*This is a work of nonfiction based on actual events I witnessed firsthand; used with permission.
I was working at the local grocery store when I noticed something strange: there were fruit flies everywhere. I asked one of my coworkers what was going on, and she told me they had been having a problem with food waste.
Apparently, some of the employees had been tossing unsold food behind the shelves, where it would rot and attract pests. I was shocked that anyone would do such a thing. Not only is it incredibly wasteful, but it's also unhealthy and unsanitary.
I got my first job halfway through my last year of high school. In retrospect, I wish I hadn't joined the workforce until after graduation. At the time, I thought working part-time at the local grocery store would be a fun way to meet new people.
Unfortunately, not everyone I met was worth knowing. For example, there were these two women who always worked together. Their principal focus seemed to be underperforming everyone else at the job. That was the one thing at which they excelled.
Among their time-and-energy-saving tricks was this. Instead of walking to the produce department to put away grapes, apples, bananas, cabbage, cauliflower, and other fruits and vegetables that customers had abandoned at the cash register, they tossed them high into the air and allowed them to fall in the spaces between the shelving units.
This maneuver saved them a lot of time and steps at the end of the night, but it created a cloud of fruit flies that lingered above the scene of the subterfuge for weeks.
One night, I caught my coworkers in the act, but I didn't say anything. It was two against one, and I had no idea whom the manager would believe. Besides, other employees had known about it before I did, and they hadn't said a word. The managers remained clueless.
"Where did all these fruit flies come from?" the night manager lamented. "There must be something stuck behind these shelves." He was right; he just didn't know it.
It wasn't my job to tell him. I was only a part-time employee, and I didn't want to make waves. But it did bother me that these women were getting away with something so unethical.
A few weeks later, I quit my job at the grocery store for good. I didn't have another job lined up, but I couldn't stand working there anymore.
For a long time, I didn't talk about what I had witnessed at the grocery store. I was ashamed that I hadn't said anything sooner. But eventually, I realized that remaining silent wasn't going to change anything. If anything, it would only enable the women to keep doing what they were doing.
So, I decided to write a letter to the store manager. In it, I detailed what I had seen and how it made me feel. I didn't name the women by name. That was up to him to figure out.
I never received a response, but at least I had spoken up. And maybe, just maybe, my letter helped put an end to the fruit fly fiasco.
What would you have done?
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