#40 Bosses

Dear diary,

Since Pepper’s gone Boudecia’s been doing all her duties, and it’s definitely made things… different. For example, she now does story time with the kids. Pepper used to let the kids run around the Junior Playground (as she called it) while she read stories, whereas Boudecia makes them sit in rows and columns in complete silence. Yesterday a little boy spoke while she was reading “Where’s My Cow?”, and she made him sit in Teenage facing the wall for the rest of the story. She runs story time like it’s lunch break at a prison, only with less food.

Viktor’s virtually the opposite, and everything you could want in a boss. He always smiles at me, shakes my hand, says I’m doing a great job all the time, even when he catches me reading out in the shelves and I hide my book quickly but I know he’s spotted me doing it. I just have one small, tiny, insignificant issue with the way he runs the library.

Today I was on with Ernesto and TJ. It so rarely happens that there are only guys working that we decided to celebrate this momentous occasion. I had the footy up on the checkout computer so we could watch while we were working, and Ernesto had brought ginger beer – it’s as close as we’re gonna get to drinking on the job. TJ was talking about this girl he really likes, when Viktor came up to the desk and sat with us on the beanbags we’d dragged over from Junior, as Boudecia won’t allow non-standard chairs in there any more.

It was kinda awkward for a moment, then Viktor grabbed a beer from the Esky – a converted Repairs box – and settled in. We watched footy for a bit, then he made a joke about how great it was that we were all enjoying a break, with emphasis on the word ‘all’. It got awkward again. Viktor turned towards Ernesto, who quickly got up and got back to work. TJ and I shifted uneasily in our comfy seats.

Viktor mentioned that he was going to stack the boxes of new books when he got up, and he looked over at Ernesto again. Ernesto sighed and waked over to where the boxes were lying. He went to pick one up but it must’ve been to heavy for him because it stayed where it was. TJ and I started to rise to help him, but Viktor put his arms around our shoulders in a blokey-camaraderie kind of way, told us to enjoy the game and pushed us back down. We both obeyed, and the awkwardness factor went off the scale.

A few minutes went by with the huffing and puffing from Ernesto’s direction being muted by the sounds of the game. He was struggling but Viktor refused, politely, to let us leave our seats. After a couple more minutes we heard Ernesto panting from the heavy weight of the boxes. Viktor looked over, smiled and said,

“Need a hand old man? If you’re not up to it one of these younger, fitter lads can do the work for you.”

Ernesto muttered something under his breath and resumed his labour. He bent down to pick up the last box, hefted it up with great effort, and went to stack it on top of the other boxes. It happened in slow motion. He jammed his finger as he went to put the box down. It fell towards him, winding him and knocking him backwards. The rest of the stack came crashing down.

As the ambulance left I remember Viktor saying that there was no OHS procedure in place, and that’s why Ernesto got hurt. I went to say something and he looked at me and smiled and said how there would be a new vacancy while Ernesto was recovering from his injury. Something about the way he said it struck me as odd, almost like what had juat happened wasn’t all that important. Maybe I’m just imagining things…

-Jay