Originally Posted by My3cents:
great advise from Nickel.
As much as I would love love love someone to bring me coffee every morning, I would either pay for half of it or ask him to stop bringing you coffee every morning. That is expensive on his part to be doing that. Nice, wonderful great but I would like this as a once in a while thing not an every day thing.
I agree keep him busy. You are paying him to work. Show him how you like things done and if he doesn't do it the right way ask him to do it again.
It is frustrating to not know what to do or feel like you are going to be stepping on your boss's toes if you take the initiative. Make list. List of stuff that gets done every day and at a certain time. If he is full time, make sure you give him a lunch break and two breaks during the day to do as he wishes. Give him a space to put his personal belongings that are not in reach of others.
This sounds like it could be a great working relationship- just have to spell out the boundaries and make it clear you hired him to take a load off of yourself. You are capable to do it all yourself, but that was not the point of having him come into your group. He needs to treat his job as a job, and you need to treat him as an employee. Don't give him all the crap work to do, but keep him busy with something to do at all times. Explain to him that you are not paying him to sit down and that if you do that is ok, because that is why you have hired him to take a load off of you and ease up your days.
Good luck-
If only I could have this back bone like you have. It took way too long for me to build a back bone with my parents and I cant let that happen with my employee.
I took some time lat night and really thought about how to go about it and I decided that at the end of the week, I will sit down with him and go over how the week went, letting him know how I felt things went and then talk to him about the list. Im sooooo scared, don't know why..........BTW give up coffee from my favorite place no way...lol BUT I know what you are saying....lol