For the record, I am the paint dept. manager and I had hired “G” about 6 months ago. For the past 2 weeks we haven't had much to do on my side of the shop. We are a small company, 10ppl, and sometimes my department will have some down time while we wait for carpenters/welders to finish a project. During the slow time we will clean our area and pretty much just do our own thing while staying inconspicuous. Since I have an office it's easy for me to disappear, but not as much for G. We also have a small graphic dept. that I run and I've been teaching G about vinyl and stuff the past couple weeks.
My boss, the VP of the company, asked me to tell G to mow the grass this morning before it got hot since we have no other work. I hated doing it, but I told G and he replied that if he wanted, he could leave and find a mowing job in 30 minutes and he wasn't going to do it. He said that he would rather go home than mow. I had to let the VP know. He told me to send the guy home and we'd call when he's needed. Which probably means never.
I respect the shit out of G. I wish I was in a position in life that I could walk out with him. I will definitely be calling him as soon as we have work available if he hasn't been black-listed at the shop.