RE: Trailer Trash 55 pt 5.5 (Patreon)

/// Surprise extra section! Wanted to squeeze this snippet in before I write out the actual conclusion of 55.

“Shannon—there’s no two ways about this,” Manager John shook his head in dismay. “Your drawer is fourteen dollars short. Fourteen dollars and seven cents. That’s—hah, this is on your first shift, even. Definitely uh, definitely not a good start, here. I think we need to stop and think about what happened, and what went wrong, and, yeah—I’m gonna have to write you up and put it on your file.”

They were in the back office area next to Food Lion’s safe, and although the ones, fives, tens, and twenty dollar bills were stacked up in rows across the manager’s desk and had been counted and recounted, somehow or other money was missing. The subtle strings of fear Mrs. Moore had been aware of all day in the background of every thought were now pulled so tight she couldn’t even breathe.

“I—I don’t—” Mrs. Moore managed to stammer out, blinking through her tears. “I’m so sorry, I—I don’t even know what might have happened, or, or—”

“I mean… can you check your pockets?” Manager John seemed to trying not to sound patronizing, but it crept into his tone of voice anyhow. “Maybe—I don’t know, maybe it’s just like, out of habit, you meant to put it in the drawer, but you weren’t thinking about it and just, I dunno, jammed one of the sales into your pocket. That’s, uh, that’s happened before. It happens.”

“No! No,” Mrs. Moore was frantic to turn out her pockets. “No, nothing like—I would never—”

“What’s the holdup?” Tracy’s voice was gruff with impatience. “New girl have a problem with her drawer?”

“Hahh, a problem?” Manager John laughed. “Yeah, it’s fourteen dollars short. Hate to say it, but I’m gonna have to write her up.”

“Oh, surprise, surprise,” Tracy chuckled.

When Mrs. Moore dared to look in the woman’s direction she saw that Tracy was waiting with her own drawer propped up on one hip, and likewise Cindy and another Food Lion woman behind her were holding their drawers—it seemed as if the whole rest of the morning shift cashiers were held up from doing their final counts because of her. Everyone was peeking through the doorway into the back office, and it made Mrs. Moore wish she could just crawl into a hole in the ground and die.

I don’t know what went wrong! Shannon felt like she was having a mental breakdown from the stress of the situation. I didn’t STEAL anything, I don’t think I LOST anything, I-I just don’t know what happened at all! Maybe one of the sales just didn’t get punched into the computer correctly? I don’t know!

“But, y’know what,” Tracy continued on in her mirthful rasp. “Betcha I know what happened, if it’s ‘round fourteen dollars…”

“Well, she says she’s sure she didn’t accidentally pocket any, and—” Manager John blew out a breath of frustration and leaned over to open cabinet drawers in search of the forms he would have to fill out now.

“Probably didn’t key in the coupons right,” Tracy finished with a smirk. “Does she have coupons?”

“No, no, she doesn’t have any with her drawer, so—” Manager John glanced over the sheet he’d been filling out and shook his head.

“Oh!” Mrs. Moore jolted upright in her seat. “I, no, I do have coupons! I, I thought I was supposed to tuck them in beneath my drawer. T-to lift up the drawer, and put them in underneath. That’s uh, that’s what I saw her do yesterday, is it—is it not what I was supposed to be doing?!”

“Well,” Manager John scowled. “Where are they now? It—you know what, it doesn’t even matter, because we’ve already done the drawer count, and in any case the computer’s gonna say your register didn’t have any coupons put in.”

“Them coupons’re probably still sittin’ up there in the register,” Tracy chuckled. “You’ll have to go through ‘em, match ‘em up and fix each of the transactions. So the computer don’t think there’s s’posed to be more money in there than there is.”

“I’m so sorry,” Mrs. Moore tried to apologize again.

“No, it’s—we don’t have time to go through and do that,” Manager John denied. “I’m going to have to write her up. If she didn’t key the coupons in correctly, then that’s on her, because she signed that she’s responsible for the drawer.”

“Still can’t write her up,” Tracy sounded downright smug. “She don’t have her mandatory trainin’ hours in, so she can’t even sign for her own drawer in the first place! Not by Food Lion’s rules.”

“She was on register with you yesterday,” Manager John seemed to be growing genuinely angry, and Mrs. Moore shrank back into her seat and tried to hide herself from their notice. “So—yes, she went through her training hours. She—”

“She weren’t on the clock, so no, she didn’t get any trainin,’” Tracy countered. “For her to be through her trainin’ period, she has to be on the clock, gettin’ paid.”

“Then, I can put it in that she has those hours yesterday, and she’ll get pay for them, because she was there shadowing you yesterday,” Manager John tried to reason. “I had her there with you, learning. That’s the whole reason—”

“Nope!” Tracy intended to be stubborn about it. “I had her there and was givin’ her some sorta basic overview, but it weren’t nothin’ like proper trainin’ and she didn’t learn nothin’ bout keyin’ in coupons from me ‘cept seein’ the clippings go in beneath the drawer.”

