The Route They Gave His Nephew

Why I did not just make the call

The first thing everyone asks me when I tell this is why I did not pick up the phone that same afternoon and call somebody over Dennis’s head. Human resources. The regional office. The union hall.

I have thought about why, and the plain answer is that I did not have anything yet except my word against his, and my word against the boss is a fine way to get walked out the gate for cause before Thursday ever comes.

A complaint with nothing under it is just an angry old man talking. Dennis would have said he was managing his depot, moving a senior driver to where he was needed, and that I was insubordinate when he gave me a reasonable assignment. He could have built a file on me in a week. Late. Refused a task. Argued in front of the crew. Men have been let go for cause three days short of a pension and the pension people shrug and say the company had the right.

I was not going to hand him the reason. I was going to give him nothing to write up, and I was going to build the thing I did not have, which was a record.

So I decided I would sweep that lot like it was the most important lot in Ohio, and I would keep every scrap of paper my fifteen years had left behind, and when I had the whole picture in one folder, I would carry it to a person who could see it. Not a phone call made in anger. A record laid on a desk.