An Offer She Couldn't Refuse

This is the busiest month of my job, the month during which our biggest fundraisers of the year take place. There is a lot more running around than usual, and the amount of physical labor that needs to be done increases exponentially. This year, my department is short-handed, literally, as one of the guys broke his arm about five weeks ago. There are only three of us working in the department.

Earlier this week, one of the part-time guys gave notice after almost two years on the job. His wife, who had been working one day out of the week, received an offer of full-time employment from the company she works for. She was offered a wage she couldn't refuse, a literal game-changer for the family. My co-worker, who is on a twenty-hour schedule with us, has a full-time job... this job just provided him a little extra money to pay down bills. Now, with his wife working five days a week, he has to be home afternoons to take care of their young son.

He's an upstanding guy, so he's going to work through the month of October. He didn't want to leave us in the lurch during the busy season. I hit it off with him when we first met- we have a similar attitude and a similar work ethic, we even have an eerily similar work history. In the e-mail he sent to the department head, he mentioned how this job is like none other- he was taken with the place, with the experiences he's had... he was even taken with the cats. I'm going to miss him, I enjoyed the talks we would have during shift change, swapping observations about the various organizations we've worked for over the years.

He's not the sort of guy who walks off the street and into the HR office every day, and he's going to be hard to replace. At any rate, the position is not easy to fill, one of the prerequisites is not being scared of the dark.