"There won't be much work this afternoon. We got most of it out this morning."
"It's some new bug. Like that flu thing last winter." But Ernie's voice, as he said it, was defensive. In Ernie's book, a layoff was a bad thing.
Inside, Ernie's mind began to calculate the possibilities. It was a thing Ernie's mind always did when it was confronted with the unexpected. His mind didn't like to work, but Ernie liked the unforeseen even less.
It was unlikely that the entire plant would be shut down. In that case what supervisors would want him to stay on? He ran through the list of his superiors and immediately came to Rogers.
Ernie winced. After this morning, Rogers would post him for the layoff for sure. He could take it to the union, but—Ernie stopped and looked suspiciously at Jory.
Did Jory know about the beef he had this morning with Rogers? Come to think of it, Ernie didn't know there was going to be a layoff. Was Jory just needling him?
He looked around the cafeteria again. The tables on the edges of the floor were deserted and empty. To Ernie's eyes it suddenly looked as if the men who were eating had purposely gathered so they could be close together. They sat with their backs hunched, turned on the empty spaces behind them.
Even the noise, compared to the usual din of the cafeteria, seemed to be different. It echoed and fell flat. Ernie didn't like it. He felt funny. The overly familiar cafeteria had suddenly become strange.
A feeling began to grow in him that, somehow, the cafeteria was wrong. "It ... looks funny," he said.
Jory became alert. "What looks funny?"