Karmalicious!

On Tuesday nights, the command crew at work usually numbers three: myself as shift manager, the QA manager (Jack), and one of our production supervisors. The supervisor who normally works on Tuesday nights is on an extended trip to Kahl-ee-for-nee-ah, though, so our other main evening supervisor is filling in.

Evening shift starts at 3:00 p.m. most of the time, which means that Jack and I need to be there by 2:00, and the supervisor needs to be there by 2:30. It was about 2:20 when I got a call from the substitute supervisor saying that her car was having problems, and that she was waiting for a friend to come jump start her car. She told me she thought she could be there in an hour or so.

So we got the shift started without her. Time passed, and by 5:00, I was starting to get a little annoyed. Just then, the phone rang, and it was her. (It was she? I don't know.) She said the friend had still not showed up, and she didn't have money to take the bus. She wondered if we really needed her that night?

One of the things that the production supervisors handle is nightly attendance. They record who arrives late, who calls in sick, and who simply no-shows. And we had a bunch of them—19 no-shows, to be exact.^* I had taken care of most of the rest of the attendance issues and the job performance tracking, but had done very little of my own job. So yes, I told her, we needed her. She told me where she was, and I went to pick her up.

The shift ran pretty smoothly after that, and we were done with what we had to do a bit after 8:00. I had mentioned in the drive back from her apartment that I had jumper cables.^† She asked if I'd be willing to take her and her sig. ot. to pick up the car.^‡ I took her back home, picked him up, and drove us out to where she goes to school. It's a technical college in West Jordan, and it's officially out in the middle of freakin' nowhere.

We got out there and discovered that the neutral safety switch would not disengage. In other words, we couldn't put the car in neutral to push it to where I could get my cables to it. But the SUV parked diagonally from it belonged to a man who happened to be in the parking lot on his cell phone. He turned his vehicle around, and we managed to get the car jumped.

On the way from her apartment to work, the supervisor had offered me dinner (since she couldn't offer me gas money, she said). She repeated the offer on the way out to the school. I politely declined; it was going to be later than I cared to eat by the time we got back. Besides, I had brought lunch/dinner to work.^± So she said she'd save me a plate for tomorrow's shift. Yeah, okay.

Well, she actually did. When I saw her at work last night, she told me there was a plate in the refrigerator for me. So, once the training session was done and the new recruits^¥ were out the door, I checked it out. There were two pieces of fried chicken, along with peas, spiced rice, and sweet potatoes with cinnamon. It was heavenly.

Sometimes, it pays to be helpful.

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^* Or about one-third of the scheduled shift. One out of three people just decides to skip out on work? WTH?

^† With a car as old as mine, I'd be a fool not to.

^‡ It's got a trick hood latch, and he is apparently the only one who can get it open.

^± For the curious, it was Hamburger Helper. Actually, it was the store brand equivalent. Am I white trash, or what?

^¥ I had five scheduled for training. They all showed up, and they all passed. A good night all around.