I don't know if I've told this story before, but I've written down several of the misadventures I had with one obnoxious manager. As I have said, it was something every day! We had a rather old dish machine and it had dry chemical detergent. We switched over to a liquid system and I can't tell you how much of a joy that was! But when the guy left there was a hole in the side of the machine and water kept coming out of it. The boss said "Gerald is there anything you can do about that? It'll be two weeks before the guy will be back again."
I said "No problem! We've got everything right here I need to fix it." I measured the hole and cut a piece of metal just a little bit smaller. Then I cut two more pieces of metal a little bit bigger, drilled holes through the centers of them. Then I got an old piece of inner tube and cut two round pieces out of that, and put holes in the middle. I ran a bolt through them, had a waitress hold the wrench on the outside, while I tightened up the bolt on the inside. Viola! Hole sealed right up! I noticed while I was doing this that the day cook, who was one of the manager's drinking buddies was glaring at me all the time I was doing it. When the manager came in he immediately spoke to him, and the manager went to the boss.
"Gerald can't be messing with the dish machine," he told the boss, "it's not his place! He's not qualified." The boss told him not to worry, the problem was taken care of, it wasn't his concern.
I went home for the evening. When I came in the next morning I found my patch had been driven out of the dish machine with a hammer and was in the trash. If anything, the hole had been made worse! When the boss came in I showed him, and he was irate! "Fix it again!" he told me.
I went out to the shop and started to fix the pieces and the cook followed me. "You're not to do that!" he said, "It's not your place!"
I told him if he had a problem to talk to the boss.
"I'm talking to you," the cook said, "leave that alone! It's not your place!"
I told him again to go talk to the boss who promptly appeared in the door. "You've got orders!" he snapped to the cook, "Never mind what Gerald's doing!"
The cook glared at him and went back to work. The new patch went in. That afternoon the manager came in all in a rage. "I won't have this!" he screamed, "I won't have it! Gerald's a retard! He can't even read and write. He's got no business using machinery and repairing equipment! It's a safety question. I'm supposed to be the manager here. Why won't you let me manage?"
"I won't let you manage," the boss answered, "because you're a total ass! Gerald might not have any education but he's ten times smarter than you'll ever be! If that patch is touched again, you'll be fired! I can fire you for disobedience. Now get to work and shut up!" The manager went off in a huff. The patch wasn't touched again. And when the repairman did come back he praised the job saying he couldn't have done better himself! A week or so after that I got to slap the cook around and throw him out of the restaurant permanently. But as I've said before, it was a joy when that manager finally quit!

THE END

Daylight Savings Time is coming up and it always brings to mind that on The Old Worlds there was absolutely nothing like it! On Haven, on Hades and, Peepi they all had standard time. It was always the same time everywhere in The Empire. Day and night was regulated by the light and dark cycles at The Capitol. The Hashons had the same thing with The Capitol of The Spiritist Republic as the main time keeper. The Peepians regulated Their time at Their oldest Capitol. Everywhere in Their solar system Everyone kept the same time! The idea of time zones to Them, and Daylight Savings Time would have been preposterous, simply outrageous! They would find it laughable!