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Insubordination

Kirk Alex

(excerpt from You’re Gonna Have Trouble, a blue-collar/ working stiff novel available on amazon, B&N, Kobo, et al)

    I had the first crew in at 25 minutes after 11, while I waited outside the van. Offered cold bottles of water to those who were interested. It was hot out, over one-hundred easy. Temp hit the 116-mark middle of last week. Tucson International Airport. Across the main drag from the primary terminal. We’re parked in the area designated for hotel shuttle vans, limos and resort buses from spas like Canyon Ranch and Miraval. The main/vast public parking lot is directly in back of us. About two-thirds full.
    Some peeps about on foot: travelers and/or those present to greet same. All very sane/civilized, unlike the chaos that is LAX, where I’d spent too many years dealing with passengers and traffic as a cabbie. So I point it out: love the sanity of this airport, extreme heat (this time of year) not withstanding. Have been in Tucson since ’96 and am still fine with it. Appreciate the desert and indigenous vegetation, and of course, the winter months; especially love the winters here. Just about perfect. But that’s months away, and we’re dealing with its opposite: broiling temp.

    We’re waiting on the second crew; two pilots. I’m outside, in the sun and heat. Getting cooked. No choice. If I wait inside the van it makes it tougher to ignore the antsy requests that we start for the hotel. Flight crews are usually tired and want to check in/shower/nap/whatnot. Dinner and rest, their primary concern. Some, the fit ones, hit the gym, or go for a run, etc. All understandable. Their work day is over and they are entitled to unwind. I have nothing but empathy and tremendous respect for these good folks. And yet, having stated as much, there was no denying the gig was getting old. Almost two years of getting up at 2 in the morning to be at the hotel by 3:30 to take the first crew out to the port, being on call throughout the day, six days a week left no time for anything else: no life, and worst of all, no time for the one thing that mattered to me more than any other: writing.
    The hotel paid for the runs, about it. Between runs I was not on company time and did not get paid for it. There might be anywhere from one-hour to two or three-hours between runs, and so I would usually head back to the apartment, sit around, surf the Net, lift weighs, read; no writing got done. I required long, uninterrupted stretches for that to take place. There was Sunday, my sole day off, but one day of leisure was not going to do it.

    Tips? Yes. The hotel was tight with what they paid, but the tips (that the crews were generous with, as legal tender was made available to them by the airline) compensated for it. Still, it hardly made up for the fact I’d basically had it (as much as I loved my passengers: pilots and flight attendants, who were about the nicest people I’d ever had the pleasure of knowing).
    I’d always have ice cold bottled water for these decent folks; would greet them with a smile and was eager to help with the luggage, or stop by a mini mart, should any of them have requested it. Runs up to Park Plaza? I did it. Down to Reid Park (for the occasional jogger), the golf course? Yep. To help out. Using my own vehicle, free of charge––since I, as the hotel driver, was not permitted to provide this courtesy.
    You see, hotel management were some of the biggest, two-faced phonies I’d ever worked for. On the surface, it was all about the “customer; service.” When deep down, all the fool in charge gave a damn about was the bottom line: Money. How much was taken in at the end of the day.
    Fine. We get it: ka-ching makes the world-go-round. Only you wanted to believe other things mattered, just a little. These folks, flight crews, worked their butts off up there in the skies, on these planes, dealing with the public, which could not have been easy, and––I thought––deserved better treatment: as in genuine hospitality, as well as top-notch customer service at our end.
    Really? Yes. Only the Jekyll and Hyde jerk, who was the manager and my boss, hardly considered any of this. He did his bit, played by the rules (that the corporation had established and were written in stone). This was it. And I was one effing burnout-case.
    You might say it was getting to me. All of it. Added up. I was desperate for a way out. Granted, I seemed to lack the balls to quit/take a walk, and was (subconsciously) searching for a way to be cut loose. Felt like it.

    I get the assistant manager, Agata, on the cell at just about noon, to let her know I’ve decided to leave the airport. She wants me to wait for the pilots. I have seven people in the van (the first flight crew) who would like to get going. She tells me the second crew has been on the ground and pilots should be out shortly.
    “I’m leaving,” I tell her, and disconnect.

    I head east on Valencia, make a left on Palos Verde, heading north. My cell rings. It’s Agata. Pilots are out and she wants me to turn around. I tell her I can’t.
    “Why not?”
    “It wouldn’t be fair to my passengers. Besides, it would take 15-minutes to drive back to the airport.”
    Then Remus comes on, the “engineer,” demanding I turn around. I tell him the same: Can’t do it. Wants to know where I’m at. I tell him and stress I can’t stay on the phone while driving, and hang up.

