by Todd Schmicker

I started my career at the factory as the “east bay crane man.” Most called it the worst job in the place. You were busy from the time you clocked in until you clocked out.

Me? I loved it. Being busy made my afternoon shift go quickly. My day started at my other job at the local fertilizer retailer at 7 a.m. By Saturday afternoon, I got a little tired. You think you’re run-down from 16-hour days during harvest? Try doing that all year long!

At the fertilizer dealership, my job was keeping their equipment operating. One year we were still busy the week before Memorial Day. I was rebuilding a carburetor and complete brakes on a Chevy truck. It started to rain, and field operations halted.

Drivers piled into the shop. Eight drivers were watching me work. This did not sit well with me. If you’re not making someone money, you’re costing them money. I wasn’t their boss, but I suggested there was fertilizer that could be pushed back into the bays. They didn’t move.

Next, I suggested they could tap screens on the blender to clean them. One said, “That’s not my job.”

“When did you join the union?” I asked.

Another guy looked like he was going to work on something. “What are you working on?” I asked.

“I’m working on a place to sit down,” he said, pulling the roller seat with my aligned brake parts out from under the truck. They scattered on the floor.

Bad to worse

That was it. I went to the office.

“Sandy, send these guys home,” I began. “There’s no way we can run today. You already gave them tomorrow and Memorial Day off. There are eight guys watching me, and I can’t work like this.”

“I’m running this place, not you,” she countered. “I don’t need your services any longer. Gather your tools and leave.”

“OK, but I am going to finish the truck first,” I said.

“Suit yourself,” she answered. “But you are off the clock.”

I put the carburetor on the truck. She came into the shop and told everyone to go home. She stood there looking at me for a minute. I thought she might be thinking, “How do I say I overreacted?” But she just left instead.

Ten minutes later, Jimmie stormed in.

“Are you kidding me?” he began. “Sandy just told me she laid you off? The only guy here with half a brain, and she lays you off? I’m thinking about quitting right now.”

“Don’t quit — it’s fine,” I said. “She obviously didn’t like the way I presented the facts. She thought I threatened her authority.

“But what’s this stuff about me having half a brain?”

We both broke out laughing.

“I will have a second job by Tuesday,” I said. “It isn’t the first time a person of ‘authority’ didn’t like how I presented the facts, and it sure won’t be the last. The worst thing about this is that I’d just bought everything for my Memorial Day hog roast.

“Oh well, the hog roast is still on!”

Schmicker writes from Winamac, Ind.