My day job is in the construction industry as a crew supervisor. I’m no stranger with standing up for myself and my company, going toe to toe with inspectors, consultants and safety personnel on a variety of day to day issues. Normally, everything goes well and matters can be resolved in a friendly, co-operative and respectful manner. Most of the time, we all get along, joke around and get our jobs done. Then we go home.
Today just didn’t go down like that. Right now I have a massive headache, a sore neck, and bruises on one shoulder. I’ll be turning in early, and I have a feeling I am going to be really sore tomorrow. It’s one of those nights where one beer just doesn’t seem like enough.
I guess “Bobby” was having a bad week. He is the representative of our current customer, and he spends time with us in the field inspecting our work and helping make sure we have the required materials, structural drawings, etc. Bobby has been having trouble with the head office. They haven’t been very supportive or communicative with him, and we have all been working pretty long hours. On top of that, he hasn’t been sleeping very well. I knew that stress was on him like a jackal on fresh kill, but I had no idea how bad his mental state was getting.
Bobby was really negative today. He inspected part of our work and made us re-do large pieces of it to be up to his specifications, even though it was very similar in quality to work my company had been doing for this customer over the last 30 years. When I suggested that normally this work was acceptable in the past, “Not on my shift ” was his answer.
He then proceeded to say that all of our work was basically crap. There were some very descriptive expletives (words that rhyme with duck) used in his diatribe about the inadequacies of our work.
I said, “I don’t have to put up with this $hit from you,” and turned to walk away. At this time, when my back was turned, Bobby jumped on me and put me in a headlock. I slammed into the ground pretty hard, air knocked out of me and completely taken off guard. I’d like to say I could have turned the tables instantly, but it would have been hard. I opted to just catch my breath. He proceeded to crush me into the ground and squeeze my neck. After a few moments he realized I wasn’t fighting back, and let go, preparing to hit me with his fists. Everyone on my crew had stopped working to see what would happen next, although they were too far away to interfere. There was a few split seconds, while I jumped to my feet, where I had a big choice ahead of me. A life altering choice.
Does anyone care to guess what I did next?
I hope you told him to ((word that rhymes with duck) off or me and Gerri would open a can of whoop (word that rhymes with bass) on him.
Seriously though, are you okay?
Tammys last blog post..Jenn’s Having A Contest
This post reminds me of the late 1970s TV series “Cliffhangers“. Does that date me? Anyway, it also sounds like a very serious post, unlike most of the posts here, so I won’t make any attempt at a humorous comment. This post is a reminder that not everyone out there is a nice person. The guy sounds like a nut, a violent nut. I hope it worked out well.
~ Steve, the trade show display guy
PS. Trivial fact of the day: When it was made, “Cliffhangers” was the most expensive TV series ever produced. It never made it past the first season.
Tammy: I’m sore but fine. He had an arm right around my throat, so I feel like I was lifting weights all day with my neck and I have that day after the workout burn. He ended worse off than me, but not how you might think!
Steve: Cliffhangers was a great show! they never did let us know what happened in the end. I remember a sci fi set in the old west, an action adventure in the Amazon, and was it a vampire section? As I recall, each episode of the show we got to see a little more of each storyline and then they ‘cliffhung’ each one to keep us waiting for next week.
Damn, Tim, your memory stuns me! I only remember the vampire part, and that’s because the main actor was also the boss in Flash Dance if I remember correctly. But trust me, he’s not the Flash Dance character that I dreamed about. I’ll never accept that it was somebody else’s body during the “jiggling scene”, if you know what I mean. Anyway, I can’t wait to see how this cliffhanger ends up…
~ Steve, aka “the trade show display guy and Flash Dance fan
Tim,
You’ve done three posts since this one, but you haven’t told us the end to this story… How long do we have to wait? 
This post is turning into a real cliffhanger now. Have you forgotten about your loyal redneck readers?
~ Steve, the impatient trade show display guy
Steve: aren’t you going to hang in there for next week’s episode?
Well Tim,
It doesn’t look like I have a choice, eh?
I didn’t know this was a “weekly show”. Kind of like Lost I guess. I made the mistake of getting hooked on that. I just hope there won’t be a summer break in this series. There’s no way I could wait that long!
~ Steve, the trade show display guy AND the trade show marketing guru, and a closet redneck
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