My husband quit his job today...

You see, he works as an electronic technician at the local meat packing plant because he needed a job. He's what they call a 'red hat'. You have brown hat which is a trainee, white hats are regular employees, red hats which are team managers, yellow hats that are shift managers and then blue hats which are in charge of the entire shop (IE all mechanics - ETs fall under them, or production which covers all the people who cut meat and box meat and such, and so on and so forth). What this means is that he's in charge of the crew with a supervisor above him, but he takes care of the training and making sure everything gets done that has to be done and that the paper work gets done.

Scott is also the one that when nobody can figure it out... he does. Always. Despite this they show him very little respect and it frankly pisses him off.

My husband is looking for a new job. Well Friday he had a 'contact interview' with the company his best friend works for (which I can't say the name of even if I could remember it) and tomorrow he has a 'technical interview'. If tomorrow's interview goes well... he will fly out next week for a 2 week job that will pay 80-100/hr and IF he does a good job (and he will because my hubby is a military trained, badass, fucking genius ex spook) then they will most likely offer him a full time position in Seattle. BUT we used his vacation time to go to Otakon because we weren't exactly planning on this... There is a slight chance that for whatever reason this all won't work out so really he doesn't want to quit and get fucked by not having a job.

Well last night he was working on a problem and a yellow hat from ODS (not sure what that stands for - just a part of the plant) is bugging him and going 'is it done yet' over and over. He's done this before to Scott and to Scott's tech James. The guy thinks he's a gangster and a badass and is 240 lbs of muscle... he looks the part. Well my hubby tells him repeatedly to STFU and stop bothering him that it will be done when it's done.

The guy doesn't get it and he keeps doing it and finally Scott has an epiphany and it occurs to him that he has a solution to his problem. He realizes he has a way to ensure he will have a job when he comes back (not that they wouldn't be on their knees begging but well) So he picks up the radio and yell "Fuck You I Quit!" then gets up walks over to where he can see the man pissing him off 2 stories below him on the floor of ODS and THROWS THE RADIO AT HIM! (he missed - because obviously assault charges would be counter productive). Mr 'badass' Gangsta runs into his little office and locks the door then calls Scott's blue hat Daren and says "Oh fuck Daren you need to come get your tech he's gonna kill me" while Scott is storming across the catwalk throwing tools behind him. (Picture a VERY pissed off Norwegian/Russian/Scottsman who's 6'3" and 220 lbs coming after you like he's going to kill you. And keep in mind the last time my husband got pissed he threw a metal thermos THROUGH a wooden wall and a window without winding up for it and the time before that he kicked a door off it's hinges and he was kicking it IN not out) The man was damn near pissing himself in fear.

So Daren asked the guy what the hell he said to Scott, then he bitches at the man for 20 minutes (which he later tells Scott about) and then comes to get Scott and says 'they should sit down and talk about it' but at the same time Daren is trying to fix the problem Scott was working on because ODS is down and the plant is losing money while it's down (like 10,000/hr) and he can't figure it out. Keeps saying it shouldn't be doing what it's doing, there's not reason for it to be messed up. And so Scott very calmly (while he's waiting to 'talk' tells him to go get a different tool and use it to check the machine. The tool is a simpler version of what Daren is using at that point and Daren tries to argue that he's got the best tool, it's the best one they make. And Scott tells him that yes it is but it's lying to him. So finally the guy does what Scott suggest and sure enough the thing was. So he gets the problem fix and gives Scott that "How did you know" and Scott says that it doesn't really matter because he quit and ask if he can leave now. And Daren says "No no we need to talk about this".

Daren tells Scott 'you don't want to quit you just got your level 7' (which basically means a raise they have to take a test for) and Scott says that no one got back to him on it so no he hasn't. Well Daren says he'll take care of that today then.

BUT Scott says "I'm sorry man I can't. I'm telling you my wife and I are so far in debt it's ridiculous. We've got medical bills like you wouldn't believe because despite both of us having insurance neither will pay for shit. And he explained how he'd been offered a 2 week job which may or may not end up being full time but it pays 80 to 100 bucks an hour and might mean we can claw our way out of debt a little BUT he doesn't have the vacation time so he was going to quit if he got the gig and give them week because that's all he could give them. So it really doesn't matter, even if he doesn't get the job he's going to have to take it anyway and then just try to find something when he gets back and that he was thinking of trying either the windmills or Young Electric because Excel has a 6 month rehire waiting period. And that well 'he already said it over the radio it's not like he can undo that'.

James (who's known Scott was going to quit) and had been following Scott picking up the tools, totally believes Scott has quit and is 'oh fuck I'm screwed I can't figure the problem out -before Scott told him and Daren how to fix it- and well he comes over and shakes Scott's hand and "Sir it has been a pleasure working with you, I would follow you to the gates of Hell." And he's dead serious. Scott had to resist either getting choked up (because it's a great thing to hear and because it really helps his whole thing) after having to resist smiling or laughing this whole time.

WELL Daren tells him that well Bob (Scott's yellow hat) has quit more than once and it just 'never happens' (in that it gets forgotten that he said it) and that he understands where Scott is coming from with the medical bills because he's had the same problem and it takes hounding the companies over and over and over to get them to pay for anything. And well he says if Scott will just please work the rest of the week if the whole 2 week job goes sour and he comes back, he'll rehire him.

SO what has my dear sweet husband learned over all this...
A few things:
1) Scott "Dad always said 'violence never solves anything... should have listened to my grandfather" (mind you his grandfather was a Cossack and they're kind of like the vikings which is the other side of his family)
2) Quitters do prosper if they're him
3) Sometimes where Rational discourse would fail (because if he'd just asked for the time off they wouldn't have given it to him, if he'd quit he would necessarily be guaranteed a position when he came back) Throwing a temper tantrum solves the problem quite nicely.

My husband deserves a fucking oscar because the entire damn thing was planned... he's a sneaky, underhanded, evil Bastard and proud of it.


( Oh and he sent an e-mail to James to let him know he was in fact coming in and James replied with "You turned a shit sandwich into a reuben, I envy your skills" and "PS: The trail of tools was precious." )