“SPRING”ING AHEAD… Better days? (Part 170b)
The station wagon
and Elle (and the kids) weren’t there when I finally did arrive home. I
sloughed off her not answering my call earlier thinking she’d gone
shopping. But that never took more than 2 hours and her absence had me a
bit worried. I collected all the trash and things for the landfill but
without the station wagon I couldn’t go. With Lynda still fresh in my
mind I decided to go check on my hiding place for the pictures she’d
given me. The pictures I’d taken of Elle were in our clothes closet in
our bedroom. Elle, who never really approved of my taking them, had told
me she wanted know where I kept them. I’d asked why and she couldn’t
give me an answer. So, my idea had been to hide them in plain sight
knowing she’d never look at them… and then I added the pictures of Lynda. The box that held them was quite substantial. It originally
contained a porcelain figurine that had been given to us by my mother.
In my mind it was too good to throw away so I'd kept it. When the door was
open it could readily be seen. I pulled it off the shelf and skimmed
through some of the pictures of Elle. They brought back some fond
memories (some of which I’ve shared here) and made me think about how to
get over to Lynda’s.
Elle returned as I was coming down the
stairs. She told me she’d just come from Beth’s mother’s house. My first thought was
‘why?’. As far as I knew she (nor I) had ever met the woman. Of course,
there was a logical reason but I had to listen to the whole story. I’ll
spare you except to say that Elle had been unsuccessful in finding one
of her (our) friends to look after Kaye for the upcoming week when her
mother couldn’t/wouldn’t take her and she'd be substitute teaching. In desperation, she called Beth to
find out who she used to watch her baby while she was working. She
offered up her mother but Elle was afraid Kaye’s shyness would be a
problem and wanted to see how she’d react to the woman. Beth and her
mother had a cake making side business and, as luck would have it the
mother was making a cake that afternoon. When Kaye spent time with
Elle’s mother the two of them would always end up baking something. So,
in this case, it was a different person doing the baking but she
incorporated Kaye into it and there was no problem. However, it had
taken most of the afternoon. In spite of having to listen to ALL the
details I was happy and was already counting on the money Elle would be
making.
After dinner I asked Elle if she ever got the “word” on
why Penny, the teacher who Elle was going to be filling in for, had
left. Elle had originally been told that she’d gotten caught in a little
lie. From what Elle told me it was a lot more than just a lie. After
hearing the full story it was pretty close to being a case of fraud.
When Elle had been in for Penny for that extended period of time it was
supposedly for medical reasons. In a way it was but the medical
condition wasn’t hers… it was that of her boyfriend. He was in the
military and had been injured. Penny concocted a story about her having
to have a procedure but, in reality, she wanted to be with her boyfriend
when he had whatever it was that he was having done. She was originally
from New Jersey, as was the boyfriend, and she’d gone back there to be with
him. I’d only met her a couple of times and liked her. But, as they say,
“the truth will out…” and it did, costing her her job.
Elle,
like usual, was all packed up and ready to go to school ahead of time. That left
me to make sure the older girls were ready when the bus arrived. Elle’s
mother was good about getting to the house a little early so it allowed
me to leave for work early as well. In spite of having any number of
fantasies about Lynda’s pictures, driving, my thoughts were on contacting my new
banking friend, Dan, and running my ideas on teller training past him.
We spent a good twenty minutes discussing the concept before he
suggested that I make a point of coming in to the city for the next
Association meeting early enough that we could spend a couple of hours
on it… one on one. His bank was located right over the top of one of the
railroad terminals located in the city. He suggested I take the noon
train in and it would put me in his office by no later than 3:30pm.
Hanging up the phone I was really excited. It appeared that I’d tweaked
the interest of a senior officer in one of the state’s largest banks…
and that was exciting! The next scheduled meeting was ten days away and I
couldn’t wait.
Liz, the Auditor, had not been in good health
since the first of the year. As a long time employee/officer she’d
accumulated a lot of unused sick days and had been rapidly going through
them. She’d indicated that she’d be back, full time, on this day. That
had created a problem for me in that I’d assigned Sandy, the woman I’d
originally hired on a temporary basis to fill in for J J’s secretary,
Lynn, to work with Laura who was the assistant to Liz until Liz came
back. Now she was due back which meant I’d have to let her go. Sandy had
been pestering me for a full time position and in spite of my empathy
towards her and her personal situation, (single mother, no child
support), there wasn’t one available. In discussing the
situation with Hobie he’d told me to hold off on Sandy. He’d worked with
Liz for many years and indicated that he had a feeling Liz wasn’t really ready
to be back to full time work… in spite of what she’d professed.
Regardless of when, it was going to be hard to tell Sandy. When I got off
the phone with Dan I looked for Liz but only saw Laura and Sandy. I
hated putting things off and had pretty much steeled myself for the
“talk” with Sandy. I went and asked where Liz was and was told she’d be in
around mid morning. Technically, Liz reported to the Board of Trustees
so I had no ‘standing’ with her. As the personnel officer I had to
support her needs and that was all. The situation left me feeling very
uncomfortable. I’d gone from a “high” (the chat with Dan) to a “low”,
thinking of dealing with Sandy.
I had Trish check just how much
‘“sick time” was left for Liz to use as I wanted to make sure she was
aware of it. When Trish told me she had no more accumulated time it made
sense why she’d said she’d be back on this day… but, was she? Now I had
another problem… telling an officer of the bank that she was now on
unpaid status for any future absence. My relationship to the woman was
neutral, as it should’ve been. But, I’d had a feeling right from the
time I assumed the responsibilities of personnel officer that Liz was
“milking the system”. She ran a two person department and there was no
one to do a checks and balance of her records. I’d thought I was
uncomfortable with Sandy’s situation but this was becoming almost
untenable. I made a point of having Joanie, Trish and Bret keep their
eyes open for when Liz appeared. I wanted to get to her before she got
settled in. I remember taking a deep breath and trying to concentrate on
a report that was sitting on my desk.
To be continued…
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