Ultimate Blog Challenge - What kinds of people do you like to work with?

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Ultimate Blog Challenge, Day 13:

What kinds of people do you like to work with?

The other day I hinted I was going to tell you about my favorite coworker.

Here goes:

When I was in my mid-20s I was working for a job placement ageny and was located at one of the branches, while she was a teenager doing her commercial apprenticeship at the headquarters. We didn't have much contact, but I liked her.

Fast forward ten years, and I joined Starbucks Coffee as their Head of HR. As I got showed around and introduced to the office people, I was surprised to see a familiar face: the young girl from back then had become a grown woman. Why was she working for the store develompent department. though? Because the position of the HR assistant was already filled when she applied, she told me, but she still wanted to work for Starbucks.

What's wrong with the store development department, you ask? Nothing. It's an interesting and diversified activity. They look for and negotiate retail real estate, they plan and oversee construction or remodelling, they order furniture and artwork, and they are in charge of all things maintenance concerning the coffeehouse.

I was happy to see her and immediately set to investigate about this new HR assistant I knew nothing about. Two unexperienced part-time ladies were assignment to me for the time being, and while this was better than nothing, I would have killed to work with Nadja, no matter who the mystery lady was.

A couple of days I called said mystery lady, introduced me as her future manager and told her the preson who hired her was no longer with the company. We agreed to meet. I took one look at her and knew we were not going to become friends. She stroke me as very convinced of herself - if not full of herself - and bossy.

For a moment I considered telling her not to bother to come at all, but decided to give her a fair chance, and if things didn't work out, I knew who my backup was going to be.

She arrived on Monday morning, and if I remember correctly, she was gone by Friday afternoon. Within that short week she managed to annoy a lot of people, and I actually wrote down the complaints.

I hired Nadja, and her first task was of course to find her own replacement for the store development department.

We happily worked together for many years. She was loyal, extremely engaged and hard working. Friendly but firm she took care of our many stakeholders, and we had each other's backs. One time, while I was on vacation, she had to deal with a store manager who raided the safe that contained a day's worth of sales - something that had never occurred before. She did brilliantly. 

This is us, years later after we had both left, no thanks to the new HR director aka the HR witch  from h*** who was put in front of us. 

Over to you. Have you ever had the pleasure to work with someone whom you trusted 100%? What kinds of people do you like to work with?