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Trevor the manager was diddling around a lot with one of the young women who worked there. Didn't bother me, of course; that's his business. As long as he does his job,...

The problem started because the other female employees found this a great story--scandalous. They didn't approve at all of course. But they loved to talk about it. Of course. These aren't just women. They're Irish women. You want to hear talk.... And this matter concerned them anxiously.

Trevor didn't like all the talk, and he tried to put a stop to it. That's the part I didn't like. I felt that he was making a general effort to get people to stop talking with each other.

One time Angela was crying. She had been crying, I mean, and she was sitting in the canteen. I asked her what's up, and talked just briefly, just to offer the condolence of a listening ear. Trevor asked me later if I'd been talking with her. He was implying that I shouldn't have been.

That week, Marie had gotten in an accident. I'd heard she was okay; but of course the next time I saw her, I stopped to talk with her for a few minutes at the beginning of the day. Trevor tried to stop that.

So I decided to start talking with the union. We had a union, and paid dues, but had not had a shop steward since the previous one went out pregnant. Without a shop steward, we really had no recourse to union representation.

I volunteered to be the shop steward. I mean, yeah, we had to have a vote, but the girls had been complacent about it before, so who'd mind if I took the position?

It was a good idea. Well, it would have been. I wasn't thinking too clearly. Not that it matters now. Every job has its end....


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