According to teh intrawebs, it’s a bad idea to send your dog mixed messages.  For example, a person who scolds their dog for begging at the table but still feeds it table scraps isn’t teaching the dog to stop begging.

Most people who have been around dogs (read: everybody) should know this already.  I mean, I’m sure some people really are that dumb.  However, I like to imagine the world as a place where stupid people are in the minority.  After all, 60.4% of us didn’t vote for the harper government.

So what’s up with the mixed messages at work?  Why is it that bosses will give you one job description and then expect you to drop everything to fill in another role?  Case in point:  I had to blow off a customer today so I could drop a car off for a minor repair (I’m a used car salesman, in case you didn’t know).

Did I want to blow off the customer?  Hell no.  My job, or so I’m told, is to sell cars and make customers happy.  At least, that’s what I was told in the sales meeting less than an hour before that.  Yet somehow, a manager re-defined my job as being the lot-runner-around-guy.  Now I’m out one sale, and the customer is probably writing in his own blog about what a jerk I am.

Moral of the story:  If you’re going to tell your staff something, stick to it.  Just because it’s convenient to give them one task and force them into doing another task instead, doesn’t mean either task will be done well.