The experience at the cabin affected Dexter more than he could have expected. While living at the cabin had been a great break, he knew that he had been trying to hold onto a moment that couldn't last. The trip to Carson City had been fun, but a life spent gambling and whoring wasn't exactly his ideal.
With nowhere in the country calling him, Dexter decided that he might as well return to the town where he had lived for so many years. It wasn't that he felt homesick for the place. It was just that he knew where things were, and he was comfortable there.
Dexter made the trip from Carson City back to his home town. He didn't try to make great time since nothing demanded him to reach his destination at a certain time. He chose to stop at any place that looked or sounded interesting. There were a lot of interesting things to see. It took him three weeks to make the trip across country.
On his return, he stayed a couple of nights in a hotel, before signing a lease on a small two bedroom apartment. It was an unfurnished apartment, so he made four separate expeditions to local stores to furnish the apartment with the essentials.
His first expedition focused on the bedroom. Rather than a king size bed, he went with a queen. He got a small dresser to hold his underwear and socks. He purchased a simple bedside table for an alarm clock and a lamp, and had bought an alarm clock and lamp to put on it.
His second shopping expedition was to furnish the living room. He purchased a comfortable recliner, a simple loveseat, and a set of stackable TV trays. He couldn't see filling the living room with much more stuff than that, though he did want the stuff he got to be comfortable.
His third trip was to furnish his 'office' ... ie: the second bedroom. He spent more on the office than the previous two rooms combined. He filled the room with a desk, book cases, computer station, and the nicest leather chair for the desk that he could find. He also spent four hours at an office supply place picking up basic office supplies. He also spent a fortune on a top of the line computer, a printer, and a wireless router. It was at the office supply place that he finally killed the debit card he had gotten from the casino.
His fourth shopping expedition was to furnish the kitchen. That turned out to be: glasses, dishes, silverware, a microwave, coffee maker, and a set of pots and pans. It was a minimal kitchen, but he wasn't all that interested in cooking. He figured that most of his suppers would be microwave meals. If he wanted something a little better than that, he would go to a restaurant.
Leasing and furnishing the apartment had eaten up a week of time. It was just a few days short of being three months since he had been fired. So far he had been drifting without any real goals in mind. There was the idea of trying to start some sort of worker rebellion, but it was still at the idea stage.
He left the house and headed over to his lawyer's office to check up on things. He didn't make an appointment, figuring that if Mark was busy, he would just go somewhere else. Much to his surprise, Mark was out in the front office chatting with the secretary.
"Hello, Mark," Dexter said.
Mark said, "Hey, Dexter. What are you doing here?"
"I just figured I'd swing by and see how things are going," Dexter answered.
"We're making progress on the lawsuit. It looks like we're going to get millions out of it," Mark said with a grin.
Mark had come to like Dexter a lot. It helped that Dexter had dropped so much business in his lap.
"How soon until we see any money?" Dexter asked.
"This one will take more than a year. They are going to try to wear us down," Mark answered.
"That's what I figured," Dexter said.
Dexter stood there in the lobby of the office looking around. Mark could see that the man was kind of at loose ends. From his past conversations with Dexter, he knew that the man didn't have any real friends. He figured Dexter had come to the office just to kill some time in conversation.
Mark said, "Come on back to my office and we'll chat a little."
"Okay," Dexter said.
Mark gestured Dexter to go into the office. Standing behind Dexter, he flashed his hand to the secretary three times to let her know to call him in fifteen minutes. In the office, Mark settled behind his desk, after getting Dexter safely ensconced in a chair.
He asked, "So, what have you been up to?"
"I've been moving into an apartment," Dexter answered.
"You've giving up the nomadic life, eh?"
Dexter shrugged his shoulders and answered, "I guess. I was just kind of drifting around and doing nothing."
"So what are you doing now?" Mark asked.
"Drifting around and doing nothing," Dexter answered.
Mark said, "I still hear from your wife on occasion. She wants to know how to get in touch with you."
"Fuck her," Dexter replied.
"You might think about talking to her," Mark said.
Dexter said, "What in the hell for? She texted me that she wanted a divorce. I file for one and she changes her mind. What in the hell kind of crap is that?"
"I think that might be the reason you need to talk to her," Mark said.
"I don't want to talk to her," Dexter said.
