As part of my parole, I had to get a job.
“And that’s how you fix a fence with rubber bands and industrial tape,” Willard says to me.
“That’s it?” I asked. “That’s all you’re gonna do here at Helen Krumpf Elementary School? This place has swingsets without seats! They’re just chains dangling about! There’s no handicap parking spaces, the slides have cracks in them, that see-saw has a broken spring, the basketball hoops don’t have nets, and ALL you do is fix ONE fence?!”
“Hey, it’s not MY responsibility to fix everything,” Willard answered. “I just get paid.”
“YES, it is!!” I snapped back. “You’re getting paid to FIX this place, not to SLACK OFF!!”
“Don’t worry,” Willard replied. “This place has been like this for SO long that NO ONE will notice that I didn’t fix anything!”
“How can you GET AWAY with NOT WORKING?!” I screamed.
“Unions, my boy. Unions.”
“What?”
“You see,” Willard begins as he wraps his arm around my back, “The public employee unions have created a situation where we can demand more money and less regulation from the city, and since the schools are so terrible, they HAVE to pay us more so the schools can be fixed. But since they watch over us less and less, we start to slack off more and more, and the schools STILL don’t get fixed. So we demand MORE money to fix schools, and when they give it to us, we STILL don’t fix anything and demand MORE money, and since they’re so desperate, they forget all about last time and give us MORE money!! It’s a never ending spiral of corruption and lies, all while the schools stay in disrepair. It benefits us, really.”

“THAT’S WRONG!!”
“Who cares?! No one has found out yet!”
“I’m gonna go tell the city council that YOU’RE the reason the schools are so terrible, and I’ll make sure this’ll get on national television!!”
“MY fault?! It’s the union’s!!”
“Then how come YOU didn’t do ANYTHING about it?!”
“I...I… just get in the truck! We need to leave!”
“I’m NOT going with you, you tax money parasite!!”
Willard gets in the truck and shouts profanities at me as he leaves.
Good riddance, I thought. Then I realize I don’t have a ride back to the depot. Willard just left me here.

As I walk along the tree-shaded road dotted with old low-class houses, I spot a man crying in front of a large factory. There was a sign next to the man that read: Kgeres Microwave Lasagna Factory is recruiting new workers now. Apply online.
“They just forced us out like we were rats,” the man cried.
“What’s wrong?” I asked the man.
“The manager at that factory just massively laid off almost EVERYONE who worked there,” the man explained, pointing at the factory behind him. It had a few broken windows, some exposed brick, and a large sign on top that read: “Kgeres Microwave Lasagna Manufacturing”. The smokestacks were noticeably not emitting any smoke.
  “He found out we were trying to start a union, and the next day he announced a surprise layoff of almost a hundred workers,” the man continued. “Doesn’t he know any courtesy like telling us ahead of time we’ll lose our jobs? Doesn’t he know some of us have families to feed?”
I can see where this is going, I thought to myself.
“He barely pays anyone above minimum wage!” the man went on. “All I wanted to do was get better working conditions! Sure, there may be some terrible unions, but that doesn’t mean WE should suffer! Now I don’t have a job, and the factory is closed. The irony is, the manager feared our union would shut down the factory because our demands are too high, but the factory still closed because he fired EVERYONE, and no one is left there to work!!”
“That’s sad,” I admitted. I started walking away.
“Hey, you’re a city employee, right?” the man called back at me.
I turned around in shock. “How do you know?”
“You’re wearing a bright green vest with reflective orange stripes with Eleanor City Maintenance Employee on the back.” the man replied. “Anyway, be thankful that you have an evil, corrupt union working to lavish you with benefits.”
“Dude, I never ASKED to be a city employee, it’s part of my parole-”
“I SAID, be thankful someone out there is willing to waste taxpayer money on people like you, while I starve because someone greedy refused to pay us a more survivable wage!!”
“Um, thanks,” I replied as I started running.

The fall leaves, bright and scattered on the ground, did not deter me from thinking aboot the man I spoke to. Perhaps there is a path all unions take to become so corrupt? Maybe it’s just public unions. Or maybe all unions will turn out this way. Who knows? I’m not an economist, I’m just some dude on parole for some crime I won’t specify.
As the midday sun beamed its rays of light, warmth, and sunshine, the winds blew the leaves about in an erratic fashion, and the high school in the distance rang the end-of-the-lunch bell to all of the students stuck in the crumbling, failing schools, all I could think was: The walk back to the depot was longer that I thought.