J1 Returns
J1 has been missing in action for two weeks. We didn't know what the hell to make of it. He got to work around 11pm one night, worked for about an hour like usual and told us he was heading out for lunch. None of us saw him or heard anything from him until tonight. He showed up like nothing out of the ordinary happened and went to work like normal. Before he got the chance to tell us he was gonna grab some lunch and disappear for another couple of weeks, Supertech, Musclehead, and I cornered him. We wanted to know where the fuck he had been.
The night we last saw him, he said he went to a local burger joint and hit their drive-thru. While in the drive-thru line, his car was rear-ended. Big deal. I smelled bullshit in his story right off the bat, so did Musclehead and Supertech. We knew this particular burger joint isn't open after ten in the evening and J1 wouldn't have arrived there at the earliest until sometime after midnight. The three of us didn't say anything to one another but from the looks we shot back and forth it was obvious none of us were buying J1's junk. We started hitting him in rapid fire succession with the tough questions. It was like J1 suddenly found himself in that fabled dingy room with a single lightbulb dangling from the ceiling and an old wooden chair in the center of the floor. He was getting the aggressive third degree.
Musclehead said, "So you got rear-ended in the drive-thru. They must have hit you at what, five miles per hour? That must have wrecked your car, huh?" He laughed at J1.
Supertech snickered.
J1 became red in the face and sheepishly told us he drove home.
I asked him, "Why didn't you call us that night? Why didn't you call during the past two weeks?"
J1 said, "I couldn't call because some of my neighbors at the apartment complex I live in cut my phone lines."
"Huh? Why would they do that? Okay, so why didn't you call us from a payphone down the street then?" I was angry J1 thought we were that stupid.
"Well, they slashed the tires on my car."
Musclehead rolled his eyes at that. Supertech kept snickering with his hand on his chin.
"No phone and tires slashed. So why couldn't you call a taxi from a neighbor's phone to come in to work?" The tone of Musclehead's voice was taunting J1 as he asked that question.
J1 nervously said, "They tried to kick the door to our apartment down. I couldn't leave. I had to protect my wife."
Yeah right, I thought to myself. This is going to turn out to be another one of his self absorbed hero stories that exists only in his broken mind. I gave up asking him anything more about it. I was disgusted. Musclehead made fun of him for the next couple of hours, I went back to work in the assembly area. The fucked up thing about it is, J1 didn't call in to Squirmy to tell him he wasn't working his shifts. Squirmy won't come in on swingshift or graveyard to check up on us so he doesn't have a clue if we're here or not. Since J1 didn't call in he got paid like he was here the whole time, the bastard. He also hasn't been vouchering all the time he took off when he has left for lunch after only working one hour each night. J1 is basically ripping off the company. None of us have finked on him for it, at least not yet.
Bill and Dave's company gives all of us alot of freedom in the workplace. It takes a great deal of character and personal ethics not to abuse those freedoms. The method here for logging your time off is called vouchering and it's nothing more than a honor system. To voucher your vacation or sick time you normally have to tell your manager by voicemail or by notifying your supervisor in advance. You can do this by writing down the time/days you take off on your supervisor's desk calendar if he's not around to talk with about it. Employees also have to go into a computer system and log the time there. Some of our management staff are completely lazy and they rarely bother to audit employee's hours they've vouchered or even check on them to see if they are present and working. Miscreants like J1 take big advantage of that. I think I'm going to start calling J1 an F-Dude. The F stands for failure. Since he fails to appear and perform on the job it's a perfect nickname for him.
The night we last saw him, he said he went to a local burger joint and hit their drive-thru. While in the drive-thru line, his car was rear-ended. Big deal. I smelled bullshit in his story right off the bat, so did Musclehead and Supertech. We knew this particular burger joint isn't open after ten in the evening and J1 wouldn't have arrived there at the earliest until sometime after midnight. The three of us didn't say anything to one another but from the looks we shot back and forth it was obvious none of us were buying J1's junk. We started hitting him in rapid fire succession with the tough questions. It was like J1 suddenly found himself in that fabled dingy room with a single lightbulb dangling from the ceiling and an old wooden chair in the center of the floor. He was getting the aggressive third degree.
Musclehead said, "So you got rear-ended in the drive-thru. They must have hit you at what, five miles per hour? That must have wrecked your car, huh?" He laughed at J1.
Supertech snickered.
J1 became red in the face and sheepishly told us he drove home.
I asked him, "Why didn't you call us that night? Why didn't you call during the past two weeks?"
J1 said, "I couldn't call because some of my neighbors at the apartment complex I live in cut my phone lines."
"Huh? Why would they do that? Okay, so why didn't you call us from a payphone down the street then?" I was angry J1 thought we were that stupid.
"Well, they slashed the tires on my car."
Musclehead rolled his eyes at that. Supertech kept snickering with his hand on his chin.
"No phone and tires slashed. So why couldn't you call a taxi from a neighbor's phone to come in to work?" The tone of Musclehead's voice was taunting J1 as he asked that question.
J1 nervously said, "They tried to kick the door to our apartment down. I couldn't leave. I had to protect my wife."
Yeah right, I thought to myself. This is going to turn out to be another one of his self absorbed hero stories that exists only in his broken mind. I gave up asking him anything more about it. I was disgusted. Musclehead made fun of him for the next couple of hours, I went back to work in the assembly area. The fucked up thing about it is, J1 didn't call in to Squirmy to tell him he wasn't working his shifts. Squirmy won't come in on swingshift or graveyard to check up on us so he doesn't have a clue if we're here or not. Since J1 didn't call in he got paid like he was here the whole time, the bastard. He also hasn't been vouchering all the time he took off when he has left for lunch after only working one hour each night. J1 is basically ripping off the company. None of us have finked on him for it, at least not yet.
Bill and Dave's company gives all of us alot of freedom in the workplace. It takes a great deal of character and personal ethics not to abuse those freedoms. The method here for logging your time off is called vouchering and it's nothing more than a honor system. To voucher your vacation or sick time you normally have to tell your manager by voicemail or by notifying your supervisor in advance. You can do this by writing down the time/days you take off on your supervisor's desk calendar if he's not around to talk with about it. Employees also have to go into a computer system and log the time there. Some of our management staff are completely lazy and they rarely bother to audit employee's hours they've vouchered or even check on them to see if they are present and working. Miscreants like J1 take big advantage of that. I think I'm going to start calling J1 an F-Dude. The F stands for failure. Since he fails to appear and perform on the job it's a perfect nickname for him.
posted by factory_peasant at 4:58 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home