This Is My Other Job.
Maggie, who has grown shockingly big since this photo was taken.
I am very busy this week with about a hundred (and counting) applications to be on the design team at My Scrapbook Nook Kits. The nature of a design team in the scrapbook industry is that it needs to be changed up regularly in order to keep a fresh flow of ideas and breathe some new life into the group. One of the most important aspects of what I do over at the Nook is the hiring and firing for these positions.
At the end of each six month term, I am faced with more people who want to stay than spots I have available for returning designers. Usually, I can easily identify a few who I consider to be the weakest links, and so they are first in my list of who to let go. Unfortunately, because of the need to change it up, I almost always end up letting go of at least one person who I cannot find a single good reason to let go. It is maddening, and I will tell you, I’ve been in tears over it more than once.
This term, our design team was so talented, and so cohesive, and so responsible and so darn nice and fun, that I finagled a one month extension. But all good things must come to an end, and now I’m stuck letting go of at least two of these amazing women.
I hate it. I always tell them it isn’t personal, and they say they know it isn’t personal. . .but it still feels like it. Logic and feelings don’t like to keep the same company. So, in the end, I feel like a jerk, though logically, I know it is just part of my job, and I am hired to do what is best for the company. And logically, those I let go of understand that, but who wants to hear, “sorry, you just weren’t quite good enough. You were 99.9% and I can’t even give you a logical explanation on this.”
You take that kind of thing personally, and then you like the person calling the shots at least a a little bit less.
Yup, I hate this part of my job.
However, it does come hand in hand with the part I do like! I love hiring! I love making that call and hearing the happy screams and squeals and the occasional non US citizen who has completely lost the ability to speak English from sheer, overwhelming happiness. You can’t beat that. That is the good part, the part that waits for me after I let some very good friends down, as easily as possible. It takes the edge off.
It also takes the edge off the pain of rejection that I put at least one hundred+ people through every six months. Many are strangers to me, but plenty of them are people who I know, like, and respect. Frequently these are people who I call friends. I see them walk away for a time, hurt. Most of the time I see them come back, but some never do. I feel awful about it, not to mention that I don’t like being rejected any more than anyone else does, in fact, I’m quite sensitive to it!
People wonder what I must be thinking when I make these cuts and additions. There is so much more than just the ability to scrapbook well that I look for, although that is a given. I need a variety of people, with a variety of artistic styles. They can’t all be me, and they can’t all be each other. Sometimes very qualified people come through, and they aren’t chosen simply because I have another designer with a similar style.
I also try to represent a few different countries and family types. If I have ten designers with daughters, I’m looking for someone who scraps boy. If I have a bunch of married ladies with children, I want someone scrapping the single life. I also look through resumes, obviously, a list of accomplishments can be pretty enticing, but I also have to ask myself if this person will be the most loyal fit, and if she will have enough time to devote to the Nook. That’s a tough call. I’ve had people with incredible resumes turn out to be disappointing, and I’ve had people for whom this design team is their first, and they’ve been amazing.
One constant that I look for is responsibility. I run this place, and I like my cogs all meshing and doing what they agreed to do. When the design team gets out of whack, it can be a lot of work and drama to fix it. I’d rather work on more important things, and I’m not a fan of online drama.
Another extremely important thing for me, which may seem a little weird, is that I look for people who seem genuinely nice. I am protective of the site I run, and I am extremely careful to choose people who are kind and friendly and welcoming. While I do seek second opinions on potential designers, and try to gather a little behind the scenes info on them, the people I choose have to strike a chord on my personal nice-o-meter, and that, folks, is a gut reaction.
So this is what I do every six months. While I am quiet here, it is because I’m twisting myself in knots trying to not hurt people’s feelings as well as trying to put together a truly wonderful team. This was not on my list of What I Want to Be When I Grow Up, but I have to come to love it.