    When I get in, sign the log, return van keys to the box on the wall, Agata says not to clock out, to stick around; she wants to talk. I wait ten-minutes for Remus to show. Am sitting on the sofa in the lobby while the two of them go in back in Agata’s office for 5 to 6 minutes. This can’t be good. I get the feeling my ass is about to be fried. Am finally summoned back there.
    There is a chair facing her desk. She is in her seat. I get permission to sit. Remus is standing to my left by the open door.
    Agata is annoyed because I disobeyed her order. I explain why I did what I did. She doesn’t care for it and does not agree. As a result my head is on the chopping block. This person wants to make me pay for “disobeying” her.
    Never mind that what I did/the way I handled it had been done countless times this same way since I first hired on for the job. There had been plenty of times when it was simply impossible to pick up every crew (very often two, at times three), and so a simple solution was to have some of them, the ones the hotel driver was not able to get to, take a cab to the hotel. No, the airline did not care for it (since they had to cover the tab), but it happened.

    I explain am allowed to wait 20 minutes, no longer. She claims it’s 30 minutes. I tell her the GM, Ludlow, told me specifically it’s 20 minutes. She is confused about this. Her confusion is not my problem. She says Ludlow will investigate this and that I will have to see him at noon Monday; that there could be a possible suspension.
    I don’t deserve this. Can’t get all the crews every time. I point out all the money I saved the hotel since starting the job 17-months ago.
    “That doesn’t matter.” Her words.
    “None of the good I’ve done carries weight, only something like this.”

    These people are screwy. Their policy is wishy-washy. They stress “customer service.” Forced us to sit through two classes of it last year, but when I practice “customer service” am threatened with dismissal.
    “Why not just cut me loose?” is my comeback, because at this point I’ve had it.
    The “trial” is over.
    She says: “Have a good day.”
    “You, too.”

    After humiliating me for the second time in less than a month, she says: “Have a good day.”
    This was a Thursday, the next morning I get up at my usual 2 a.m., pick up the phone and inform the night auditor, who is a personable black lady and recent transplant from South Carolina, I don’t feel well and am not coming in.
    “Thought I’d give you enough of a heads-up to go to Plan-B.”
    “I’ll get Agata to do the runs.”

    I phone Saturday morning to see if I am scheduled to go in. Sophronia says I’m not. She tells me Agata is doing the runs this morning. I ask about Sunday.
    “Am I working? Do they have me down?”
    “Sunday? Yes.”

    I rise early Sunday, before 2 a.m. Get into a starched white shirt/tie/black vest, etc. Leave at 3 a.m. Park in the hotel parking lot, walk over toward front entrance to see Sophronia standing outside smoking a cigarette. She says I’m not scheduled to work.
    “Huh?”
    “You’re not scheduled. Agata is doing the runs. You’re not to return to work until you see Ludlow at noon on Monday.”
    “I never knew that.”
    “She said she told you.”
    “She never did.”
    “That’s all I know, babe.”
    I turn and walk back to my car. These people, hotel management: Agata/Cherity/Ludlow, are some of the biggest fakes I have ever known.

    Marmion Renaissance. Made to wait in the lobby for close to thirty-minutes. Read the paper. Finally he came out. Appeared to be on edge. Ludlow Summerfruit. From Utah. The goofy doofus with the uneven/reddish-blond goatee he’s been trying to grow since I started the job over a year and a half ago. We shook. His palm was clammy. Mine? Dry, as usual––even though it was another hot Tucson day.
    I follow him past the front desk to his office in the back. Agata and Remus sitting there. Summerfruit lets me talk. I explain. When I state the arrival time, Agata snickers. I remembered the plane landing at 11:15, flight crew of 7 were out before 11:30. Rare, but it happens. I go into the rest of it.
    Ludlow moves to the computer. Looks up arrival times for Thursday. It says (for this particular flight) the plane landed at 11:25. I can’t believe it, because the crew was at the van by this time. Something is not right here.

    I am fired. Seventeen-months of good service, never a complaint, means nothing. This is cold-blooded. I let Ludlow know it. He doesn’t care.
    “It’s insubordination.”
    Wants me to turn in keys and uniform.
    “I don’t have any keys or uniform. Just that blazer I purchased with the funds you provided. You said I wouldn’t have to turn it in––but if you want, I’ll bring it in.”
    “No, you don’t have to do that. We don’t want you on the premises for any reason.”
    Disrespected and treated in this shabby manner over one thing that was done that they didn’t like. He mentions my showing up Friday and calling Agata a liar. Sophronia must’ve passed it on to them.
    “I had no idea I was suspended. I was under the impression that the final decision was to be rendered after my meeting with you.”
    “It’s right here on the paper.”
    “I didn’t read that part.”
    I ask if I can have my unemployment while I look for a job. He says he will tell them I got fired for insubordination.
    “That’s heartless.”
    “Yes, it is. You didn’t do what you were asked.”
    “What about the hundreds of times that I did what was asked of me?”
    “Doesn’t matter.”
    This guy Ludlow is red-faced/antagonistic––for no reason. I rise, say so-long to Remus, a guy I always liked.
    I walked out to my car, a bit shaken. Getting fired is rejection and never easy to take. I sit there for a bit, not turning the AC on. It’s hot out, as well as in. Untie the necktie and whip it off.

    When I get home I dial the airport number, ask them about flight –– for June––. Lady says to call Also-Ran Airlines, etc.
    I have to ask myself: Am I willing to bother with it and what good would it do me? Will need to file for unemployment tomorrow, not that I stand a slim chance in Cucamonga.

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