Get Lost Already

Enough is enough.

I've had it with that Boozealler guy. Last couple of weeks all he's been doing is occupy space and little else. I don't get it. He did such a great job helping me support environmental lab projects and running the chamber area while Greasy Guy was in Malaysia for three months. Now Boozealler is just a total dud. Maybe he's given up on this place, who knows. What I do know is I'm sick of dealing with his bullshit. Something snapped, I reached my threshold of tolerance for his lame attitude. Today I did something about it.

Walking over to where Boozealler was sitting once again I discovered he was studying real estate instead of working on instruments. His daily habit. Gritting my teeth I tried to keep my temper down while speaking to him in a civil manner.

"Boozealler. Do you have anything else you could be doing right now?"
Looking up at me with a slightly confused expression on his face he said, "Ummm. Yeah."
"Okay. Cool. Look man, I'm gonna be honest with you. It's obvious to everyone you just don't want to be here. You don't want to do this job at all so you're not interested in training on it. Whatever. I need the workbench you're using when I come in to start my shift and I don't want to wait around for you to leave. It slows me down and wastes time. So I'll tell you what. Let's make a deal here, okay? You don't want to be here and I don't want you to be here either. If you got better stuff to be doing just go with that from now on and don't even bother to worry about MI/EI anymore. I don't want to run this whole thing by myself but even if you're here it seems that's what I'm going to be doing anyway. If you bail out though at least I won't have to trip over you every day right? So what do you say? Fair deal?"

Boozealler thought about it for a half minute or so and his facial expression changed to one of relief. He seemed suddenly happy. He jumped at the chance to abandon working in Button Up. Boozealler said, "Sounds great!" After that he packed up some of his text books and headed off towards his cubicle with a grin on his face.

About an hour later I spotted the Bossman walking into the area past a row of EI test racks. I called out to him and asked if he had a minute to talk. Giving me a quick nod that he did I walked towards where he was standing in the aisle. By that time of the afternoon everyone had pretty much left for the day. No one was around. I told the Bossman that I talked to Boozealler and essentially asked him to keep out of Button Up from now on. He wasn't willing to learn the process or do any work at all. So, I said I cut a deal with him to stay away and I would cover the area by myself. What I wanted to know was, would that be cool with the Bossman? Maybe not.

The Bossman looked me in the eye and asked, "Do you realistically think you can handle it without another person?"
I said, "For now, yes. But later on when our orders increase... I'm not sure. I'll be very busy but I can probably stay on top of it."
He replied, "All right. Go for it. If you start to fall behind though talk to me. Let me know if things look like it's getting out of control. I can temporarily move someone else over to help out."

That sounded good to me.

Before leaving the Bossman said, "Someone just earned himself an extra spot on the next round of layoffs." Then he walked away.

Uh oh.