The unfortunate part of what went down in October of 07 was that I never got the opportunity to tell all my readers how things ended with my employer. Until now.
With the blog deleted on Friday, and my name on the schedule for Sunday, it was time to wait. I watched my cell phone, waiting for it to ring, expecting to be told not to bother to come in. Because my sleep schedule was completely off, by the time I finally did get a message from the brewhouse manager saying he needed to “talk about work tomorrow” it was the middle of the night Saturday (Sunday morning) and I was already headed to work. Obviously this could be what I had been waiting for. But, it wasn’t abnormal to get calls on days off, so I wasn’t sure what to think. “Well, it’s too late to call now,” I told myself, and started driving.
Sunday mornings I was always the first one to get to work and open up the brewery. That morning I pulled into the parking lot looking for a manager’s car. The lot was empty. On any other Sunday I would go straight to the cold room and get some work started before even dropping my bag in the office. That day I went straight to the office, checking my email and work voicemail, looking for some evidence I had been discovered. Again, nothing. I checked the production book where we often left instructions and requests for each other. There was a note for me about a fermentation problem over the weekend. Assuming this must be what the voicemail was about, and I got to work.
The brewhouse manager is the one I wrote about who made the schedule, but was still always late. I can’t recall exactly when he got in that day, but I seem to remember it being a little earlier than usual. Throughout the morning, as the other Sunday regulars showed up, I was thought I was feeling a slight cold shoulder. I told myself I was being paranoid. Sundays were never very social anyway, so I must be imagining it. Besides, if someone knew, why wouldn’t they say anything?
As the day went on, part of me felt relieved, believing I had averted disaster. At the same time, I was a little disappointed. I really did, in many ways, want to be fired. I still couldn’t wait to quit, and would do so as soon as I found another job. The dream of freedom had been planted in my head, and now it was difficult to set that aside and get back to reality.
Also, there was the World Series. That night, my Boston Red Sox were going into Game 4 of the Series with a 3-0 lead. They could clinch it tonight. I had written about the thought of calling in sick to for the first time in my life just to watch the game. As I worked, my mind wandered in two directions. One was the drama I had possibly created. The other was baseball.
I had come to the decision that, since I lived an hour away, I would find a bar near the brewery to watch the game. I could nurse a beer over the course of the night and head straight to work when the game ended. I hated that plan. I belonged in Boston with friends. I promised myself one more time that, as soon as I quit, I would move back.
It wasn’t until about 1 PM (my shift started at 4 AM) that the brewhouse manager came looking for me in the cold room. “We need to talk,” he said. I put down the pitcher of wort in my hand and followed him through the brewhouse, towards the offices. As we walked he nodded to the health and safety manager who fell right in behind me. We silently walked straight to the brewmaster’s office. I was told to have a seat at the conference table. I had sat at this table once before for my three month evaluation. They had left the door open that day. This time, they did not.
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