THE POLYNOWSKI FILES: A Short Story

Rudolph Polynowski had worked for Syders Home Maintenance and Landscape for only a short while and had come on board about two weeks after Julie had been hired.  Julie is the Office Manager.  Polynowski had been hired to replace a Harris or Harold Way who had been fired by Mr. Syders, reportedly after several complaints from clients. 

She couldn’t remember the man’s given name for sure.  Most of the employee called him Bubba and she hadn’t been there long enough to really get acquainted before he was let go.  She probably hadn’t spoken to him more than a dozen times and very few seemed to miss him. 

He’d been considered somewhat on the uncouth side with a locker room mouth and an eye for the ladies.  The sad thing was, this Way fellow was a top notch landscaper.  You couldn’t even begin to compare this Way fellow and Rudolph.  They were as different as night and day but Rudolph apparently knew and could do his job as well or maybe even better than Way.  He just had a much softer personality.  This was how Julie saw it. 

One thing she did know, folks might forget Bubba in time but no one at Syders will ever forget Rudolph.  He might have been different but he sure had left an indelible mark on Syders Home Maintenance and Landscape.   

Rudolph Polynowski had a passion for gardening and had been hired to supervise the companies gardening and landscaping crews just a couple days after Way had been let go.  Rudolph was apparently a friend of a friend of Mrs. Syders and had been unemployed for some time due to some health issues but was able to work full time again now and Mr. Syders had given Way’s position to Rudolph Polynowski without even an interview first or a formal application or resume’ though they had been added to his files since, just for the record.  

Rumor was that this Harris or Harold was suspected of stealing company property as well but as far as Julie knew no charges had ever been filed.  There hadn’t been anything on the news or in the papers.  There had been a young gardener let go at about the same time and some of the employees said the two of them had probably been working together.  The kid was some sort of computer hack and had been messing with the company accounts.  He’d been caught in the act by Mr. Syders himself.  There had been a bunch of break-ins recently, not excluding Syders.