Jones Gets Fired
written by: Leigh Doughty
@LeighDoughty
Nobody could stand Jones, but I thought he was an okay kind of guy. They had called him a liar and a fantasist and I could see what they meant. Jones liked to embellish. In his world everything was more grandiose or wild than anyone else’s and in his world he was the main character surrounded by a supporting cast.
If he talked about a fight it would be about how he nearly lost his life. If it was about a past lover she would always be the most beautiful in the bar, town, or country. If it was a story of hardship it was him that suffered the worse than anyone else alive.
To me, it was all harmless. Whenever I showed I was listening he would push on and tell story after story and I would become a guest in his mad world for the next twenty or thirty minutes. I knew other people couldn’t bear it, but to me it was better than the idle small talk I usually heard.
We used to work the deliveries together and Jones had a nice scam going. We were delivering furniture from our warehouse to the customer’s home and I don’t know how he did it but sometimes he’d get a customer to buy a table or a cabinet off the books and offer him a backhanded payment.
I never found out how he arranged this or how the missing stock didn’t cause some kind of concern in the warehouse and I never dared to ask the question. I just pretended everything was normal and took my slice of the money.
Each time he would take one of these payments he would slip me a ten pound note as a bonus once we got back to the lorry. I would never have said anything but I was also never going to turn my nose up at the money so whenever he gave it to me I’d say, ‘thanks,’ and we’d leave it at that.
On the drive back to the warehouse Jones raved on about his old army days, his sexual exploits, and about his travels in Asia. He made his life into a movie and I was just the ears to hear it all. He managed to have an opinion on everything and if the news was playing on the radio and there was a story he didn’t like he would begin to rant and let his temper rage.
The other staff constantly moaned about him. They would gossip about his life and poke holes at his stories behind his back. When they asked me what I thought I just said, ‘He’s an okay kind of guy, to me,’ and left it there.
I only worked with Jones for six months and grew to love all of his stories, but the one story I didn’t like was the story of how he got fired.
Management had somehow gotten wind of the missing furniture. I guess when the stock didn’t add up they set up an investigation. Given that there were only two delivery teams and six people working in the warehouse it couldn’t have taken too long to find out the truth. Maybe they set up a mole to text him to deliver a wardrobe off the books. I’ll never know.
The manager called me into the office just before midday.
Inside the office sat Jones with tears dripping down and when I walked in he didn’t even look up.
The manager laid out what he knew about the missing stock. My stomach twisted in barbed knots as I thought I was done for and that I’d get a criminal record and never work again in my life. When the manager was finished he asked me what I knew about it.
‘Nothing,’ is all I could answer.
Jones still wouldn’t look at me.
The feeling that everyone else was right about Jones was now bouncing around in my skull. He wouldn’t look at me and maybe he’d set the whole thing up to look like it was me that was selling all the goods in secret.
The manager leaned forward in his chair, ‘Jones said the same thing.’ I looked back at Jones who still had his eyes down. ‘He said you didn’t know anything about all of this.’
I didn’t expect what happened next. They laid it down to him fast while I was still there in the room. ‘You can resign today and we won’t press charges. We’ve assembled the-’
‘Okay,’ Jones mumbled. ‘I’ll go.’
The manager cleared his throat. He looked at me, ‘You can go for now. We’ll wrap this up from here.’
I left the office and walked through the warehouse and onto the shop floor. The staff were all congregated by the doorway and when I walked through they bombarded me with a thousand different questions. I tried to pretend it wasn’t happening. ‘I think it was just a misunderstanding,’ trying to get them off our case.
After ten minutes Jones walked out of the warehouse and through the shop floor. This time there was no bravado and no swagger in his step. His shoulders slumped and he kept his head down and he hid his red tear stained eyes. When he got to the doorway he didn’t stop to look back and just kept walking.
Once he was out of earshot the sales staff next to me said, ‘I knew he was off from the moment I first met him.’
Thirty minutes later the manager called me back into the office. He broke down what happened and told me to not spread the news about it to anyone. They didn’t want staff to know that he’s not going to be prosecuted. I nodded my head and agreed.
I left the office that day and kept to it. I didn’t say a word about Jones or what happened. I didn’t say a word until today.
- Jones Gets Fired - November 29, 2024
- Escape - October 9, 2021
