Lena's New Boss

Ebook

All participants in this work of fiction are aged 18 or over.

My name is Lena. Life was OK really until the credit crunch and all the worries about recession. The place where I work is a food factory where they make meat products. Most of their stuff is a bit expensive and sales have fallen because of people buying cheaper food. My husband has a secure job as a coastguard. That's reliable, but we really need my wages because after the rent and the car payments, food and everything there's no money left.

Anyway, what happened was that my firm got taken over. We all thought we were going to lose our jobs, but it wasn't that bad. Some people had to go, but I have been there quite a long time and I was OK. The only change was that we got a new foreman from the company that took us over. That really changed everything.

My job is to pack sausages. The sausage meat shoots out of a machine in its skin in a long straight tube. What I have to do is twist it into sausage lengths, cut off a row of eight of them and fold them into a bundle when they go into the wrapping machine. At the end of the production line, quality assurance look at all the packets as they go by and they take out any that are not fit for sale.

The new boss settled in for a few days. He introduced himself and told everybody he wanted a happy workforce, but he was really frightening. He is about forty and very tall, which I am not, and he's got a scary loud voice. Twice during the first week he came to me at the end of the shift. The first time he threw two packets of sausages down in front of me and said. This isn't good enough Lena. Look at these. We can't sell sausages that are all different lengths. I couldn't look up at him. I just mumbled a sort of sorry and went off to clock out.

Next time it happened there were three packets. He tore one open and threw the sausages out in front of me. Most were OK, but one was much too long and the next one to it was a silly little short thing.

"You should know how to handle a sausage properly by now." He said.

Of course I blushed bright red and looked down. I think he sensed something about me that interested him because the next thing he said was that if I valued my job I was going to have to buck my ideas up and concentrate a bit better, but his voice was a bit softer than it should have been. I was definitely scared of losing my job, but something in the way he said it made me think I was not going to get the sack.

At the end of the week we were having a big meeting. All the new top bosses were going to be telling us about their plans for the company and what had to be done for us to survive in the new situation. Scary stuff.

When the shift was finishing and we were just going to go to the meeting, the new foreman turned up again with a packet of sausages in his hand. Oh No! I thought. He is going to sack me. Instead of that he just threw the packet down and said.

"That's six Lena. Six of the worst. We can't have any more of these poor standards. That deserves six of the best I think. Don't you Lena?"

Before I could say or do anything he stomped off to the meeting. The management said a load of stuff that I didn't really understand except that things were going to be tough and we all had to work harder and better for no more money. Drinks and sandwiches were laid on afterwards and I had a couple more glasses of vodka than I ought to when Karl, the foreman came over to me.

"You and I need to talk young lady." He said. "Come on out to my car."