Dexter and Eric had just finished posting a new article on the website. It was titled, 'Taking Back Your Vacation.' It was a simple article in the sense that it said a company didn't have any right to know where an employee took his or her vacation and that it couldn't require them to remain in contact with the company.
It wasn't all that controversial except for one statement: "Any day of vacation spent working is not a day of vacation." They wrote that a vacation was a break from working and not working from a different location. Employers who didn't understand that distinction needed to have it taught forcefully to them.
After posting it, Eric said, "I wish I had thought about this back when I was working at the old company. I lost at least two vacations by sitting in my hotel room putting out fires back at the company. They even called on the weekends. It was like I wasn't on vacation."
"It sure ruined my trip to Hawaii," Dexter said.
Eric said, "I remember you complaining about that."
"At first I was pissed at everyone about that vacation. I mean, I felt like you and the other guys at our level should have stepped in to cover those calls for me. I guess it was when I was staying in the cabin after I was fired that I really thought about it logically. It wasn't your job to fill in for me. All of those calls had been unnecessary," Dexter said.
"What do you mean?" Eric asked.
"It was the policies that were at fault. Why was it necessary for me to sit in on every technical discussion during a crisis? It wasn't necessary. Hell, most of the time it wasn't even necessary for the project lead to sit in on the discussions. The technical folks could have fixed the problem without me and then forwarded what they had done to their project lead. I could have reviewed it when I returned home," Dexter said.
"It was all about 'Cover Your Ass'," Eric said.
"Yeah," Dexter said. "When did engineering change from fixing problems, to covering asses?"
"I don't know. Even Mark didn't get a vacation when you look at it this way," Eric said.
"No one did," Dexter said. "I took a lot of time off, after I was fired. I was tired -- physically, emotionally, and spiritually. Thinking about it now, I was dying. I really don't think I could lived for another three years, if I had stayed at the company."
Eric was looking thoughtful. He was still too close to those days, to have a perspective on what that lifestyle had been doing to him. He knew that he had been miserable. Changing companies hadn't fixed that problem, though. He now knew that the problems were endemic across all of society. Every company was doing the same kinds of things to their employees.
Dexter was quiet for a moment and then said, "It was killing me."
"I know what you mean," Eric said.
"Things are better now," Dexter said.
"We're only putting in about four hours of work a day. I feel like I'm on vacation," Eric said.
Dexter said, "Wait until that article has been on the web for a day. We'll be so busy answering e-mail and updating the webpage that you won't believe it."
"So you're saying that the work load is a little sporadic," Eric said.
"We have a little control over the busy times, based on when we post articles," Dexter said. He reached over and hit the refresh on his e-mail program. He pointed, "It's been up for about five minutes and we've already got feedback."
"Jesus," Eric said.
The telephone rang. There was a number on the caller id that he didn't recognize. Dexter answered it, "Hello."
"Dexter, this is Mark."
"What's up?" Dexter asked wondering why Mark was using a strange telephone. He hoped this was an update on the lawsuit. The only reason Mark had to call was if he had made any progress on his lawsuit.
"I got a call from your son," Mark answered.
"Whoopee," Dexter said sarcastically.
Mark said, "Don't be an asshole."
"Why not?" Dexter asked. "My wonderful son and daughter are only worried about the child support."
Eric had been staring at the wall trying to ignore the conversation. He knew enough about the divorce to understand the hostility in Dexter's voice. It was obvious that Dexter was not happy about the call.
"Don't be an asshole," Mark growled.
"Okay. So what did my son want?" Dexter asked.
"Janet is in the hospital," Mark said.
Dexter's first reaction was a sense of panic. He felt that he had to rush over to the hospital to see how she was doing. He then imagined running into her boyfriend, there. It didn't take much imagination to know how that meeting would go. He'd end up in jail. He decided there was no overwhelming reason for him to go to the hospital, and quite a few reasons not to go.
"Thanks for telling me," Dexter said. He was curious why she was in the hospital, but he didn't want to ask. Asking would be admitting that he cared about her. After being told in a text message that she wanted a divorce, he wasn't going to let himself care about what happened to her.
"Aren't you concerned?" Mark asked.
"No," Dexter answered harshly.
"Aren't you even curious why she's in the hospital?" Mark asked.
"No," Dexter answered. Too many more questions like that then he'd really start to feel guilty. Wanting to end the conversation, he said, "Thanks for calling. I'll talk to you later."
"God damn it! Don't hang up. Do you want to go to jail?" Mark asked.
"Jail? What in the hell for?" Dexter asked.
