And then the roof fell in......

7:50 am - Tuesday - August 7th - Southwest Harbor, ME - 75º F (not a good sign for it to be so warm so early), 83% humidity, wind 3 mph out of the south by southwest......clear blue skies with a forecast high of 81º F.   

Monday was a hot, humid day here in Southwest Harbor that subtly belied what the events about to unfold.  The temp got up to 86º F, but it felt like it was in the 90's.  There was a little breeze first thing in the morning, but by 10 am it had stopped, and the air became heavy, heavy, still, oppressive.......and we, being the mortal human beings we are, began to sweat until our shirts were soaked through and through with perspiration.  

What, you might ask, did the hot, humid weather portend?  By 10:30 am two of our well liked co-workers had quit over an incident which had occurred the day prior between 3 of us (Alex, Tammy, and I) and the owner's husband.  We love working Sundays precisely because the owners are not here micro managing our every move.  Don't get me wrong, it is certainly their prerogative to manage their park the way they wish.  You either accept that, and take the paycheck, or you don't and stop taking the paycheck.  Nonetheless, we really enjoy Sundays precisely because they are not there.  We don't have to be looking over our shoulder wondering if we have inadvertently broken some unspoken rule.  

So, what happened?  Tammy, Alex and I were collecting trash as we do every day between 10 and 11 am.  As I wrote yesterday, we had only been able to clean 4 sites up until 10:45 am when we saw several RV's departing the campground indicating to us there were more sites to be cleaned immediately.  We figured we could get 4-5 more sites cleaned before our lunch break leaving Alex with 7, or 8 to clean after lunch, so we parked the company truck, jumped in our golf carts and managed to get 5 more sites cleaned in just 15 minutes......a good thing, right?

I was driving the company truck at the time we parked it out near the entrance to the park, and since I knew no one else would need to use the truck (the owners were not there) while we were at lunch, kept the key instead of returning it to the garage.  I was in the middle of lunch when I saw the Todd and his wife (her family owns the campground) drive up in her Ford Expedition.  I saw Todd exit the vehicle and walk over to our coach.  We opened the door and asked him what he needed.  He proceeded to give me a tongue lashing about parking the company truck near the entrance with black trash bags in the pickup bed, and then continued scolding me for not returning the key to the 'garage'.  Of course, I'm thinking "If you weren't here on your day off you wouldn't need the key to the truck so you could move it".  He and his wife were apparently driving into Southwest Harbor for brunch when they saw the truck parked out by the entrance with the the aforementioned black trash bags in the pickup bed.  Instead of acting like normal people, and just calling one of us and saying "Hey, we would prefer the truck not be parked out by the entrance with trash bags in the back, would you please move it?", they decided to come into the park and yell at all three of us......I was the last one of the three to be the beneficiary of their combined wrath over this 'egregious' infraction......think 'mountains out of molehills'. 

I was stunned, as were my co-workers.....we had never been told this was a no, no.  We thought we were doing something good by rushing to help Alex get 5 more sites cleaned, and somehow ran afoul of some unwritten, unspoken rule.  When I returned from lunch I found Tammy is a very foul mood......she was livid.  It takes me a while to come to a boil, but I was getting there quickly.  In just minutes a wonderful, happy Sunday was turned upside down, and we were all upset.

That morning we had discovered a leak in the kiddie pool, and Todd had been notified, so after he and his wife finished brunch he returned in his work truck to fix it.  Well, when Tammy saw he had come back she went into the 'garage' to confront him about how he and his wife had treated us.  It was not pretty, but, apparently, Todd had apologized to Tammy, and then Alex, but not me.  Tammy was ready to quit, but after the somewhat positive outcome she had decided to stay.  

Monday morning I pulled Todd aside shortly after clocking in for the day to tell him he had come close to losing 5 employees on Sunday with his unwarranted verbal assault.  He proceeded to apologize to me and I was thinking "Good, he's admitting he was wrong, and we can go on from here"......then the big BUT came......he said, "BUT, if you hadn't parked the truck there I would not have had to get mad"......kind of like the domestic abuser apologizing to his wife for beating the hell out of her, and then adding...."BUT, if you hadn't done what you did I would not have gotten mad and hit you"........uh oh!  He then pretty much proceed to say he was the owner and would run the campground the way he wanted and wasn't going to be held hostage by people threatening to quit.....it was then I knew it was over.  He had no clue it wasn't about how he runs the campground.....he and his wife do a great job of that....it's about how you treat your employees, and they are not good at that at all.

Within 20 minutes Tammy and Karen had quit and were packing to leave......two hours later Tony had quit and went home.  By 5 pm TLE and I had decided to quit......so five people, in the space of a few hours have quit, and there may be more.  I can't believe I am writing that.

TLE and I are at peace, and have already found a place were we can move our Newell, and take a couple of weeks to figure out what is next.  We're going to check around MDI to see if we can find another campground job for the next two months, or we may just just accept the offer of our friends to stay on their property indefinitely, and just spend the next month doing all the hikes and exploring we have not done yet.  It's all good, and I can feel my blood pressure going down.  You see, this is the wonderful thing about having wheels on your home.......you can change your view and be happy again.

And that, my friends, was our Monday......thanks for stopping by!

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