HEADED FOR SPRING... more changes (Part 79a)

Almost every Winter I can remember getting a few unseasonable days. It was always a welcome happening, getting people out and about. I’d not done much on the racecar because it was stored outside. Eric, my racecar friend in the park, had already re-welded the roll bars and bumpers and was anxious to do more. Since the only place I had to work on it was outside, with the break in the weather he came around to tell me that we needed to do the whole brake system over. I still had race car money stashed away and even though reluctant to spend it, I did. I had no experience with brakes and told him he was on his own. He looked like a kid about to go into a candy store. To buy the parts I had to go up to the new by-pass to the auto parts store that the “boys” used so I could get their discount. On my way back I remembered Cammy, my grandmother’s nurse, lived in the area. I decided to take a ride by her house hoping that with the good weather there would be wash on the line. There was and I was able to see two pair on the line closest to the road. Of course there was no way to know if they belonged to her or her mother but it was a nice side trip anyway.

It was in and around that same time that the first change took place in the Data processing department since the hiring of Andre. Linda, the heavy set keypunch operator who only worked the minimum time required, had always been a target for practical jokes by Jay. Jay had always been annoyed that she made little or no effort to be a part of the group and the jokes were his way of getting her attention. All the ones I’d seen had been harmless but enough to annoy her. Jay came up to me and motioned for me to follow him into the hall. Once there, without saying a word, he motioned for me to follow him down the stairs. Outside, we went right to his truck and he pulled four milk crates out along with a small bottle jack. Carrying two of them I followed him to the front parking lot. As soon as we made the turn I knew exactly where we were going. Linda had a VW Beetle and Jay made a straight line for it. He got down on his knees and slid the bottle jack under a wheel and called for me to slide a crate to him. He did the same thing on all four wheels. He never said a word the whole time we were out there.

When 5pm came, Linda, as always, was out the door. Jay waited for a minute and then called all the rest of us to follow him. We hid at the corner of the building and waited for Linda to appear. We heard her start the car and then heard the engine rev up a bit. Then we all slipped a little further out to get a better view. We watched her put it into another gear and nothing happened. After a few more tries a guy went up to her window and pointed to her wheels. We watched her get out to take a look... and then scream. We were all holding our sides, laughing, when she saw us. She came running, (or trying to) screaming at Jay. We all ran but Jay turned back and told her he’d fix it. The rest of us went back upstairs, laughing all the way.

The next morning there was no Linda. Around mid afternoon, our least favorite supervisor showed up in the person of Leo, the Deputy Controller. He motioned for Jay to follow him into Jay’s little used office. Because of the windows we could see that neither sat down. Leo’s arms were flying all around and Jay just stood there. The confrontation lasted for about ten minutes and then Leo left. Jay stayed in the office for a few minutes and when he came out he told us that Linda had quit. She’d driven in that morning and handed Leo her resignation. Basically, Leo was not happy.

Jay then walked down the hall to the Civil Service office to see if there were any names on the keypunch position list. There were only two and Jay had interviewed both and wasn’t interested in either. The rules stated that if there were three names one had to be chosen. If there were less than three then a temporary could be hired subject to taking and passing the test. At one time around the end of the year I knew that Rena had asked Jay if there was any way she could get a job in the department. When Jay came back with his findings I immediately thought of her.

As much as I hate to admit it I hadn’t been in touch with Rena in quite a while. I’d taken some action that I thought would help her and, in my heart, I knew that in some ways it did, but those actions also created another bad situation for her. When I heard what had eventually happened I felt really bad and decided to “lay low”. With the new vacancy I couldn’t help but wonder if she was healed enough to work but wondered even more weather she would be willing. In any case there was going to be a change.

Another semi-shock was when Elle told me that Alvin, our next door neighbor, was definitely being transferred to Texas as of April first. He’d complained to me that he thought the company he worked for was going to do it way back around the first of the year. He’d felt that it was to get him to resign so they wouldn’t have to fund his retirement. Both he and his wife were local and both their families were local so this was a form of “legal harassment”, as he called it. There wasn’t much I could say or do.

To be continued...