The Story of Tom

The Setup:

Tom was a young man who, like me, took the job of operator to temporarily pay his living expenses so he could continue his schooling.

He really wasn’t invested in the job. He didn’t like the job (none of us did, actually.) He wasn’t particularly interested in keeping it.

So…….

The Situation:

In the building where we worked there were two offices. One was 24/7. The one where Tom and I worked closed at 11:30 PM. 

That meant at precisely 11:30 PM the people whose shift ended at 11:30 PM would walk out the front door and go home. But those whose shifts continued would walk next door, through a different door, to the 24/7 office and finish their shift there. Once next door the supervisor would do a head count to make sure everyone was there.

The Sting:

The funny thing was, on the nights Tom worked, they were always one person short. They would count heads again and check to see how many people they should have…..and it was always one person short!

They would scratch their heads and mumble among themselves and try and figure out why the count didn’t add up. But it never occurred to them to check the schedule to see WHO was missing!

Granted, there were several hundred people who worked in the office but……those of us who worked the night shifts were usually the same.  As were the supervisors. What I’m saying is we KNEW one another. You’d think after a while they would have caught on…….

But in all the time he worked there they never figured it out! They never caught him.

Rocket scientists they weren’t!!! 

Which could explain why it took them so long to figure out the bookkeepers were embezzling…..but that’s whole ‘nother story…….