A Line About the Coffee Machine
I won the argument four times between the bus stop and my front door.
Years ago, before the office job, I worked shifts at a supermarket. One Thursday in June the new rota went up in the staff room, next to the coffee machine, broken since March. Somebody's old kettle stood beside it. My hours were down again, thirty-two to twenty-six. No reason given. I took a copy.
My manager was in the doorway on the phone, as she'd been all week. Three people were waiting behind me to clock out, so I said nothing, folded the rota into my jacket pocket and got the bus home.
From the stop it was a ten minute walk to my flat, and I had the argument with her in my head the whole way. Round one was somewhere around the chip shop. By round three I'd used the word "frankly". She got meaner every round, which was handy, because it let me get wittier. Round four ended on a line about the coffee machine: "That machine hasn't done a shift since March, and nobody's cut its hours."
Then I was at my door, key out, jaw aching. I couldn't have told you one thing about the street. Not the man on the corner who watered his one hanging basket every evening, like a dog that needs walking. Not the cat on the stoop.
My manager was never on that walk. She'd have been on her way home, thinking about her tea. I was the one still at work.
In the hall I worked out why I'd kept at it. The replay felt like doing something. Letting the anger go would have felt like agreeing with the rota.
So I found a pen and wrote one plain question on the back of the rota. Not the speech, not the line. "Why did my hours go down?" The walk could have the anger, and the morning could have the question. Letting the anger go wasn't the same as agreeing with the rota.
I almost didn't ask. On the bus the next morning I thought about people who ask why and get fewer hours.
In the staff room my manager was waiting for the kettle. The line was right there, and so was the coffee machine. It would have been a very good four seconds. Then I'd have had twenty-six hours and a manager with a long memory. So I asked her the plain question instead. She looked tired and said she'd look into it.
That evening, on the walk home, round five started up near the chip shop, word for word. I said, more or less out loud, "Ah, that's anger," and looked at the street instead. It came back twice before my door, and the last time I looked up and saw the man on the corner watering a second hanging basket, which felt like news.
If I had that Thursday again, I'd write the question at the bus stop instead of in the hall. Once it's on paper, you don't have to carry it home in your head. It keeps till morning.
A month later I got one Saturday back. Nobody said why. The coffee machine was still broken the day I left. I never did use the line. It's still very good.