Chapter 1

I get Fired

I found a wallet.  That’s how everything started.  It was that simple.  I was doing scheduled maintenance (four months after it was due) on a fifteen-passenger bus.  This one was handicap accessible.  You don’t get many handicapped people coming to a water park, but we do get a few.  Maybe bit of introduction here.  Wisconsin Dells is the waterpark capital of the world.  They say so.  It might even be true.  The water parks are certainly large enough.  Mine had thousands of rooms, two golf courses, and six massive water parks with lazy rivers, towering slides, and endless bars serving umbrella drinks.  The place was so big it needed small buses just to get customers from one end to the other.

Get the idea?  Huge place, hundreds of employees, thousands of customers, and one maintenance shed.  Oh, and one maintenance worker – me – Mary Motor Pool.  No, that’s not what they called me in the Dells.  I was just “hey you.”  Mary Motor Pool was my Navy name.  Another story for another day.

But, back to the wallet that got me fired.  I did engine maintenance first.  Mostly an oil change.  Two quarts out, eight quarts in.  The buses were always low on oil, and all were driven by people who didn’t give a damn -- and at nine dollars an hour, why should they?  So, out comes the blackest, thickest oil, and in goes whatever oil the company could buy in bulk.  Done.  I checked the tires (all were low on pressure), ran a quick check on tie-rods (had one break a few months ago), then did the only serious cleaning the bus had gotten since the summer season began. 

I swept everything to the back of the bus, and decided I would open the back door and extend the handicap ramp as a quick way to sweep everything out.  The ramp is pretty simple.  Basically it folds in half and stands at the back of the bus.  You set all kinds of safety switches in the driver’s area, then open the back door (from outside), and press a large green control switch.  Hydraulics push out the bottom of the ramp’s back half, and as it extends, the ramp straightens and drops to the ground.  Not a bad ramp, actually.  Reasonable incline a person could manage in a wheelchair.

Everything worked just like it should, but I heard something drop underneath.  A wallet.  It had been caught between the two halves of the ramp, and now that they were open and extended, the wallet dropped to the floor.  I picked it up, saw there was money, credit cards, and ID in it, and put it in my pocket.  Big water parks have big lost and founds.  This would just go in with all the sunglasses and car keys lost by poolside drunks.

Back to cleaning, back to a final check on the bus, back in service.  I called the transportation office to tell them their bus was ready and parked the bus outside.  Next bus, next oil change/ refill.  About an hour later they dropped off yet another bus for me to work on and picked up the bus I had finished that morning.  I gave the driver (Joey) the wallet and told him where I had found it.  He said he would take it to the lost and found.  Why didn’t I do it?  Because my maintenance shed is clear out by the golf courses hidden in a grove of trees.  Who wants to see a lot full of broken vehicles and a crappy repair shop while on vacation?

So he got the bus and the wallet and drove off.  Now, before I explain how I was fired, let me explain that I am not a complete idiot.  I did open the wallet, count the money (one thousand, two hundred and two dollars), count the credit cards (four), and scan the ID (Maryland driver’s license).  I told Joey what I had counted.  He repeated it back to me.  Off he went. 

The next day I was fired.  No one was going to drive clear out to the maintenance shed to fire me.  And they didn’t want to fire me mid-shift.  They waited until I had done maintenance on four buses, then texted me.  I was to report to HR.  Fine.  I cleaned most of the grease off my hands, got into my ten-year-old Honda Civic, and drove down to the HR office.

If you don’t mind a little description, the HR office is located in what looks like a college dorm.  Six floors of rooms, with offices on the ground level.  Who lives in the dorm rooms?  Foreign college kids in the US on J-1 visas.  Supposedly for cultural experiences and work experience.  They get an interesting view of our culture as they wait tables and change bedding.  And, the waterparks would collapse without them.  The Dells has a population of about three thousand.  If every man, woman, and child worked for the water parks, the parks would need to hire five thousand more.  Would average American families move to nowhere Wisconsin for a seasonal job paying nine dollars an hour?  Nope.  So the parks bring in thousands of kids from around the world.

So, I parked my car, walked past a group of kids not much younger than me, and told the receptionist I was here.  She looked at my hands, looked at my clothes, raised an eyebrow and sent me to a room down the hall.  I passed three offices with smiling ladies speaking slowly to new hires from somewhere on the planet and got to an open door and an older guy staring at a form.

I got a wave to come in and a finger pointed at a chair.  I sat.  He glanced at me, then studied the form again.

“How much money did you say was in the wallet you found?”

Oh shit.  Obviously money was missing.  Obviously I was screwed.  The best I could do was answer the question and hope the cops weren’t on their way.

“One thousand, two hundred and two dollars.”

“So you say.  Joey says it was two dollars.”

Now I am pissed.  Not that Joey stole twelve hundred dollars.  Joey works two jobs and hasn’t seen a dentist in decades.  He has maybe four teeth left, and they don’t look a healthy color.  So, I had no real problem with him stealing the money.  He needed it.  But why not tell me he was going to do it?  Tell me there would be two dollars in the wallet when he turned it in.  It would be a risk for both of us, but we might have gotten away with it.  Now?  One or both of us was out of a job.  I was guessing me.

Time to shut my mouth until a court-appointed lawyer thought up some angle.  Restitution?  I had no idea where I would find twelve hundred dollars.  Community service?  Maybe I could make that work for me.  Meanwhile, old guy watches me sweat.  Bastard.

“Well?”

“I’ve got nothing more to say.”

“The owner is thinking of pressing charges.  Two thousand dollars is a lot of money.  Maybe they will press the DA to charge you, maybe they won’t.  In the meantime, we want you gone.  I want you to sign this termination form.  You will get a check in the mail for your final hours.  Sign the form, give me your ID badge, and go away.”

And that’s what I did.  I read the form carefully.  It didn’t accuse me of theft or anything else.  It was just me resigning.  The company didn’t want it known that employees stole.  Fine.  Should I have fought the charge?  Maybe.  But the job sucked, and I had no idea where the two thousand number was coming from.  I know for a fact there was twelve hundred in there.  Now they claim two thousand?  Some shady customer looking to make trouble?  Some insurance scam?  The company was taking their word over mine.  No surprise.  I signed the form, dropped off my badge, and walked away.