I often think back to the late 1980's, when I owned a shop in Church Street, Ilfracombe. The UK was in a recession, so I took an evening job at a local holiday park, cleaning. I was the only male cleaner working with about a dozen women, eight of us working on a shift pattern. The job started every evening with all the cleaners meeting at the swimming pool by a small store room. Then there was a five minute walk to the other side of the camp site to the main store room, to collect cleaning materials for that evening's work. The bleach, disinfectant etc, would then be carried through the car park, back to the small store room near the swimming pool. In total, twenty minutes would be spent each evening doing this. The real work would then commence. Cleaning the swimming pool changing rooms, the cafeteria, through to the offices, finally finishing by the main store room. Everyone would then return to the small store room to put away the cleaning materials and collect their coats before going home.
After a month or so, the supervisor, was to have a week off, and due to my hard work, I was recommended to be supervisor on the days the assistant supervisor would be off. This promoted me above people who had worked there for years in some cases.
On my days as supervisor, at the end of the shift, to save time the next evening, I would not only carry back the unused cleaning products, I would go to the main store to collect enough products for the next evening as well. I would carry them through the car park to the small store room, where our coats were, thus saving twenty minutes the next evening, allowing more cleaning to be completed. Simple, but brilliant! Except........
Me being made assistant supervisor had gone down badly with the other women, and so they planned their revenge.
They saw me walking each evening through the car park with the disinfectant. One evening, they told the security man, I was stealing the stuff. They must have said that I did this at the end of each evening, and that I would put the disinfectant in my car. So that evening the security guard watched me carrying disinfectant though the car park, towards my car. If he'd waited, he would have seen me walk past my car to the small storeroom, but no, he stopped and accused me of stealing.
I was marched to the Managing Director's office where he explained what he had seen me do. I explained what had really happened. The Managing Director didn't believe me. He told the security man to get all the other cleaners into his office. They all told him they had seen me putting disinfectant in my car every evening. I was completely stitched up, sacked on the spot, banned from ever setting foot on the campsite again.
There is a moral to the story, but I have no idea what it is!