by kodaka
What difference does it make if the mourners are teenagers or not?
Teenagers aren't the only ones who will have overlapping connections with work and their personal friends. This happens to adults too. And the businesses generally just deal with it on an as-needed basis. Some may decide to close. Others may deal with a reduced staff. Others may split the funeral time and allow some to attend the funeral and others to attend the burial (or wake or whatever other events are happening in association with the death).
Exactly the point I was going to make.
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