“I—I can go get the um, the coupon clippings?” Mrs. Moore offered. “If—if they’re, I’m sure they’re still there in the drawer, if that, if that helps…?”

“Well, Tracy, if that’s the way you wanna play it, then I’d have to write you up instead of her, ‘cause she was supposed to be training with you, and you’re saying you neglected to have her go through—”

“Oh nuh-uh, I don’t think so,” Tracy chortled. “You go an’ introduce me to a new girl, yeah okay, but when I asked her, she said she wasn’t on the clock, so she got no ‘official’ trainin’ from me! And, you can’t be puttin’ her out there in her own checkout yet, or cookin’ the books after the fact to make it seem like she was on the clock, when she wasn’t! I been sayin’ and sayin’ and sayin’ it—you can’t do that.”

“That’s all I can do, Tracy—” Manager John held up his hands in a helpless expression. “I mean look, listen, if you—”

“You go through with them coupons and fix the transactions one by one—or you write yourself up for fourteen dollars or whatever the hell it was, ‘cause you were responsible for this shift, kiddo—that’s why you make the big manager bucks, here. But me, I been working here sixteen years, and if Mister Kay asks me what’s goin’ on with this, he’s gonna hear what I have to say about it.”

“We’re—look, now we already have her going over her time,” Manager John scoffed, waving towards the clock on the office wall. “Listen—hey, Cindy! Help make sure the new girl gets clocked out, and then we’ll see if Bob has time during his shift to sort out this mess with the coupons on his drawers, maybe. If you think I have time to—”

“Oh nuh-uh, there’s no way you’re—”

“Well, what do you want me to do? I’m running late already, morning shift all needs signed off and deposited so that—”

“Shannon! Here, come on,” Cindy squeezed past the angry Tracy continuing her tirade to motion her over. “C’mon girl, lemme get you all clocked out and outta here.”

With a jolt of relief, Mrs. Moore abandoned her chair and hurried to escape the room, tears streaming down her face and still wringing her hands in sheer terror. She wanted out of here, and if anyone were to ask her at this moment, she was sure she would tell them she simply wasn’t cut out to work this job. Still cradling her own drawer against herself, Cindy patted her on the back and helped her over in the direction of the timeclock computer so she could punch out—the moment the sniffling Shannon managed to maneuver the mouse over to her name and click CONFIRM to end her shift, she let a sob slip out.

“Hey, hey, it’s okay—you’re okay,” Cindy assured her in a whisper. “Just—yeah, just Manager John tryin’ to throw you under the bus. Typical! If, when you come in tomorrow, if he tries to get you to sign anything sayin’ you’re at fault for somethin’, you ask for one of us to come give it a look, okay? You’re… are you still thinkin’ ‘bout comin’ in, tomorrow?”

“I—” Shannon tried to smear her wet face on her sleeve and let out a laugh. “I-I don’t know. I don’t know.”

“Well, hey, if you do—we’ve got your back, okay?” Cindy patted her shoulder again for emphasis. “Tracy seems like she likes you. I like you! I do hope you’ll stay with us. Just—yeah, don’t trust Manager John far as anyone can throw him, he’s just sittin’ in that office all day playin’ around with the timesheets to keep labor cost under some stupid line so he can get his big fat bonus from Mister Kay. He don’t care ‘bout none of us actually gettin’ all the work done around here.”

With a growing sense of dread, Mrs. Moore realized that she would return for her shift tomorrow. As her watery eyes filled with clarity, she knew she would be here. Not because of the money even, but because she had to. Because—if she didn’t show up, she’d never be able to look Cindy or Tracy or any of these people who were actually nice and friendly with her in the eye ever again. Tracy especially, Tracy who she’d thought was just a miserable old grump, even stuck her neck out on her behalf!

It’s such an awful mess, here! Mrs. Moore thought to herself as she started to undo her apron. I really do hate it. But—also the actual work isn’t as bad as I thought, once you get into the swing of it, and, and—there’s REALLY good people, here. People that cared, or, or stood up for me, or—I don’t know, but that, that MEANS SOMETHING.

“I’ll be here,” Shannon promised with a weak smile. “Same time tomorrow, I guess? I’ll… be here.”

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/// May seem like much ado over just a measly $14, but this does fall in line with my experiences.

I think this just turned into a MUST INCLUDE section, because this is the real start of Shannon actually forming meaningful connections. She was never ever going to be able to form these same kind of bonds with Mrs. Williams or Mrs. Macintire—those two might as well be from Saturn to Mrs. Moore and where her lived experience/mentality is right now.