I shouted into my phone, certain I couldn’t be heard over the din of the construction site.
‘What the hell are you talking about?’ I roared. ‘What do you mean the steel is gone?’
‘Someone came and took it away,’ my foreman replied, sounding for all the world like a great weight had been lifted off his shoulders. ‘It was a close one, boss. We almost used some bad steel before that guy came along.’
‘Bad steel?’ I asked, eye twitching slightly. ‘Bad steel?! We do not use bad steel! We use the best steel, from a local Melbourne steel fabrication company that only provides the highest quality product! Obviously!’
There was silence on the other end of the phone, as the cogs whirred away in his small brain.
‘Wait a second… are you saying…’
‘He stole your steel, idiot!’ I screamed, too impatient to let him arrive at the conclusion himself. ‘You got conned by the oldest trick in the book!’
‘But he was… he had a …’ panic had set into the foreman’s voice. ‘He had a clipboard!’
I briefly left my body, consumed by fantasies of what I could do to the foreman with a clipboard.
‘So tell me,’ I hissed into the receiver. ‘Where can I get quality steel products around Melbourne? Cheaply too, because heaven knows we don’t have the budget anymore!’
‘I-I don’t know,’ he stammered at me. ‘Steel procurement has always been, uh… well, I suppose…’
‘My department?!’ I hollered. I swear I heard him drop the phone, but I didn’t care. ‘My department? Is that what you were going to say? Because if you were about to tell me that finding steel is my job, that can only mean that you think I somehow let poor-quality steel onto our site? Is that what you think?’
This time he had the good sense not to make any noise. The fun had drained out of tormenting him, so I hung up without saying goodbye.
‘Idiot,’ I muttered. I turned back to the frozen-still worksite, every pair of eyes locked on me excitedly.
‘Back to work!’ I growled, and they quickly complied.