6. Jordan

Jordan

" T he new foreman is a lady?" someone whispered loud enough that I heard it up here.

I resisted the urge to roll my eyes. After so many years working as one of the only women in manufacturing, I was used to getting this reaction. I'd fought tooth and nail to move into a leadership role and done well enough at my last place that they'd offered me a generous incentive to move here to Texas to replace someone who'd been encouraged to retire. Encouraged because his team wasn't meeting all their benchmarks. Or any of them, really.

I had a lot of experience turning around teams like this, having done so several times at my previous factory, but I wasn't sure if I'd made the right decision relocating like this. Small town Texas was like a different country compared to the urban area of Michigan I'd come from. I'd heard that the men down here were much more stubborn about gender expectations than the men up North, but then again, I wasn't one to back down from a challenge either.

"Hello everyone."

I stood up straight and made my voice loud and strong as I met the eyes of several of the workers.

"Thank you David for that warm welcome. I just moved here from Detroit, where I was the head foreman at your sister factory. I have over twenty years of manufacturing experience and I'm trained in Lean Six Sigma. I'm looking forward to getting to know you all and helping this team improve its efficiency and meet its manufacturing benchmarks."

I heard a few grumbles in the back as people heard my underlying message. I'd been brought here to clean things up and increase their productivity. Not everyone would like that, especially from a woman foreman, and I knew from experience those would be the ones who challenged me the most.

"You'll find I'm a tough but fair supervisor. I'll spend my first week shadowing the team to get an idea on how you guys do things here while I get to know you. Then we can talk about next steps. In the meantime I'll let you all get to work now."

I glanced down at the crowd again, seeing the guy I'd locked eyes with earlier. He was young and hot and tall, with broad shoulders and bulging biceps. He had short dark hair and a neatly trimmed goatee. I wasn't normally a fan of facial hair, but on this guy, it looked good. Not that it was something for me to think about. He was part of my team, and judging by that baby face, way too young for me anyway.

I came from a long line of non-traditional workers. My grandmother was a factory worker in World War II, and my mother was one of the first women to work on a construction crew back home in Detroit. Women in my family were hard as nails, strong as hell, and had one important credo: "Don't shit where you eat." Nothing ruined your reputation as a woman in a non-traditional field like getting romantically involved with your coworkers.

David Weston jumped down from the pallet we were standing on, probably eager to return to the admin offices with all the other suits. Ignoring his hand, I hopped down on my own, landing easily a few feet away from the hot young guy. Most of the workers had dispersed, but he remained in place, watching me with an unnerving stare.

"Did you need something?" I asked, adding a touch of sternness to my voice.

"Yes ma'am," he said politely.

He had a Texas twang that I quite liked.

"I just got transferred over here from another area, so I wanted to introduce myself. I'm Jim Alvarez, I'll be covering the forklift for the next three months while your regular guy is on paternity leave. Today's my first day over here, so I'm gonna need someone to show me how you do things in this sector."

He reached out a hand and I shook it automatically. I wasn't a small woman, but his large hand completely engulfed mine, warm and strong. For some reason, his touch made me feel a little off kilter. I pulled my hand away and resisted the urge to wipe it on my pants, as if that would make the tingling go away.

"I can show him around and get him set up since you just got here and all," another guy offered. "I'm John, by the way. I'm also certified on the forklift if you need back-up."

I'd been so focused on Jim I hadn't even noticed the other worker was still hanging around too.

"Thank you, John," I said to the guy. "I appreciate that."

As I watched him walk away with Jim I had the strangest feeling, like I was in big trouble. My instincts said I should stay as far away from Jim as I could, but that wasn't going to be possible given that I was technically his supervisor. I'd just have to minimize contact as much as possible until this – lust or whatever I was feeling about him – went away.

"You might keep an eye on Alvarez," David said, pulling me out of my thoughts. "He has issues taking anything seriously. Always has a joke or a smartass comment."

"He seemed pretty serious today," I observed.

"Maybe he's starting to grow up," David responded, clearly not giving a shit either way. "I've got to get back to the office. Ping me if you need anything."

My first week flew by quickly. As I promised, I spent most of my time observing the team and writing my observations down in my notebook. I was pleased to see that most of the team were okay, or about seventy-five percent of them anyway. They knew their jobs, they worked hard, and they seemed interested in their work, although they were sorely in need of some training and process improvement.