He knew that he sounded like a petulant child, but his feelings were still hurt. He wasn't even sure how he would react to seeing her. Part of him wanted to cry and part of him wanted to hit her. He wasn't sure what part would win.
Mark said, "You need the closure."
"I figure she was fucking some guy and wanted to move in with him. After she told me that she wanted the divorce, the guy backed out," Dexter said.
"You don't know that," Mark said.
He knew that one of the leading causes of divorce was infidelity. It was right up there with a lack of communication and growing apart. He wasn't sure, but he figured that a lack of communication had been a big part of why Janet had asked for a divorce.
"You're right. I didn't hang around long enough to get proof of her cheating ass. I don't care who he was or why she was fucking around," Dexter said.
"How about the kids? Have you talked to them?" Mark asked.
"No. They probably haven't even noticed that I'm gone. They are fine without me," Dexter said.
Mark said, "You can't be serious about that."
"I'm very serious," Dexter said.
The evenings at home had given Dexter ample proof that his kids were totally indifferent to his presence in the house. All attempts at communicating with them had fallen flat. At most, they asked about food. He didn't need their help in feeling like a non-entity.
Mark said, "Do you mind if I go out on a limb here?"
"What?"
Mark said, "It's not my place to say anything, but I fear that you are exhibiting a lot of the classic symptoms of depression."
"Bullshit," Dexter said.
Mark had expected that reaction. Holding up his hands as if to fend off an attack, he said, "Now hear me out before you dismiss my concerns."
"Okay."
"You've been kicked in the gut by your wife, and it wasn't even nice the way she did it. That's a horrible thing to have happen to you. You're embroiled in the middle of a lawsuit, and that's kind of stressful. You've lost your job, and you have given up on your career. That's not an easy change in lifestyle."
"That's true," Dexter said.
The hardest thing to deal with was spare time. Going from having none to having too much was something he hadn't been prepared to handle. He was left just sitting around doing nothing, and unable to think of something to do. All of his failures seemed to come back to haunt him.
Mark said, "You've been drifting for three months without finding anything to interest you. You're lonely, bored, and without direction. That's got to be depressing."
"Maybe you're right," Dexter said surrendering a point. "That doesn't mean I'm crazy."
"I didn't say you were crazy. I just said that you were exhibiting symptoms of depression," Mark said.
"So what do you suggest that I do?" Dexter asked.
"How about visiting a counselor who can help you put some of what's going on in your life, into a different perspective?" Mark asked.
"I don't need to see a shrink," Dexter said affronted by the suggestion.
He was of the mindset that seeing a counselor was something that crazy people did. He might not be feeling too happy, but he hadn't gone insane. Maybe it was his upbringing, but he couldn't help feeling that real men didn't do things like that. A real man would get drunk and then pull himself together to face life.
Stretching the truth a little, Mark said, "I tell most of the folks who are going through a divorce to get a little counseling. You'd be surprised at how much it helps folks deal with changes in their lives to talk to someone who can guide them through their feelings about the matter."
"I don't know," Dexter said.
In a way, he felt partially emasculated from the way in his wife had dumped him. Going to counseling would only finish the job she started.
"You won't be sitting on a couch telling some shrink about your childhood. You'll be telling them about what is ... or in your case, isn't ... going on with your life."
Dexter said, "I'll think about it."
Mark said, "You might think about talking to your kids. They might surprise you."
"I don't know if that would be a good idea," Dexter said.
He could just imagine a discussion with his kids. He'd ask if they missed him and they'd tell him that they hadn't even known he was gone. That would be humiliating.
"Think about it," Mark said.
"I'll do that," Dexter said. He jumped when the phone rang.
Mark answered the phone. After a brief exchange, he put his hand over the mouthpiece and said, "I need to get this call."
Dexter rose from his chair and said, "Okay. I'll talk to you later."
"Great," Mark said.
Dexter left the office and returned home. Once there, he sat in his recliner and thought about the advice Mark had given him. He wasn't interested in talking to his wife. He wasn't sure that talking to the kids would be of much value either. It would be horrible to discover that they hadn't even noticed he was gone. Even if they had noticed, he was sure they didn't care. Learning that for a fact, would be devastating. That left the advice to see a counselor.
