I'm Robert but generally go by Rob, I'm 56 and through some good saving and investing, I was able to retire early. I'd done a lot of different things over the years, I started as a general labourer in my teens, worked my way up to site foreman and by the time I was 30, I was managing the construction division. I'd gotten married at 24 but it really didn't work out and was divorced by 32 and it was an ugly enough divorce that I really wasn't interested in doing the marriage thing again. By 36, I was looking after all the contracts as well as a lot of the purchasing and occasionally still managing some of the bigger jobs. When I heard the owner was planning on retiring, I went to him with the proposition of buying out the company, 10% per year over 10 years with him getting a diminishing percent of the yearly profits. He knew the kind of worker I was and said he'd prefer the company going to someone who he knew would keep it going and likely grow it as compared to someone who would possibly run it into the ground. At 55, I decided it was time to retire and made the same deal with one of the managers that I'd gotten when I took over the business.
I'd had quite a few girlfriends and even more 'one nighters' over the years but other than that had stayed happily single so I spent the next year travelling and generally enjoying life without working or even having to think about work. By the end of the first year though I was bored so decided I'd grab a part time job just to keep me occupied but nothing that required too much work. I decided to go back into construction so I applied for a job at a medium sized company as a purchasing manager. I intentionally left off some previous history on my resume, I really didn't want to field questions as to why I was going back to work after selling a million plus dollar company, nor did I want whoever was interviewing me to think I was over qualified.
As it worked out, I got the job and thankfully was able to do a lot of it from home or while travelling, only having to be in the office a day or two a week at the most. My interview was done by a lady named Barb who quickly told me that it used to be her dad's company, she'd taken it over when he died and she hated it when people thought that just because she was a woman that she didn't know anything about construction. She seemed a tad bitchy but I was looking for a job not a friend so when she offered the job to me, I took it. At least she was pleasant to look at, average height, good looking and about 45 years old. I couldn't really tell what kind of figure she had as she was wearing a shapeless, loose shirt and equally shapeless jeans.
It didn't take long to see that 'bitchy' was an understatement. She'd regularly ream out one of the site managers in her office because things weren't on schedule, even if it really wasn't their fault and a number of the other guys referred to her as 'the queen, 'her majesty' or more often 'the bitch' - all behind her back of course. A few times she'd told one of the guys to wash her car, pick up her laundry or something similar just because she was pissed at them. One of the guys said it wasn't uncommon for her to threaten someone with a spanking. Apparently, no one had ever admitted to getting spanked but from what I'd heard, there was a good chance it had happened.
One project had been going really poorly but instead of it being supplies, other trades or something like that, it was just because the site manager, Pete liked to spend too long having lunch at the strip clubs instead of keeping track of what was happening. When she called him in, I could tell she was really pissed and while I couldn't follow the conversation, I heard bits of it and what really caught my attention was when I heard, "spanking or quit - that's your choice". I didn't hear anything for a minute or two and then heard the unmistakable sound of skin being slapped. At first that's all there was and then I was able to make out a few soft, "ow's" as well.
By the time she quit, I think everyone near her office knew what was happening but when Pete walked out, it was easy to see that he wasn't walking with the same spring in his step that he had when he walked in. Just to make sure everyone was aware of what happened, when he was about 10' from her door, we heard, "and another spanking next week unless you get things straightened around."
Well, that didn't happen but at the end of the week, we heard that Pete had quit. Monday, Barb came to me and said, "Your resume said you had site manager experience, I need to you to look after Pete's site until we can hire a replacement."
Initially that sounded fine but when I got to the site, it was a clusterfuck. My first 3 days were spent just trying to figure out what had or hadn't been done and then get things moving in the right direction. By the end of the week, I'd found quite a bit of work that wasn't done properly and had it redone. Things were definitely improving but apparently that wasn't good enough because I got a message to see Barb before heading home on Friday.
Traffic sucked so it was about 5:30 before I got there, everyone else had left and I could tell that she wasn't happy about having to wait. When I went in, she spent the first 10 minutes tearing a strip off of me for things that still weren't done, the cost over-runs (which had all been from Pete's mis-management) and for firing 3 guys without consulting her. The beauty of working when you really don't need to is that you don't have to put up with that kind of shit so I just sat there and looked at her until she finally stopped saying, "What the hell are you staring at me for, do you want the same thing that Pete got?"
I didn't say anything for almost another minute before replying, "I've spent most of my life in construction and usually judge people more by how they treated me instead of how they treat others. I'd only been here a couple of days before I knew one of your nicknames was 'the bitch', that you had unreasonable expectations of people and often blamed things on people that weren't their fault."
She tried interrupting but I simply said, "Shut up and let me finish!"
From the look of shock on her face, I don't think she'd been talked to like that for a long time but rather than stop and enjoy the look, I continued with, "Yes Pete was fucking up and needed go but so did the three that I fired, one was stealing supplies from the site, one was only actually working about 4 hrs a day because he was either on his phone or drinking and the other guy was just a plain idiot who didn't even know what end of a hammer to hold and it turns out the only reason he worked there was that he was Pete's brother in law."
When she tried interrupting again, I leaned forward across her desk and said, "What part of shut up did you not understand? I'm not done yet and you keep interrupting, do it again and maybe your ass will be the one getting the spanking! I've been on the site less than a week and I've already gained back 2 weeks of build time and within another week or two, things should either be on or even ahead of schedule."
"But.."
I just ignored her and kept going with, "As far as the cost over-runs, they were all from material wastage, theft and mismanagement from what Pete was doing and I won't be held responsible for them."
By now I'd gone from just upset to pissed so when she started to interrupt again, I said, "That's it! I really don't need this job and I'll be damned if I'm going to put up with this shit from you. If you want the project finished on time and likely under budget then let me do my work the way I think it should be done, if not just say so and I'll leave right now. But if you want me to stay, we've got to get it straight that I'm not here for you to bitch at or complain to about things that aren't my fault. Am I staying or leaving?"
She just stared at me for what seemed like a minute before I repeated the question, "Am I staying or leaving, decide right now!"
