Shelley

Back when our Albertan economy was booming two or three years ago, Chris was in charge of our shipping and receiving. Chris had a university BA and figured that shipping and receiving was beneath his dignity and intellect and he spent his time doing as little as possible. He was, without question, The World’s Biggest Dog Fu Pooch Screwer. When he wasn’t trying to bend my ear on world geopolitics, he was schmoozing with the delivery truck drivers and lecturing on Keynesian economics. I usually had a pile of crap on my plate and tried not to talk to him as he could literally eat up half an hour of your time before you managed to politely break free.

How to deal with an employee that won’t work? Hire another one, or that seemed to be The Crack’s idea. And since he couldn’t hire anyone smarter than he was (he saw intelligent people as a threat and rightfully so) – instead he hired dummies. No chit – he put an Urban Outdoorsman in the back to help out Chris and the poor guy couldn’t take the monotony of the job coupled with Chris’s lecturing. Then we hired a crack head who constantly hummed to herself and lived in her own little world. She lasted half a year and screwed up anything she laid a hand to – putting us even further behind the 8 ball. After that we hired a big fat ugly lesbian and she got in bare knuckle fist fights with the vibrant delivery drivers that couldn’t even speak English. And the customers got ever more and more enraged with us as we lost their stuff, or charged them for stuff they never sent in, or found new and incredibly offensive other ways of tweaking their noses.

One day, in a rare fit of mediocrity – The Crack hired Shelley. She wasn’t much to look at – she’s a couple years older than I am (late 50’s), overweight, with bad feet and a bad back. Where else would ya put such a woman to work but in a shipping/receiving department where the stuff that comes in is heavy enough to make a man grunt from time to time?

But Shelley, God bless her – she waded right in and did her best. When Chris was out back smoking and holding court with the truckers and passersby – Shelley would do the jobs Chris wouldn’t. She would limp and waddle out there with her bad feet and bad back and make sure chit got done. Wonder of wonders – we had somebody back there – finally – that Gave A Chit.

Her home life was a train wreck. She was divorced, making peanuts working for us – and she supported both her elderly mother and a drug addicted sister with all the problems and heart ache that goes along with that.

Last week she found out she had cancer and needed an operation – NOW. She will be off for the next little while and will have a rushed recovery – assuming she has one at all. She goes in next week or the one after – but she’s still back there, schlepping boxes and working like a trooper as if nothing was wrong. She had Big Al break the news to the rest of us rather than doing it herself because she gets teary and weepy and didn’t want us making a big fuss over her. This morning I stopped by and told her that we all love her and are rooting for her – and she started to weep. I fled, fearing I’d cloud up myself. Maybe I shouldna done it. Gee – ya think, Filthie? I am a damned dunce, sometimes.

JFC. As an outhouse Christian of sorts, stuff like this makes me question my faith (such as it is) on one hand – but reaffirms it on the other. There has to be a reason for shit like this.

There HAS to.