The Ice Cream Incident, Part Deux

Before Mrs. Boss could continue, I tried to interject. "Uh, I am very, very sorry about this. I can understand why you are so upset. It was a bad mistake, but I did think that I plugged it in, and I'll understand if you need to take the money you've lost from my wages ..." That's as far as I got. She cut me off.

"No, no, no," she said, impatiently. "I want you to go through this freezer. Take the ones like this (she held up the squooshy fruit pop I mentioned before) and put them in this trash bag. Count them. I want you to think about the damage you've caused. Throw them out when you're done counting them. The others can go back into the fridge outside, and you will take them there when you've finished with the bad ones. Put them underneath the ice creams already in there so they will have time to freeze again. I hope you understand the damage you've caused." And with that last, memorable sally, she swept out the door with Mr. Boss in front of her, and actually (and I swear to gosh this happened, I wouldn't make it up) slammed the door behind her. I stood there for a few seconds, a little breathless at what had just happened. Then I picked up the trash bag and began to count.

All told, we lost 42 ice cream bars because of my supposed screw-up. Nevermind that I very definitely plugged it in, and therefore was not really the culprit - Mrs. Boss is not inclined to hear excuses or explanations, once she has made up her mind as to what the story is. For the next few days, I let whomever I was working with plug in the damned thing every day, and I watched the outlet inside like a hawk. I walked outside to put my hand on the glass front of the fridge every half an hour or so, to make sure it was still cool. I only left off with my new obssession when I observed something very interesting. There are two outlets in the wall, you see, side by side. Mostly, people use the right-hand one to plug things in, but they both work. One day, one of my co-workers plugged in the extension cord for the ice cream freezer on the left-hand side. About twenty minutes later, Mrs. Boss came along, saw it, and unplugged it from the left, switching the extension cord to the right-hand socket. A few minutes later, I investigated. The plug wiggled in the right-hand socket ... it wasn't connected all the way. I pushed it the rest of the way in and checked the fridge - it was now humming along. I asked another co-worker if there was anything wrong with the left-hand socket. "No," she said, and we tested it with another appliance, to make sure. Interesting. Mostly because, on the day of The Incident, I saw that the plug was in the socket furthest away from me - i.e., the left-hand one. I wonder, I thought ... and then I put that thought away. Days had elapsed, The Incident was fading from Mrs. Boss' mind, and I hadn't done much of anything too dumb in the last couple of shifts.

So I let it go. Well, kinda. I'm still writing about it here, aren't I? and truthfully, though nothing else of that magnitude has happened since, there are plenty of little things that happen every day that incur Mrs. Boss' displeasure. Not just things that I do - there have been other Incidents, with other employees, where I saw them being told off right in front of everyone else ... so I guess I should be happy she at least allowed my delicate American sensibility a bit of privacy for my own dressing-down. I am not alone, that is for sure.

The few startled tears her words provoked on the day of The Incident have long since dried, and now I do my best to ignore her when she snaps about something silly. I smile a lot and concentrate on being nice to our customers. I remind myself fifty times a day that this charade ends on August 29, and that the money is needed and welcome. And mostly, I thank whatever powers there be that I am me, and not Mrs. Boss. I think I will survive.