***
Later that night, the phone rang.
“Thank you for calling Mike’s Athletics, this is Trevor speaking, how may I help you?”
“Yo, Trevor, it’s Jay.”
“Hey.”
“Listen, man, I’m gonna need you to come in again tomorrow from 8:30 a.m. until noon. Then I’m gonna need you to cruise out to the Metro location and help with the receiving. They just received a huge shipment and need all the help they can get. I’ll be there at noon to cover you until 4:00. Then I need you to come back to our location and relieve me the rest of the night.”
I paused for a minute and said the only word that came to mind, “No.”
“What do you mean ‘no’?”
“No, I’m not going to do it.”
“Excuse me?”
“It’s not part of my job description to sit in the back of the store all week breathing in dust for fourteen hours a day, and now you want me to go out to Metro and help with receiving. Forget it.”
“Well, I’m adding it to you job description. I don’t want to argue with you, but you’d better be there,” he said, before he slammed the phone down.
The decision had been made; I was not going out to Metro the following day. I figured as long as I was not going to Metro, I might as well take the entire day off. After all, I think I deserved it. I was done babysitting the construction workers while Jay did nothing. He was the manager, let him figure it out. I had done my fair share of the shifts. In fact, I had done all of them.
I took the next couple of days off and did not hear from Jay once. I figured he had the new assistant manager sitting in the back all day. On the third day, the phone rang. It was Jay.
“Hey, Trevor.”
“Hey, what’s up?”
“Can you come down to the store really quickly; I need to talk to you.”
“Sure, I’ll be there in five minutes.”
When I arrived at the store, I was surprised to see it open and operational. The renovations had been completed.
“Hey, man,” Jay said in a somber tone.
“The store looks nice,” I said, looking around.
“Yeah, just come to the back with me please,” Jay said nervously.
I didn’t say anything; I just followed him to the back.
“Have a seat,” he said. “So, you were scheduled to come in this morning at 8:30.”
“Really? I had no idea. Did you call me?”
“I shouldn’t have to call you; it is your responsibility to check your schedule.”
“I didn’t even know there was a schedule or that the store was open. For the past two weeks you called me to let me know my schedule, isn’t that right?”
“The bottom line is you were scheduled, and you missed your shift. I got a call this morning from Jon. He was waiting outside for over an hour and a half before I came down here to open up the store.”
“I’m sorry, I had no idea. You know, you could have just called me to come in this morning, I live five minutes away.”
“Unfortunately, Trevor, we can no longer keep you on.”
“Excuse me?”
“Don’t make this harder than it already is.”
“What are you talking about, Jay?” I asked.
“Effective immediately, you’re no longer employed here.”
“For not showing up this morning?”
“Yes.”
“You know, Jay… I can’t help but think this has something to do with our little dispute the other day.”
“No, it’s not about that at all.”
“Really?”
“I have the policy right here,” he handed me the store policy manual. It was already opened to the relevant page. It read, Each employee is required to show up on time for scheduled shifts. Failure to do so may result in disciplinary action, including termination.
I grabbed the schedule and saw my name in the 8:30 time slot. I looked down the list and saw Jon scheduled for that morning as well. I didn’t feel like arguing with him anymore. “Alright, man, whatever.”
“No hard feelings, Trevor. For what it’s worth, you were a great employee,” I didn’t say anything, I just felt sick to my stomach. I got up and proceeded to walk down the hallway between the rows of shoes.
Before I left, I said goodbye to some of my former co-workers. Jay was still in the back. I didn’t expect him to have the courage to come out for at least twenty minutes.
“Hey Jon, sorry to keep you waiting out in the cold this morning, I didn’t know I had to work.”
“What are you talking about?”
“You weren’t waiting for an hour and a half this morning?”
“No, when I got here, Jay was already here.”
“Really?”
“Yeah, why?”
“How did you even know to come in today?” I asked.
“Jay called everyone and told us our schedules.”
“Apparently he didn’t call everyone.”
I stormed into the back office pushing the door open aggressively. Jay had a look on his face as if he had just been caught with his hand in the cookie jar.
“I wasn’t scheduled for 8:30 this morning and you know it. You were here and you penciled my name in the schedule in last minute.”
“What’s done is done, Trevor. Please leave now or I’ll call the police.”
I didn’t want any trouble, so I left. I needed to get my life back on track. I needed that job, or more specifically, I needed the money. I still had another job, but I only worked about sixteen hours per week there, hardly enough to pay my bills. I needed to figure out what my next step was going to be.
C H A P T E R
T H I R T Y
For my next shift at Ray’s, I decided it was time to prove to Kim why I deserved to be a server. I figured if I could be a server, then all my financial problems would be over. I would make enough to pay my rent, all my bills, and Darrell’s debt. If I did not get promoted to be a server, my plan B was to try to get as many hours as possible until I could find another job. It seemed like everywhere I went, I was being kicked around. It was frustrating and disheartening. This was definitely not how I envisioned my life turning out.
“Good morning, Kim,” I said with a big smile.
“Someone is in a good mood today.”
“I’m always in a good mood when I come here. The warm smell of our in-house chicken soup at lunch, the chopped onions, carrots, and celery, mixed with chicken stock, and a pinch of basil. Or maybe it’s the smoked salmon with peach-salsa and gruyere cheese with three ounce…”
“Okay okay, I get it. I’m impressed. When did you learn all that?”
“I have memorized every single ingredient for every item on the menu.”
“What about the drinks?”
“Oh, I memorized those as well. You want a blue lagoon? You’ll need one ounce vodka, one ounce Blue Curacao liqueur, lemonade…”
“I see you’ve done your homework.”
“Yes, I have. Any chance I can start my server training?”
“I’ll tell you what, finish your lunch shift then I’ll train you on how to use the computer system.”
“Are you being serious?”
“Of course, you deserve it, don’t you?”
“Thank you so much, Kim.”