I used to work in a production facility on the west side of town. It was a busy place, running a first and second shift. My job title was “the runner.” I took things from one department to another.
“That bitch, let her try to run one of these noisy, shaking, f*&#king machines for a change.” Was an oft repeated sentiment. She didn’t want to do their job; she didn’t even really want to do her job. Pinned to a board at the top of her workstation was a small cloth doll she had made. She longed to open a small craft store, making dream catchers, pin cushions, she wanted to talk and work with people who shared her passion. She waited for the day she could say goodbye to the demands of her life, her job, being stuck between management and production. She was sick of it all.
Georgia resented the office staff, particularly the salespeople, always poking around, checking on their orders. It was degrading having to answer to them. They didn’t understand the pressures of her job, the mangling, crippling ache in her back from bending forward leafing through piles of pointless crap.
The art department staff chafed at the demands of production schedules. It was, they felt ludicrous to put a timer on creation. It was a simmering cauldron of seething resentment, they had drawn pictures of the art director in humiliating, degrading situations and taped them to the inside of file cabinets, under their desks, to the bottoms of chairs.
One day, there was a memo on the bulletin board by the clock. “Hiring second shift maintenance/custodial worker. Please apply at human resources.”
Dennis, the maintenance man began a slow meltdown. He had been working as much overtime as he could. His checks were a constant source of joy, he used to show me the stubs.
“Tim, look at this, I made more in overtime this week, than I did in base pay. And you know most of that was skating. I just stick around, people feel sorry for me, all the hours. I walk through the plant once in a while and rake in the dough. Oh, sure, if something happens, I have to take care of it. But how often does anything happen around here, you see it, you get around.” He said, waving the pay stub inches from my face, it was so close the numbers were illegible.
He was right, my job took me everywhere. And since I my job was so menial and low on the pay scale nobody felt threatened by me, I was a non-entity. I can’t say anybody liked me, and certainly nobody respected me, but they didn’t dislike me, and everybody was willing to tell me how much they despised everybody else.
After the posting Dennis became withdrawn, haggard, surly. He would snap at people. One time when a press needed adjustment, he refused to do it until after 3:00 PM when he would be on overtime. The operator and the press sat there, staring at each other, and the orders piled up.
Two days later Jerald, came strolling out of the Plant Manager’s office, toolbox, and cleaning supplies stacked neatly on a gray Rubbermaid cart. He was wearing a canvas apron, and a can-do attitude. He smiled broadly and looked around the assembled room, as the Plant Manager introduced him.
“Meet Jerald, our new second shift maintenance coordinator. He was working for Phillips Controls and served two tours in the United States Army. He has all the skills needed to be successful in our company.” He patted him on the shoulder turned and walked back to his office.
Dennis stalked off, a thief in the night.
Early the next week, Dennis told me Jerald had been taking long lunches.
“How do you know?” I asked. His lunch time was 7:00, and Dennis lived several miles away. As far as I knew the only security camera was in the entryway, and someone told me it wasn’t real.
“I have my sources. People tell me things.” He narrowed his eyes until I wondered if he could see me.
“That son-of-a-bitch is cheating the system.” Dennis spat. “I’m going to see that he pays.”
Dennis started to record the times he said someone had told him, that Jerald went to lunch, and the times he came back. He had a sheet torn from a legal pad. He wouldn’t tell me who his source was. I asked but only because it seemed polite, not because I cared.
“From what I see Jerald has been doing a great job. The bathrooms shine, the machines are humming along. Even the microwave oven in the kitchen is sparkling and smells wholesome. There was something growing in there, it was green and gross. Nobody would use it.” I said, I thought Dennis should be happy, it meant a lot less work for him.
“Look at this, look at this, you little prick. He’s been taking forty-five minutes for lunch. We only get a half hour, you know that.” He said, pushing his yellow paper toward me. It had numbers written in red below dates and days. “I’ll sink him with this.” He stormed off toward the plant manager’s office.
Seconds later he stalked out, a frown on his face, his brow furrowed with painful impotence.
“He didn’t care. I wouldn’t give up my source.” He glared at everybody. His head was swiveling back and forth, and he wanted somebody to glare back. Nobody was paying any attention. Nobody cared.
“I’ll fix him,” Dennis said, walking away, never looking back.
He started sabotaging the presses. He poked holes in water pipes, he put wads of paper towels in the toilets, and they flowed everywhere. He smiled, mean and heartless. His eyes burned with a vengeful fury.
He got fired. Everybody knew it was him. It was obvious. Jerald moved to first shift and was given a supervisory title and the appropriate pay increase.
After a couple of years, I got another job, scheduling freight shipments for a commercial warehouse. I ran into Dennis at the grocery store.
“That bastard cost me my job. It was because he was a minority. Some equal opportunity thing.” He looked older, tired, less sure of himself, he seemed shorter, and a little rounder.
“He wasn’t a minority. He was just like us, just like you. He was just a hard worker. He liked his job, and listened to what people told him. When I left the company, he had an office.”
“Well, good for him, he probably takes an hour and a half for lunch, lazy…” He trailed off and seemed to be lost in the moment. Suddenly, he was back. “Hey, it was good to see you. Take care.”
I liked my time as a runner, I met a lot of people and most of them were decent, warm and caring, but they were all sure they were being used. It was an illness, a virus, a contagion that consumed everybody, and it caused a lot of pain. I’ve seen it almost everywhere I’ve worked, to some degree. How much life is wasted misreading reality?
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This Post is republished on Medium.
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Photo credit: iStock
