found drama

I’m on the crew that is responsible for refreshing a Shaw’s every two-to-three quarters.  It happens at night, secretly.  So you’ll never notice.  Some of it you might notice.  The deep cleaning, fresh paint, floors mopped and waxed, the shelves reconfigured; sometimes it’s a little more obvious than not.  The part that always bugs me is the indentured labor crew change-over.  The pang of guilt with each crew change gets worse every time, the bait & switch of it.  Most of the day crew is regular labor but usually about a dozen or so of the folk that work the harder-to-staff hours are women we bring in.  Tonight we shuffle out a group of just under a dozen middle-aged Iranian women; scooting them onto the bus, they lament the shifts in their fates.  I’m glad I can’t understand what they’re saying.  In their place, we add a dozen hopeful Bosnian women.  We make our best effort to keep the two crews separate.

About Rob Friesel