Instead of searching for a counselor, he decided that maybe it was time to do something about addressing his anger towards his old company. There was a lot of anger there, based on years of being exploited and used. He also knew that it wasn't just his former employer that treated employees like dirt. He figured there were a lot of others who felt the same way that he did. There had to be a way to reach out to those people, and let them know that they weren't alone.
He went into his office and started trying to put together a website about the current work environment. He sat down at the computer and started typing away. He wasn't even trying to be organized. He just wanted to get some of his initial ideas down.
He wrote about doing the jobs of two people. That little diatribe took up several pages and most of the afternoon. He took a break for dinner and returned to his writing. The text flowed from his fingertips in an effortless stream. He wrote about how new projects were assigned to people without relieving them from their old projects, which were already keeping them occupied full time. He wrote about how companies distributed work performed by one person among the team when that person left the company without replacing that person. He wrote about how changes in procedures added work, without achieving anything of substance.
He felt a lot better after getting all of that vitriol out of his system. He laughed and said, "Counselor, smounselor! I can do this, myself."
For the next few days, he worked until he was tired, and then slept the sleep of the just. There were minor breaks for meals, but not for much else. He covered a lot of topics, covering areas in which salaried workers were exploited. He had come to the conclusion that salaried professional employees were among the most exploited people in the country. Their time cost companies nothing. There were no labor unions to step in and demand better working conditions.
One of his longest rants, dealt with the woes of business travel. He wrote about how travel was performed on the individual's time and not the company's time. He wrote about the hours wasted going through airport security. He described how employees were subsidizing the company with interest free loans, by having to put expenses on their personal cards, and then having to get reimbursed for the charges. He wrote about how companies required receipts for tips, and dismissed some expenses. It was as though the official approach was to require you to spend the money, and then they would decide if it was reimbursable. He described how delays in getting reimbursed, cost employees money.
The shortest rant was about cell phones and data plans. He covered how companies required some managers to have cell phones with data plans so that they could receive critical e-mails when they were away from the office. He biggest gripe was that the company wouldn't pay for the plan. Employees were left sucking up hundreds of dollars a year on their cell phone plans. Of course, he pointed out that that wasn't true when you made it to the executive level. Then the company provided the phone, and covered all of the costs.
He figured his phone plan had cost him five hundred dollars a year, and that did not include the extra cost of purchasing a phone capable of providing the necessary functions. All of that expense was out of his post-tax salary. He never would have spent so much on a cell phone if it hadn't been demanded by his job.
He had a lot of material on the lack of support employees were given in pursuit of their work. Companies no longer bought books. They no longer reimbursed employees who went to school to get advanced degrees. Corporate training had become a joke of the highest magnitude.
The time spent in 'professional development' classes focused on social issues, rather than technical issues. He wrote about harassment training, cultural diversity, and political correctness classes that were given by individuals who just automatically assumed that the employees were all guilty of atrocious behavior.
He also addressed how little companies trusted employees. He described how companies required some managers to pass out office supplies, or to have upper management approval to purchase some necessary item. The processes put in place cost far more than the items that could have been stolen. Compensation either monetarily or in time, for having worked over a weekend? Not in a million years.
After having covered a dozen different topics, Dexter put a little organization around the content. He spent hours checking the spelling and the grammar. He reworded a passage here and there, to give it a bit more oomph. The hardest part was taking out all of the curse words. There was no need to include "F****G BOSS" in twenty-dozen places.
The end result of his efforts was a spartan website with lots of text. He didn't have any artwork, although he had been a little creative with a simple color scheme. It didn't look too bad, but it wasn't anything special. He stared at the website pages one by one, wondering if he should actually put it on the web. He decided that it would be better as a blog, rather than as a website.
It took Dexter some time, but he found a site that hosted blogs. He copied and pasted his text as a blog entry, deciding that he would upload one rant a week. He posted it and then tinkered with the appearance. It was a little better than his original attempt, but in the grand scheme of things, it was rather plain.
Having eaten up a week or so, Dexter sat back wondering what to do next. He had enough material to post an article every week, for a couple of months. He was stuck with nothing to do except monitor reactions to his blog.
The exercise of putting together the blog helped drain off some of his anger at the company. He hadn't even realized just how angry he was, at the company.
He wasn't going to drop the lawsuit, but at least he didn't feel like firebombing the place, anymore!
Edited By TeNderLoin