Work Ethics

  Stories around my dad’s construction sites were rare. I believed he missed the good old days before being hurt on the job in the seventies. He told a story about man he worked with that talked too much, ate too much, took to long on brakes and got payback doing so.
  It was August, 1971. LaVerne wiped the sweat from his brow as he looked around for Gene. Moving over to the trucks and tool shed he saw the man coming from his car. In his right hand, he held a sandwich.
  “You planning on coming back to work,” LaVerne asked.
  “Yeah, I was just hungry,” answered the man.
  “You need to get back to work and leave the eating for lunch,” he growled.
  This wasn’t the first day the man had slipped away for second breakfast. But it was going to be his last. Verne had started to see the pattern. The long coffee breaks, the bathroom breaks and then the extra meals. The man just didn’t have a great work ethic. The others complained that they work harder and longer than Gene, but they couldn’t get through to the man.
  Later at lunch, the dozen or so men sat on the saw horses and ate their lunch and waited for Gene to come back from the Honey-pot.
  “Doesn’t he know that lunch is only 30 minutes,” said one of the men.
  “He will,” Verne nodded.
  The door of the port-a-john swung open and the tall man walked back to the lunch area with the rest of the crew.
  “You fellas almost done,” he said commenting on the crew.
  “Yep,” answered one of the men.
  Everyone started to rise and head back to work when Gene sat down to start eating his lunch. They turned as the man started scream and make a fuss.
  “What’s going on?” asked Laverne.
  “You know what’s going on,” he yelled, tossing his lunch pail into the 50 gallon trash can.
  The others turned and walked back to the trash can and the laughter started. There next to the man’s three sandwiches was a rather large turd.
  “Who crapped in my lunch,” screamed Gene.
  “Hmm. Guess someone doesn’t like you so much,” said one of the men.
  “Guess you should watch you lunch,” said another.
  They didn’t have much problem with the man after that, he quit a few days later. Everyone agreed it wasn’t a big loss to the company. As for who crapped in the lunch pail the world will never know because the men sure aren’t talkin‘.