by Colleen McMillan
“Where’s Graeme? I told him half an hour ago to bring Arnotts’ latest consignment, and start stacking those shelves.”
“Dunno. Wasn’t here when I came down to the storeroom Mr. Robertson,” replied a young man as he picked up a carton of Heinz mushroom soups.
The store-manager gave an exasperated grunt and left. Where had this kid got to? It wasn’t as if he hadn’t had to pull him into line before either.
He spotted him staggering under the weight of three cartons of biscuits towards the Arnotts display. Three cartons! Three cartons piled on top of each other. If he dropped one there’d be a broken neck, as well as broken biscuits around here.
Ted Robertson waited until the cartons were safely on the floor before speaking (he wasn’t called old sneaky slippers for nothing). “And what took you so long?”
The barely disguised steel beneath these innocent enough words would make most stumble with apology, but not this lad. Without even stopping his prising open of a box Graeme simply tossed back his head and replied, “Had to take a leak.”
No sorry, no Sir, no Mr Robertson, no contrition.
Ted went on. “And you know the rules about carrying three boxes?”
“Yeah, but three is more efficient . . . and I didn’t drop them did I?”
Although Ted thought cocky little bastard, he knew that this was not the place to argue, so he simply said. “I’ll see you in my office after work.”
Graeme had not been working at this suburban branch Cowools super-market long. He was part of a new group of trainee managers taken on each year. They were mostly school leavers, and at this stage mostly packers; learning the trade from the bottom up, so to speak. Graeme was not a school leaver being a year or two older than most, but when asked by his fellow trainees what he had been doing in the mean time he talked about travelling, and odd-jobbing until he discovered what he really wanted to do with his life. Just what that was he didn’t say, but Ted could have already have told him that Cowools did not look like featuring in his future.
Today, Ted wanted everything looking ship-shape; his Regional Manager was visiting. After a final whip around Ted headed for his office. The account sheets were up to date, and showing a very nice profit, so all he had to do was finish the last couple of reports on the trainees. That is of course as long as some old lady didn’t have her purse stolen, or some kid was caught sneaking out cigarettes under his jacket.
As he sat thinking what to write on the last report, Graeme’s, there was a knock on his door, and Sally his floor-manager poked her head in. “Mr. Lambert has just arrived.”
“I’ll be right there,” replied Ted as he hastily wrote words like insolent, inability to take instructions, lack of social skills, and finally unsatisfactory.
Ted and Joe Lambert spent the rest of the day going through some pretty perfunctory stuff. Ted’s reputation as an excellent store-manager preceded him. Finally Ted left him to read the trainee reports as he went off to cope with an irate delivery man. On his return Joe greeted him with, “Well, it looks as though you have a good bunch of kids there, except for this . . . but before he could finish with barely an apology a knock the door opened, and a sulky voice said, “You told me to come and see you after work.” Then as Graeme spotted Joe he smirked. “Oh, Uncle Joe! So you are the visiting big shot are you?”
“Stand up.” Joe’s voice was like chipped ice.
Graeme slowly stood from the chair in which he had plonked himself.
“Read this.” Joe pushed Ted’s report at him.
The colour rose in Graeme’s cheeks as he read, then he burst out. “You aren’t going to believe this lying old looser? He’s been picking on me since day one just because I’m your nephew.”
Ted, open mouthed, turned to Joe for confirmation.
“I’m sorry Ted, but I’m afraid that this poor excuse for a human being is my nephew, my sister’s son. It would take me half a day to tell you the problems he has caused her— her husband left her with three kids, and its been tough—so, when she asked me to give him one last chance, to my shame I cut a few tapes, and got him into the trainee program. I er, er, didn’t expect you to be landed with him. Then turning to his nephew he continued. “You of course are fired— once again.”
Ted held up his hand. “Stop Joe! I think the decision to fire Graeme should be my decision rather than yours.”
“But your report . . . “
Ted picked up the report. “Shall I tear this up so we can start again Graeme?”
He had to lean forward to hear Graeme’s barely audible. “Please.”
© Colleen McMillan 2010
This entry was posted by cmcmillan on Monday, February 1st, 2010 at 12:00 am and is filed under Theme of the Month.
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