Jump to content
TSM Forums
Sign in to follow this  
  • entries
    54
  • comments
    106
  • views
    13420

Flat Tires on the road to "destiny"

Sign in to follow this  
Hawk 34

113 views

I don’t want to turn this into a running diary of my work-life but I think what happened today needs to be told because of absurdity of it all.

 

Fridays are designed to be laid back, we usually ship on those dates and that really means we aren’t actually working on the products. We had a small part order to send to Centerville which was only about 40 minutes from our building.

 

I grabbed one of those rookie kids, I mentioned in the last entry and handed him the keys to our company pickup and we loaded the parts and he left.

 

This was @ 11:00, Shawn (the kid), should have been back around 1:30 by our estimates. It was 1:00 when my assistant hands me the phone while I’m eating a late lunch with another manager in the conference room.

 

“It’s Shawn”, she says as she backs away…

 

“Yeah, what’s up? Everything go all right?” I ask him and he stutters to begin with but he finally blurts out “Yeah, I got the stuff dropped off okay. But there’s a problem” and I get this gut punch feeling creeping up…

 

“What is it?” I ask, fearing the answer.

“Well, the front tire…it’s flat, well it’s popped actually. Shredded up.”

“Okay, well change the tire” I say, uncertain of why he needed to act like it was a big deal. Then he drops this bombshell on me…

 

“Well…I don’t know how to change a tire”.

 

I nearly choked on my chicken sandwich, okay…this kid isn’t the brightest guy but he’s a hard worker and a decent all around person but HOW IN THE HELL CAN YOU BE 18 YEARS OLD AND NOT BE ABLE TO CHANGE A MOTHERFUCKING TIRE!!!!!

 

Anyways, after soaking in the absurd notion that he was incapable of simply putting a spare on…I decided that instead of sending someone else his way, and because I didn’t want to embarrass the idiot, so I got directions to the gas station he pulled over at and headed down there.

 

Here is the problem, the moron not only can’t change a tire but he couldn’t give proper directions at all. I followed his directions as her told me them and he wasn’t even within distance of where he led me.

 

I tell him to go inside the station and get the address, so I can have my assistant map quest the right directions and shockingly, the numb nuts didn’t fuck that up.

 

I got the right directions as I was amazed by this whole sequence of events that I had to laugh at it.

 

I turn into the station and He’s sitting on the tail gate just staring at the ground fumbling with his cell phone.

 

I look at him and before he even utters a word, I simply inform him

 

“Don’t. Whatever. Look, this is the first and last time I’m doing anything like this for you. Get the jack out from under the passenger seat and the spare is under the truck.

 

It’s one thing to teach my girlfriends over the years the art of simple car care, but not when someone that I trust to handle machines worth hundreds of thousands for international big money corporations.

 

Is this how my father felt when he tried to “teach” me when I was 14 how to change a tire. Luckily for Shawn, I was more patient then my father ever considered being.

 

Finally, he got the job finished. I gave him a golf clap applause when he finished. He didn’t even say a word during the whole process other then yes/no answers.

 

I went inside the station and brought us a couple waters and told him I would drive the truck back, and he could drive my car back to the office.

 

He struggled to say “Thanks” but I cut him off and told him “No. I was just doing my job, my job is to lead my workers. We all need to ask for help at some point, it’s not that big of a deal. It’s cool. Don’t do it again though”…

 

Then I playfully slapped him and told him to scram.

 

It was really awkward to be honest, I was and still am stunned that someone couldn’t manage a process like changing a tire at the age of 18 but I guess I shouldn’t be all that surprised.

 

-

 

This weekend is a holiday but it’s not really for me. I’m working a little tomorrow afternoon and part of monday. Sunday will be good though. INDY 500/Coca-Cola 600 along with my GF coming home that night, so we can see where it was all building to all these years. She’s coming home earlier then planned, and I have to say I’m nervously excited.

 

Here is the problem…I known her my whole life. We pretty much grew up together and our families are close. Each family has always expressed hope that someday we’d end up together and apparently…My father had always believed it’d be her. He even kept a picture of us together on Hallowen from when I was like 10.

 

I had one of my rare intense honest talks with my father a couple days ago and he told me, that for the first time that he thinks I figured it all out as far as girls are concerned. I’m just concerned the families will get more involved then they should and ruin everything that we waited for.

 

Usually, I try to plan out my relationships but with her, I figure we ended up together the way we did and that wasn't even expected, for me at least. We decided to go on a trip together in a couple weeks.

 

I'm not worried about the transition from friends to couple, i've done that before with modest success. Maybe it's too fast but its like we already been through the bullshit most new relationships endure already...it doesn't hurt to skip a couple levels.

 

-

Wrestling is boring me these days. I got like a pile of unwatched DVD’s just stacking up.

Sign in to follow this  

×