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Right now, it looked like his foreman had moved Llew from traffic control to unloading and distributing materials, he was currently erecting concrete forms for the scaffolding. Jack must’ve gotten more information on Llew’s work experience, because that job required a certain level of knowledge and skill to do right. It also required him to work closely with the other guys. Shane noticed that his crew wasn’t communicating with Llew and it’d caused a couple of problems. It was Jack’s business to handle those issues and Shane didn’t override his foreman’s authority.
“Tony! Joe! Get your asses down here!” Jack yelled, moving around the half-built scaffold. “What is the deal with you two? Didn’t you hear Llew say to hold on to that two by four before you released it? Are you trying to kill someone?” Jack barked at his guys.
Shane cringed when he saw the board in question clip Llew on the side of his hard hat. If he hadn’t acted quickly, the board would have knocked him out, hard hat or not. Llew was standing off to the side, his hand squeezing and releasing the back of his neck as if he were trying to calm himself. Shane wouldn’t intervene, but god knows he wanted to go over there and tell those guys they could pick up their last checks at the end of the week. When Llew turned back around, he met Shane’s eyes. Damnit. He knew the man was strong, but the treatment he was receiving at the hands of the crew was bordering on ridiculous. How could Llew possibly work on a site where he couldn’t trust the men to have his back? That’s how injuries and casualties happened on job sites.
“He should speak up then. Not that anyone cares what he’s saying, but I didn’t hear him, Jack!” Tony yelled.
“Well maybe you should carry your ass home until you can hear. Go on! Get the hell off my site!” Jack barked, throwing his hand over his shoulder.
“What the hell? Are you serious?”
“Do I look serious?” Jack stepped closer to make his point.
Tony threw his hard hat to the ground, stomping off towards where they’d parked their vehicles. He knew better than to go to Shane. During all the years Jack had been Shane’s foreman, he’d never reversed one of the man’s decisions.
“I need this scaffold done today. Let’s go! Daylight’s burning.” After they saw what happened to Tony, everyone quickly got back to work. This time working as a crew, like they were supposed to. By lunchtime, things were running smoothly.
Jack grabbed his lunch pail out of his truck and met Shane in the trailer. Jack started to talk before Shane could utter a word. “I know what you’re about to say, so save it. Llew’s gonna have to find his own footing. I can’t send home every guy that gives him shit, but I think I made the point this morning, they know now that bullshit won’t be tolerated on my site.”
“I’m not disputing you did the right thing. I just—” Shane yanked his hat off, slamming it down on his desk. Jack took one of the chairs and pulled it up to the other side, and began pulling sandwiches out of his box. “What the hell was I thinking? They’re gonna try to kill him. I can’t let that happen.”
“Calm down, Scarlett. Let the man be a man. Personally, I don’t know what the hell it is with you and lost souls, but if you want to save Llew’s, let him win the guys over on his own. You can’t force it because you’re the boss; that would only end up making him resent you for emasculating him.”
Shane cocked an eyebrow at his best friend. “Are you fuckin’ Dr. Phil now? What makes you an expert?” he asked, turning back to watch out the window as the guys situated themselves around the site for lunch. Most guys brought theirs from home to save on time and money, but a few preferred to go off-site for a hot meal.
While he watched his crew, Jack went on about the OSHA rep he’d met with after work the day before. “We gotta get the guys to Wilson in a couple days for their next training seminar and test, or we’ll have to postpone starting the new building for a couple of weeks until we can get a rep to come to Henderson.”
“Goddamnit! Why the hell do we have to go through this now? All my forklift operators have OSHA certifications,” Shane barked. “We can’t postpone. Especially for two fuckin’ weeks!”
“True. But you have a shitload of new employees who are around forklifts all day, and they don’t have OSHA certs… so stop whining and suck it up. I already have Jessie checking on hotels for a night. We’ll go down Friday afternoon after work; stay overnight, and be up the next morning for the class at seven. We don’t want to risk any of the guys not being able to make it down Saturday morning, or being late for the class and having to wait to do it in a couple weeks.”
