Of Rocks and Hard Places

So, today was an interesting one, and upon request I have agreed to explicate it.

Jeanette, dearest wife of mine that she is, bought me a laptop for Christmas/Graduation. It is a fine laptop. Unfortunately these things don't materialize out of nowhere, however, so it had to be delivered. The problem with that is neither of us are home during the day, thus making it hard for us to be here when it might arrive. I thought perhaps they might leave it with a neighbor or the apartment manager, but no. It basically came down to a choice: either let it sit out in the open in our apartment complex all day, risking a rather effortless theft from just about anybody, or I skip the morning shift at work.

Now, I'm not one to miss work lightly. Until this semester, where I've had to take quite a bit of work off for immigration reasons, you could have counted the number of my absences or tardies on half of one hand. The people at work are also rather reasonable folk. I figured I could count on them to be understanding of my situation. Upon lengthy deliberation I decided to call in and tell them I would not be in until my later shift that afternoon.

It would have been almost ridiculously easy to lie at this point, and say that I was not feeling well. There would have been no repercussions whatsoever had I gone that route. Unfortunately I often try to be honest with the beings around me, I was rather straightforward about my situation. The morning passed, I got homework done, my laptop came safely, and I was even able to be around to receive a call from Les Schwab, letting me know my tire (see previous post) was ready for me to have put on. I even felt rather charmed about the whole thing.

My boss didn't see things that way, however. When I got to work, he pulled me aside and informed me that I should have been fired. If I'd had more than two weeks left of work, he probably would have fired me. He himself had Fed-Ex packages sitting on his porch, but it was no excuse for missing work, and my actions were grounds for termination. If I'd been in the real world outside of BYU, no boss would have hesitated in immediately giving me the axe. I was apologetic and went back to work pretty depressed about it.

Then I talked to one of the full timers, the one who I would've worked for that morning, in fact. He seemed shocked at my boss's reaction, and said that me being gone for that reason was no problem at all. My coworkers also expressed that they weren't sure what the big deal was about. I don't blame my boss, really. He's just doing his job. A job that involves enforcing rules. I'm not sure I regret my decision, though. I certainly don't regret being honest about it. I was faced with a rock on one hand and a hard place on the other, and I've come out of it with a new tire, a safe laptop, and a few worldly lessons learned. Hard to see how the day could have been more productive.