Despite David Weston's warning, I quickly realized that Jim Alvarez was a good worker who took his job seriously, unlike a lot of the older guys on the team.

I'd already determined that one of the biggest problems with this team's performance was that there was a group of troublemakers, all of whom were middle aged men who'd been friends of the former foreman and gotten special treatment. They'd all worked at the factory for years, and clearly had mastered the art of doing the least amount of work possible while still looking busy. This group of lazy jerks were essentially bringing the entire team down, and I was going to have to deal with it. Quickly.

About a week after I started, I caught one of these guys chastising another team member for working too hard.

"Who you tryin' to impress, the new lady foreman?" the man sneered. "You'll make us all look bad working so fast, then we're all gonna get higher quotas because of you."

When the troublemaker saw me walking up to them, all he did was smirk. Even though he knew I'd heard the conversation, he was clearly thinking I wasn't going to stand up to him or hold him accountable. He thought wrong.

"Davis, I'm going to need you to focus less on what your coworkers are doing and more on yourself. I will not tolerate sand bagging on my team," I said firmly. "I won't hesitate to write you up for not meeting your quotas or harassing your coworkers. Now get back to work."

He gave me an angry glare, muttering ‘ bitch' as he walked away.

"That's your one and only warning, Davis," I called after him. "Keep your opinions to yourself."

I'd learned the hard way that letting things like that pass only led to more problems in the future. Davis stalked away, and judging by the angry looks I was getting from his friends working on the line with him, he hadn't hesitated to tell them what happened.

I looked at my other team member. "Keep up the good work, Ruiz."

"Thank you, ma'am."

One thing about these Texans, they loved to drop a ‘ma'am'. I'd never been called ma'am even once back at my factory in Detroit.

As I turned to walk back down the line and check on the other workers, I felt someone's eyes on me. Even before I looked over, I knew it was Jim. He was a hard worker, but somehow he seemed to be everywhere, watching me. Not in a creepy I'll peel off your skin and store you in my freezer kind of way, more in a you're beautiful and fascinating and I can't take my eyes off you kind of way.

Then again, I always had a vivid imagination.

I strode over to him, irritated at both myself and him about the way he made me lose my focus on work. He was sitting in the forklift, having just brought in a pallet that was stacked high with boxes of parts. Jim spent most of his day moving things back and forth between the loading dock, the storage rooms, and this section of the factory floor, or loading and unloading the boxes he transported. It was hard, physical work, but it didn't seem to bother him at all. The guy was strong as an ox.

"Do you need something, Alvarez?" I asked, raising an eyebrow.

"No ma'am," he said.

Again with the ma'am. His words were polite but something about his crooked smile and the sparkle in his eyes said he found something about me amusing. It made me want to smack him.

"I was just dropping off this here pallet of supplies," he explained. "Now I'm headin' to the packaging area to see if they're ready for me to clear things out for them and transport some products to the loading dock."

"Then get back to work," I snapped.

I wasn't normally a person who snapped at people. As a woman in a non-traditional field, I tried very hard not to be perceived as overly emotional. But something about my forklift driver made me act out of character.

Jim's smile deepened as he shifted gears, still watching me as he sent the forklift into reverse. The machine made a beeping noise as he backed up in an arc – right towards a cement post.

"Watch out!" I cried, but it was too late.

There was the sharp sound of metal on cement as the back bumper of the machine hit the post and dented, sending Jim's body lurching forward, then backward from the impact. Thinking fast, he put the machine into park to keep it from pushing against the post.

"Oh shit," Jim groaned, wincing.

"Don't move!"

I ran over to him, verifying that the machine was indeed in park, then I reached into the cab to turn off the engine. Jim stared straight ahead, looking shocked and possibly a little green, although maybe it was the fluorescent lights.

"Are you hurt, Alvarez?" I asked, my heart racing.

When he didn't answer, I touched his arm to get his attention. Just like when we shook hands on my first day here, electricity arced between us as soon as we touched. His eyes dropped to his arm, then flew up to mine. He groaned again.

"Are you in pain?" I asked. "Did you hurt yourself?"

"No, I'm fine," he said. "But damn it, you're gonna have to write me up for that, aren't you? There goes my perfect safety record."