Page 27 of Employing Patience

I leave the aisle of misery and walk into the main part of the store, where Freddy is chatting to the kids about school.

I wave his way, trying to subtly catch his attention and gesture I’m leaving, but when my erratic movements catch his eye, Freddy apparently decides I haven’t been humiliated enough for one day.

“Joseph, good, you’re not crawling around on the floor anymore. Be a good lad and grab this delivery before you clock out, would you? It’s on your route home.”

And like that, the cat’s out of the bag.

I give one of my bosses as friendly a goodbye as I can manage while the other looks on in curiosity.

Then I grab the delivery and get the fuck outta hell.

8

ART

My mind is running at a million miles an hour by the time I drop off my niblings and get to work. I’ve always thought of myself as a smart man, someone who’s well-informed about nearly everyone in town since drunk people tend to spill the deepest secrets.

But Joey … I don’t know nearly enough about Joey.

I have only the vaguest recollections of him around town when we were younger. Christmas parties our parents dragged us to, where teen me was way too cool to pay attention to the kid in the corner. I have no idea where his parents are now because it’s suddenly occurring to me that I don’t think I’ve seen them in a long time. Did they move? Die? I have all these questions, and it’s killing me.

I know everything.

But all I currently know about Joey is that he’s working two jobs, and while I want to cling to my anger over him having a girlfriend, the math in my head is coming up with a different answer to why he fell asleep on the job.

First job, plus second job, equals tired employee.

I stomp up the stairs to the mezzanine at work, trying to figure out the whys. The possibilities could be endless though, and the only thing I know for sure is that he must be doing it because he needs the money.

Even before I’m consciously aware of it, my brain is tallying up how much of a pay raise I’d need to give everyone in order to cover Joey’s wage at the convenience store. It’s a fatal flaw of mine. Wanting to give everything to everyone. The thing is, I have the money to do it; what I don’t have is the justification. I already pay well above standard wages, have excellent insurance and paid days off, but I had to fight with my grandparents to get those things.

They’re good people, and they believe in helping others, but they’re extremely risk-averse. Adding another increase on top of the standard annual one isn’t something that will happen.

A Christmas bonus could.

Or … Nevele Ounces could pay him a visit …

Stupid name. I shoot that idea down as soon as I have it because without knowing why Joey needs the money, there’s no way to know if he meets Nevele’s code.

There has to be something I can do.

It’s not until I glimpse Joey on the security monitors later that afternoon that an idea hits me. I pull up the bar schedule on my computer and find his roster for the next two weeks. All closing shifts.

With 5:00 a.m. starts at the store.

And the late-night overtime shift last night.

Well, that won’t do.

If that stupid, stubborn man had come to me and told me he was picking up hours somewhere else, I would have worked with him. Or organized more events upstairs that I needed the extra help with.

I rub my jaw, agitated, then—

“Fuck it.”

Starting from next week, I change his remaining shifts for the month to 9:00 a.m. starts. That gives him time to duck home and change, and he has the afternoon and nights off—to hopefully sleep, and not with his supposed girlfriend.

It doesn’t fix the two-jobs thing, but hopefully, now he won’t be dead on his feet.

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