The Root of It

A LOT O f this mess started when Stuart showed up. Walking around here in his cowboy boots, cocky, looking like God’s gift to McConnell Gravel. I’m not saying he was the root of it. It was something I’ve known for awhile. If I didn’t know better, though, I’d swear he was sent out here to gouge it out of me. Stuart is a young guy, about twenty-five, the company brought here to be the Operations Manager. That’s what his door says. Before, the site foreman would call a loader, Marty or me, on the mobile phone and tell us what mix to load and how many trucks they needed. We were doing fine. No one ever complained. Now they call Stuart first and then he tells us. He makes all the mix orders sound like his idea— all business like. “Right Stu,” I say and hang up. About the first thing Stuart did was convert the cook trailer into his private office. It was where all the drivers ate their lunch. It might have been that the big shots had it planned all along and were only waiting for Stuart to get out here so he could take the heat, but I doubt it. If the company wanted to be more efficient they should have asked Marty or me. Nobody said, “Ask the loaders,” and we got about a hundred ideas. Now we’re saying nothing—especially to Stu, since he’ll take all the credit. They’ll say he’s doing a “bang up job,” and give themselves one more reason to keep him in the trailer. I’m not saying we do a bad job; we do the job right but we just don’t do any more. And it ain’t because we’re afraid of getting fired. I do it because I couldn’t stand myself doing a bad job. Doing a bad job leaves you with nothing. Now half of the old cook trailer is his office and the other half is a lounge. I checked it out once when I stayed late for work. They took the calendars down and got the whole place painted off-white. A conference table in the middle. I told my wife it’d be like working in a refrigerator. Anyway, most of the drivers eat lunch in their trucks