You Just Never Know

Back on December 31, I told the weird tale of how things went when Ed tried to get a job with Peapod, a grocery-delivery service.

The job is finally a reality.

On Saturday, the interviewer left a phone message for Ed, who had just left for his shift at the dreaded Walmart: "Ed, it's X. I hope to God you're still available, because we need you. Please give me a call and we'll get the paperwork finished and get you scheduled for work." Ed starts work there on Wednesday.

Ed questioned the interviewer about why he had seemed irritated with Ed the last time that they had spoken. The man explained that he was irritated with Peapod's human resources staff. He was being pushed by management to set up a new delivery route but human resources wasn't passing along paperwork on interviewed job candidates in a timely fashion. So he finally told management, "No. I'm not setting up this new route until your human resources people get their act together." Ed's paperwork showed up with the batch that the human resources magically produced in an instant, so Ed got that call. Soon he will be getting good tips, making more money in 3 days with Peapod than he did in 5 days at Walmart, and getting more respect from his supervisors than he did at Walmart, where employees are mere commodities. And meanwhile, he's still working on that kitchen refinishing project.

Lesson? Don't count your eggs till they're hatched, but don't assume that if they take a very long while to hatch that they're duds to be disposed of. ;-)



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