James The Enforcer

Every chaotic place eventually produces someone who believes in the rules.

There were two ways to survive our floor.

You could learn which rules mattered, which ones didn’t, and when to look the other way.

Or you could be James.

James didn’t look the other way.

Ever.

In a place held together by improvisation, favors, judgment calls, and whatever solution got us through the next eight hours, James believed rules existed for a reason.

All of them.

Even the stupid ones.

And God help you if he found a banana peel in your trash can.

**Names, locations, institutions, and identifying details have been changed or fictionalized to protect privacy. Some characters may be composites. These pieces are creative nonfiction based on lived experience, memory, and reflection.**

Dress to Impress

James was one of the best and worst supervisors we ever had. I mean that literally. You wanted something done right? James. You wanted the rules followed to the letter, no shortcuts, no exceptions? James. You wanted to feel like a grown adult who didn’t need your trash can inspected like contraband? Definitely not James.

He was military-minded without ever being military—order, structure, routine. If Jenna and I were the duct tape and Velcro holding the floor together with flexibility, James was the steel rod shoved up its spine. When we were out? He ran the floor like a Swiss clock. Shifts were tight, call metrics solid, everything by the book.

But damn if he wasn’t brutal.

We had a rule: no eating at desks. Most supervisors would let it slide if you were quiet about it—just don’t leave crumbs, don’t be stupid. Not James. If he thought you were eating, he’d wait till you left and dig through your trash to prove it. Banana peel? Wrapper? Plastic fork? Boom—write-up. Not because he was on a power trip. It wasn’t about control. He genuinely believed everyone should follow the rules exactly, all the time. Like he was holding the line for civilization itself.

The collectors hated it. And honestly? So did I, sometimes.

Especially when I had to handle the fallout. When a confrontation blew up and I had to walk over, already exhausted, knowing James had probably just staged another public execution in the town square while I was trying to keep the village from burning down.

But here’s the thing—James wasn’t wrong. He kept the place from falling apart. He wasn’t cruel. He wasn’t mean. He was absolute. And in a workplace as chaotic and emotionally messy as a call center, sometimes absolute is the only thing that holds.

Still… I always checked my trash before he walked by. Just in case.

I bent rules to keep the people going.

James enforced them to keep the place going.

Somehow, we needed both.

James and I were never going to manage the same way.

I saw gray areas everywhere. He seemed personally offended by their existence.

At the time, that drove me insane.

Looking back, I understand him better.

A place like ours needed people willing to improvise, forgive, bend, and occasionally pretend they hadn’t seen the sandwich somebody was eating behind their monitor.

But chaos has a price, too.

Sometimes you need someone willing to be the steel rod in the spine of the whole damn thing—even if everyone checks their trash can when they see him coming.

Working the Floor is an ongoing Bent But True memoir series about collections, survival, dark humor, and the people who somehow kept an impossible workplace running.