Will Have To Put A Freeze On Your Day Off

(I’m the only pregnant employee on staff currently but happen to have worked there for nearly seven years. I work in the grocery section of the store primarily but know a great deal about other departments especially involving maintenance. Defrosting the freezers takes an hour of defrosting plus the time for the removal of the food and shelving, getting a hose and hot water hooked up, and then cleaning it all up and putting it all back together. It’s a two-person job — one for the actual defrosting and one to run a shop vac to the drain and back to the freezer to remove the water as the hot water melts the ice. Each section of the freezer has to be done about once every five to eight months depending on how healthy the cooling units are.)

Me: “Hey, these frozen doors are getting warmer. You might want to defrost them before it gets critical.”

Freezer Department: “Yeah, I was gonna see how it looked tomorrow—” *Friday* “—and do it then.”

(Friday comes:)

Boss: “Hey! Can you come in and defrost the freezers? The freezer department started it but had to be someplace.”

Me: “If I don’t do it on my day off I’m gonna have to do it the morning of our busiest day of the week—” *Saturday* “—aren’t I?”

Boss: “Probably…”

Me: “I’ll be right in.”

(And that is why I make several dollars more than the entry-level employees.)