Employee of the Week

Rodney at work is a likable enough guy.  Everybody there certainly likes him (a heck of a lot more than they like me), and he has a charm and inherent decency that is hard to dislike.  But over the last few weeks, he seems to call me more and more to cover his shifts, to the point where, when I see his name on the Caller ID, sadly, I no longer pick up.*

So Thursday, my phone rang, and I saw it was Rod, and just let it ring.  He left no message, but called back again as soon as it went to voicemail.  I couldn't understand why anybody'd do that, and it's my (new) policy to always let folks leave a message before I deign to call them back or pick up the next time they call.  Like I said, no message.

But he did it again on Friday, not leaving a message, and I decided to complain about it to a coworker.  First I bitched that he calls me all the time to cover his shifts, then I whined that he called twice yesterday and now once today, and he expects me to just cancel whatever plans I might hav--

"Oh," my coworker interrupted, "did you hear?  Rod's dad died yesterday."

"Oh," I said back.

Yes, information that would have been useful before I began to complain about Rodney.

Rish "At Least I Didn't Send Him A Mean Text" Outfield

*Some of that is on me, after not showing up one day in February for the first time in the years I've worked there, and then getting written up about it, I pretty much decided to stop covering for others no matter who they are.