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 Posted: Thu Jul 25, 2013 10:05 pm
It had been a while since Haley had come in to work. It was three weeks ago that she was hired at the tiny little coffee shop, Slave to the Grind. She initially went to the coffee shop to protest what she inferred as an endorsement of slavery, but when it got really hot inside she stopped in to cool off and enjoyed a nice iced coffee, and next thing she knew she was filling out an application. Besides, she didn't see any slavery going on in the coffee shop. In her first week, she showed up for the first two days but then got distracted, and then sort of forgot about her job for a few weeks. But now it was time to collect payment for her three weeks of work, so the the long haired brunette marched into the tiny shop and went straight to the young boy behind the counter, Jude Harrow. "Yo, Judy," she started, coming up with an overly familiar nickname on the spot. "Hey man, I'm just coming in to collect the paycheck for my three works of work. You got the check ready?"
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Posted: Thu Jul 25, 2013 10:26 pm
When she hadn't showed, Jude had been the one who'd called her phone; Jude had been the one who'd gone to voicemail, mostly; Jude had been the one who ended up filling in for her missed shifts. It meant that, for the past week anyway, he'd been going non-stop, his eyes a bit heavy and expression tired. It meant that his plans to get a tailoring business up and going were postponed another week. Of course, they'd been timid plans to start, anyway.... When Haley came in, Jude went somewhat panicked rabbit behind the counter. He'd talked about this with the boss, briefly, and the plan had been made but -- that didn't mean he was ready. "...um." It was a moment, fidgety, before he stepped to the desk to grab her check, paper-clipped to a sheet of pink paper with a note on it that read, simply, I don't advise trying to use me as a reference. Flushing, Jude handed both over to her.
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Posted: Thu Jul 25, 2013 10:47 pm
Haley read the pink slip and the check with confusion. "Uh, what the...?" she spat. "This only says I was paid for my first week, what about the last two weeks? This is absolute bullshit. Slave to the grind is right!" She then turned around and to shout at the customers in the coffee shop. Unfortunately (or, perhaps, fortunately) there weren't any customers. "THIS PLACE SUPPORTS SLAVERY! THEY DON'T PAY THEIR EMPLOYEES!" She then turned back to Jude. "Are you going to pay me? And seriously? You're firing me? What the hell, man? Name one good reason."
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Posted: Thu Jul 25, 2013 10:53 pm
"You...didn't show up." The words came out of Jude's mouth hollowly -- shock evident in his tone, and the way he blinked up at her. Slowly and carefully, he leaned in, exactly the way one might with a wild animal prone to attacking, to look her check over. The hours were slim. Very slim. They matched, however, what she'd worked. He licked his likes and looked back up to Haley's face. "You didn't come in. Or answer phone calls. Or...or submit time sheets." He was picking up steam, at least, spine stiffening at least a hair. Even if he still had a bit of that wounded deer look to him. Jude slowly folded his arms across his chest. "You got paid for the work you did. Getting paid more than that is charity. It's only slavery if you don't get paid when you...you come in, and do the work."
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Posted: Fri Jul 26, 2013 7:12 am
"Okay, wow, well first of all," she started angrily. "I said give me ONE good reason reason. Not multiple so-called 'good' reasons. Those are such ridiculously unfair expectations. I only didn't come in because I forgot that I work here. And I didn't answer the phone cause I don't answer phone calls from strangers, that's just a safety thing. Do you want me to be unsafe? God, this place. And how am I supposed to turn in a time sheet if I don't come into work? Duh, just logic there, man. You people don't even know the meaning of charity." "You know what, just...," she paused, unsure what point to make next. She was angry - why did every employer fire her for such stupid reasons? No wonder unemployment rate was so high - its impossible to find a job if you always get fired for silly benign things like this! Angry with Jude, angry with 'the man', and without any mature options in mind, she then flicked off the boy behind the counter. "You can't fire me, because I quit," she then eyed a muffin on display on the counter, lifted it and tossed it at the boy's head before storming out of the shop. At the end of the day, she was relieved to have quit her job. She didn't want to work at a place where employees barged in and started to scream and then assault co-workers with muffins. It was a hostile work environment, not to mention the slavery it endorsed.
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Posted: Fri Jul 26, 2013 9:56 am
It was, at its core, a harsh lesson in the dangers of middle management -- in what it meant to be the man passing out the pink slips, but without the power to do much else. Dumbstruck, he looked around the place, quietly grateful that there were no customers. Coworkers, though, was an entirely different story. Joe had been just about to go off shift, but now he lingered, taking a good moment to snicker at Jude's misfortune.
There was a smear on his forehead from where the chocolate chip had struck.
"Did that go well, or did that go really poorly?" His tone was puzzled, fumbling, awkward, and it made Joe laugh all the harder, reaching out to grab a paper towel and hand it to him to clear himself up. He didn't answer.
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