Oh, Sorry, Dave.
I was still working at The Pennysaver after almost two years. Once I arrived I was an amazing employee, but I still showed up late every day. In fact, I’d gotten progressively later as time went by.
At age 29 my supervisor, Dave, was way older than the rest of us. And he’d promoted me to shift supervisor shortly after my European trip and (brief) sobriety.
But I was still just playing a version of Concentration for my job; I didn’t really supervise anyone. I was still riding around getting high at lunchtime with my colleagues. I loved my job so much, I stole two of the Pennysaver stools from work so I could also sit on them at home. (I still have them in my kitchen; they are quite solid as counter seats.)
I guess Dave was still doing all the supervisory work. Even though he didn’t do LSD at my Memorial Day extravaganza or get high at lunchtime, I considered him my party buddy. Sometimes he had a few beers with us, so I figured we were pals.
But one day Dave pulled me aside and said, “You weren’t here at 5:00. You’re a supervisor now, so you need to be here on time.”
“Okay,” I said.
He hadn’t explicitly said this before.
I guess Dave expected something more from me. He didn’t seem to realize that I was drinking again and mistakenly assumed I would continue to be responsible and helpful at work.
Two weeks went by, and I showed up at around 5:45, or 6:30, whenever. I was drinking after work, sleeping much later than I expected. Plus nobody really seemed to care.
Dave pulled me aside again, this time as I was walking into work. It was 7:15. He waved me over to where he was leaning on a wall. As I got closer I noticed that his face was all wrinkled up; it wasn’t his usual serene countenance.
“We needed you here at 5:00,” he said. Dave looked like he might vomit.
“Oh sorry, Dave,” I said. He started chewing the inside of his left cheek. He was gnawing it so hard, I thought he might tear a hole in the side of his face.
“What happened?” he asked, as if genuinely concerned.
“Well I slept in I guess,” I chuckled. “And then I had to get gas in the Volkswagen and there’s only one place that sells the kind of gas I need.” I started to ramble. “I have to use the premium stuff or I guess the car won’t run. Do you know anything about VW Bugs?”
The gnawing continued. Dave’s face was contorted into a shape that was almost not a face anymore.
“No,” he said. “There was no other reason?”
“Not really,” I giggled.
The gnawing stopped. “I have to let you go,” Dave said.
“Let me go where?”
“I have to fire you,” he said. “You’re a supervisor and you haven’t shown up on time even once in two weeks. We can’t count on you to be here on time, so I’m letting you go.”
My stomach lurched and fell to the floor.
“I’m fired?”
“Yeah,” he said. “I’m sorry.” He rattled on about the expectations of his supervisors and blah blah blah. I heard nothing.
I hadn’t even started my shift. “So I should just go now?”
“Yeah,” he said. He bit his cheek again.
I didn’t even have a chance to say goodbye to my friends.