Dan Collins was younger than me—mid 20’s and had just gotten married. He had sandy brown hair and green eyes that always looked like he was confused. But he did good work...until last week.
“Something wrong?” he asked, looking at my face as he took the seat across from me.
“Yes, there is. I had a call from Mr. Fifer at the City of Mesa this morning. The bid bond was not attached to the bid and we have been disqualified.”
His face fell, an ashen color washing over it. He readjusted himself in the chair. “What? You’re kidding me, right?”
“I wish I was.” I folded my arms on the papers. “What’s going on, Dan? This isn’t like you.”
He fumbled around, his eyes scanning around the room. “I...uh...Idon’t know. I swear I put it in there, Max. I know I did. Oh, God...” He put his head in his hands.
“Alexander Industries needed that job. We all had a lot of work in that bid and to lose a job of that size to something so avoidable is asinine.”
“I know, Max. And I’m sorry. It’ll never happen again.” He looked me right in the eye with everything he had. I knew he was trying to prevent me from saying what we both knew came next.
I took a deep breath. “I’m going to have to let you go.”
“No!” he said, his voice bouncing around the room. “This won’t happen again. I can’t lose this job, Max. I can’t. I just got married. I...” He looked at me, begging me to rescind my words. “Please, don’t fire me.”
“I don’t have a choice,” I said with more conviction than I felt. It had to be done, but I still hated it. “Here is your final pay. I had Hilah pay you for the vacation and sick time you had accrued, which I didn’t have to do and normally don’t.”
“You are seriously letting me go?” he asked. He sat upright, his mouth forming a grim line.
I sat back in my chair, putting a little distance between us. I had one guy come across the desk once and it was a lesson painfully learned. “I am. You have a family to take care of, but so do the rest of us. This was a careless mistake that we can’t afford to have repeated and I can’t justify it to the rest of the guys that work their asses off.”
“I work my ass off, too!”
“I’m not saying you don’t. I’m saying you made an error that cost us a huge contract and I can’t overlook it. Word travels fast around here. Once the other guys know what happened, especially if we don’t get another job soon and we have to start laying people off...I don’t have a choice. ”
He was on his feet in a second, grabbing the papers off my desk. “Fuck you,” he bit out, his eyes on fire. “This is bullshit.”
“Losing that job was bullshit that didn’t have to happen.”My sympathy was being replaced with anger quickly. “And now the rest of us have to fix it.”
“You wanna fuck with me?” He smiled menacingly. He swung the door open and it hit the filing cabinet behind it, causing my hardhat to fall off the top and hit the ground. “You’ll regret this. You hear me?”
“I hear ya and I’m going to assume you’re spoutin’ off at the mouth because you’re angry. I get that. But I’m going to have to ask you to leave the premises immediately and not cause a scene. Doyouhearme?”
His eyes widened for a split second, a little taken aback at my tone. He started to say something, but I beat him to the punch.
“Don’t bite off more than you can chew, Dan.”
He turned on his heel and walked out, closing the door tightly behind him.
I let out a breath and rolled my neck a few times. I heard the side door outside my office that led to the parking lot slam shut and could see him, through the blinds, heading to his car.
I reorganized the papers on my desk and got back to work.
Work was a form of stress-relief for me. I learned at a young age that when you feel like sinkin’, the best thing to do is to swim as hard as you can. Just going along with the undertow will get you one thing—sunk.
Since we were short one job thanks to Dan, I needed to stay on top of the budgets for the other projects. Construction jobs could go south in a second. I also needed to replace the missed bid in our upcoming work list.
I worked straight through lunch, reviewing project reports until Lucy buzzed in. “Mr. Quinn? There’s a Samantha West on the line for you.”
Why would Sam be calling me in the middle of the day at the office?
I glanced around the room and my eyes rested on the date on the corner of my computer screen and everything was clear.
“Mr. Quinn?” she repeated in her happy-go-lucky tone.
