Backhoe

The County finally caved into Equal Opportunity pressures and hired a young woman—for the heavy equipment crew!  The foreman, a grizzled, uneducated, twenty year veteran, may have grumbled somewhat under his breath—but he knew a woman on his crew was probably inevitable . . . so he gave it a deep sigh.  With resolve, he decided to meet this task head-on and give it his all, just like he did when all of the other surprises this job seemed to dish out on a regular basis were plopped into his lap.  He would put his head down, put one foot in front of the other, and give it 110%!

            On her first day on the job, the crew was just completing a dig to repair a leaking water line.  The foreman took this opportunity to instruct his comely young charge on the safe and proper use of the backhoe—a piece of equipment so named because it was a tractor with a large bucket on the front for scooping dirt, and a clawed, smaller bucket (the “hoe”) on the back end, mounted on jointed hydraulic arms, for digging precise trenches in the soil.

            They were through using the backhoe, but had yet to load it onto the trailer used to haul it back to the County yard.  The foreman instructed the wide-eyed young miss, who could barely be seen peeking out from under what seemed to be an enormously large hard hat, to “come with me” over behind the bushes to where the backhoe was parked.

            The veteran’s intent was strictly professional, and although he figured this girl would quit the rough environment of the equipment crew’s daily routine before week’s end, he diligently resolved to instruct her on the safe operation of this particular piece of digging equipment, just like he would with any new male recruit.

            Unnoticed by the foreman, who was intent on a job he deep-down felt was fruitless, the girl was becoming more reluctant and uneasy the further they got away from the group of workers.  The foreman motioned the girl around, not only behind the bushes to where the backhoe was parked, but also to the backside of the backhoe, where he hoped the noise and drone of the work crew would at least be muffled enough that his young charge could hear what he had to say.  It wasn’t registering with the grizzled foreman, who was preoccupied with the organization of his impending instructions, that in this situation his new female employee was as anxious as a cat on a hot tin roof!

            The foreman turned to face her, then took a step closer to be better heard, and in his matter-of-fact-un-educated-rural-drawl, he looked the now-scared-out-of-her-mind girl right in the eye and began his instruction in earnest.

            “Now, on yer back hoe . . . “ he began.

            The girl screamed and whirled around, throwing her arms into the air as she raced from the job site!  Before noon, the befuddled and now shocked old foreman was notified that he was being sued for sexual harassment.