The Reasons Why

Today was an interesting day! The way it began definitely made me happy to know that a forum like this exists. Here goes...

One of my recently employed temp. workers is a fellow West Indian female. When I first interviewed her I knew she had no idea about working but I figured it could not be that bad. I mean, a sound West Indian upbringing instills some good work ethic, I thought...  After a few weeks of training her to answer the phones without using responses like "mmhhmm, aahhaaa, eh-eh and yeaaa" I thought that she was well on her way!  Little did I know that was only the beginning.

Whenever I assigned her projects to work on her responses would be "Oh God, all ah dat?" "You wah me do dat now?" " I hadda do all of this?" with the sassy-ist  attitude imaginable. By maintaing a stern demeanor she was able to tell how serious I was and that rectified the situation. Hallelujah, I thought she finally got it! Until she started wearing sweat shirts to work in a professional office, even though she was explained the dress code when she began working. I let it slide for a couple days, thinking everyone has their "off days". But this morning when she showed up with a hooded sweat shirt, with the outside-in style of stitching and a humungous silver studded star across the chest, I had had it! To top it all off, it was after 9am (when she starts at 9) and she is asking me " Yuh have a glass so I cud get sum ah da coffee dere?" (with an attitude of entitlement)  This irked me even more, as I had conversations with her in the past about having her breakfast before coming to work and that the coffee (that she had been pointing to) did not belong to my group but other staff who had contributed money toward its supply. Nevertheless, I explained it to her again and offered her some tea, she took it and said thank you.

Literally, one minute later, after I had gone back to my desk and was sipping on my tea and nibbling on some oatmeal cookies -which I had, had in my purse for about a week, along with some vitamins in the same ziplock-  she comes to my desk "Ah, I cud have a biscuit please?" with the same attitude that she had asked for the coffee. I was shocked!

One thing about us West Indian people is that we are known for our pride. If you are among your friends that kind of behavior is fine, but on your job??? Especially when you are a temporary worker???

What do you all think? Am, I nuts for being irritated by this? How would you handle this type of situation?

Trying to figure this out,
Nadia

P.S. I don't think this is a case where she is in need, since her attitude was not of someone in need, but rather greed.