It gets better with the employee I was ranting about in my original post. After I disciplined her, she went whining to the owner who totally fell for that favoritism and "being singled out" stuff. I'm pretty sure she turned on the tears too. So I got called in with the owners the next day and raked over the coals for, you know, doing my job and managing. It ended up with...I am supposed to prepare a "list of expectations" and we will all meet and go over it together. Because working adults, particularly ones who have been working as secretaries their entire lives, should need to be told to be on time and not to abandon the company phone to walk out to the warehouse and take a 15 minutes personal phone call without telling anyone.
The very next day, this same employee, who has not even been here six months announced that she was taking 5 days off over the course of July. Obviously, now she knows she can end around me....oh this is going to be fun....