About two years ago when I had first become a manager at my work, we hired a young guy named Jeff. We hired him to do work closes and he started right off working on nights. He was extremely quiet, barely saying a word throughout any of his shifts, but was a good worker and seemed like a nice guy. One night after he’d worked there for about a week we had one of the first big snowfalls of the year. He was out at midnight and I was closing, so I told him if he was willing to wait around an hour I could give him a ride home so he wouldn't have to walk through the snow. He quietly declined and said he didn't live far and liked walking home.
After I got out of work that night I was hanging out at the gas station in town for a bit, chatting with the people that work there like I usually did after work most nights. Around one thirty Jeff walked by the station while we were standing around outside, looking pretty darn cold wearing a thin hoody.
“Hey Jeff, what’s going on?” I asked as he walked past.
“Not much man, heading down to Denny’s for the night”
“For the night?”
“Yeah, the homeless shelter doesn't let anyone in this late at night so I have to wait around till morning to get in.”
“Oh that sucks dude. Well you look cold, you want a jacket?”
“Uh I wouldn't mind I guess, do you have an extra one I could borrow?”
“I just have this one with me, I don’t need it though, you can keep it man.”
“You sure?”
“Of course. Here you go”
“Thanks, I really appreciate it.”
I offered him a ride down to Denny’s but he declined again, saying he liked walking. After he walked away I headed home for the night. Over the next couple of week I brought Jeff a couple of blankets and extra jackets so he could keep warm. It turns out he had come to Maine with absolutely nothing, but the clothes he was wearing and knew nobody here. We helped him get on his feet and in return he was a hard worker. About two weeks after I found out about how hard on his luck he was while I was working another night shift, one of the really young kids that works with me asks to talk to me off the floor. We walk out to the back area of the store to talk.
“What’s up?” I ask.
“I found a bottle of alcohol in one of the lockers while I was putting my stuff away.. I figured you should know about it.”
“Oh which locker is it in?’
“This locker right here”
I opened the locker to find a bottle of alcohol. I was still pretty new to this and had no idea what to do in this situation. Clearly it’s unacceptable to bring something like this into our restaurant where we have kids as young as fourteen working. I was the person in charge of the store for the night so there was no one more experienced to turn to, so I brought the bottle into our office and called my boss. She didn't pick up so I called our district manager Tom, the guy in charge of the five stores in our franchise. I asked him what to do in this situation and he said to dump the bottle out and throw it away, and to pull a video clip watching the lockers for the whole day and to go through them to find out who it belonged to. After I found out who it was, I would have to sit them down, fire them, and ask them to leave. I’d never fired a person before, so this was a scary prospect. I had no idea how someone would react to that, especially getting fired by an eighteen year old kid. After about twenty minutes of watching video clips, Jeff stepped into the office to talk to me.
“Hey Nick.. has anyone found a bottle in the lockers?
“Uh yes. Do you know anything about it?”
“It’s mine. Do you have it?”
“I had to throw it out. You know you absolutely can’t bring things like that into the restaurant right?”
“Yeah I know I just don’t have anywhere to keep it man, I don’t have a house or anything”
“I realize that but it’s unacceptable. I hate to do this to you but I have to ask you to leave.”
“Like for the night? or like for good?”
“For good. I wish I could do this differently but I don’t have a choice. I’m sorry man”
The guy looked about as heartbroken as anyone I've ever seen. He teared up a little so I let him leave out the back door so he wouldn't have to walk by all his coworkers on his way out, but I don’t think I've ever had a harder time doing something than that. I will always remember the broken look in his eyes when I told him he was out of a job.
Whew, that must have been very very hard. Here's a piece that contrasts simple human kindness and decency with managerial and business policy, neither very human, kind or decent. I can certainly see the managerial point of view, the possibilities of liability, all the bad stuff that might happen. But you'll never get me too impressed by what the lawyers, insurers, cops, or bosses say.
ReplyDeleteAnyway, you do a fine job setting the stage for the unhappy ending with dialogue and narrative and then you close the door to the story quickly, the way it has to done.