He looked over at the door as if expecting the police to come barging in. He wondered if his wife had been a victim of violence and he was the leading suspect. He mentally went over the past twenty-four hours trying to see if he had any kind of alibi.
Eric turned to look at Dexter wondering who was in jail. From what he heard, he assumed that Dexter's son had been arrested for something.
"How about child endangerment for one?" Mark asked.
"What are you talking about?" Dexter asked.
"Your children are minors. With your wife in the hospital, they are without adult supervision. You might be separated from your wife, but you are still legally responsible for their safety. If anything happens to them..." Mark said letting the consequences go unstated.
"Shit," Dexter said bitterly.
He sat there with a frown on his face wondering what he was supposed to do. He didn't want to move back to the house. He had left that behind him. Unfortunately, he didn't have room for the kids in his apartment.
"I don't have room here for them," Dexter said.
"You'll have to move back to your old house, until your wife gets out of the hospital," Mark said.
Dexter could imagine waltzing into the house only to discover that his wife's boyfriend was living there. He figured that he would end up in jail for sure if that was to happen.
Dexter asked, "What about her boyfriend? Is he living there?"
"I don't know," Mark answered.
"Shit," Dexter said.
Mark said, "I don't even know if she has a boyfriend."
"So how long is she going to be in the hospital?" Dexter asked.
Mark answered, "Appendicitis is usually a two or three day stay, considering how they want to push people in and out of rooms."
"I guess I can rent a hotel suite for a couple or three days," Dexter said.
"Why rent a hotel suite?" Mark asked.
"I sure as hell don't want to live in her house with her boyfriend, and I don't have the room here for two kids," Dexter said.
Eric shook his head.
Irritated, Dexter said, "Don't shake your head at me. Wait until you get a text message from your wife, saying that she wants a divorce."
Eric said, "Sorry."
"Are you talking to me?" Mark asked.
Dexter said, "No. I'm talking to Eric. He's here."
"Okay," Mark said.
"I guess I better get around to making arrangements," Dexter said.
"I'll talk to you later," Mark said.
Dexter hung up without answering. Mentally, he was working through all that had to be done in the next few hours. He had to make reservations at a hotel, call the kids, and pack up an overnight bag. He grunted, "Shit."
"Bad news, huh?" Eric said.
"I'm going to have to spend a couple days in a hotel," Dexter said.
"I'll take care of the website," Eric said.
Dexter said, "I'll be here during the days while the kids are in school."
"Today is Friday. No school tomorrow," Eric said.
"Shit," Dexter said. "I'm going to be stuck in a fucking hotel room for a whole weekend with kids that could care less if I'm dead or alive. Isn't that fucking wonderful?"
"I'm sure they care," Eric said.
"No, they don't," Dexter said. He sighed while shaking his head in disgust. He said, "They are my greatest failure as a human being, and now I get to have my nose rubbed in it."
"What's that?" Eric asked.
"My kids. I went off to work thinking I was providing for the family. I became a wage slave, working ever longer hours without reward. You know how that goes."
"Yeah."
"My wages weren't keeping up with inflation. Our standard of living was dropping and I couldn't afford to get the kids computers for school," Dexter said.
When he had been a kid, school supplies consisted of paper and pens. Parents who really wanted their kids to succeed bought a set of encyclopedias to help their children get better grades in school. Now it was computers with printers. A pen cost a dollar, but the ink for a printer cost thirty dollars. It seemed to him that the kids didn't learn half as much despite the increased costs of sending them to school.
When he had been a kid, playing required a baseball, a glove and a bat. A glove lasted a couple of seasons. Now children played computer games and got new ones every other month or so. They couldn't even use their school computers to play their games. They had to get game boxes. All that play and the kids weren't as healthy today as when he was a kid.
"I've been there and done that," Eric said.
"Then my wife went off to work thinking she was going to make things even better for the family. That was a joke. In the end, the kids got forgotten ... and they, in turn, forgot us," Dexter said.
"You can fix that," Eric said.
"No, I can't. Janet fixed that by throwing me away. I'm the bad guy," Dexter said.
Eric said, "You've got a weekend alone with them. Maybe you can reconnect with them."
"I had a couple of months with them. My reorganization at work gave me evenings and weekends free. Do you know what we talked about?" Dexter asked.
"No."
"What's for dinner? That was it," Dexter said. "Questions about school were answered with a shrug. In fact, questions of any kind were answered with a shrug."
Common courtesy conversations, in which greetings were exchanged, inquiries about the day made, and comments about the weather were traded; had died, unnoticed. It was impossible to build a relationship with someone when there wasn't even a polite base from which further exchanges of dialog could be launched.
"Damn," Eric said.
"So what is a person supposed to do?" Dexter asked.
"I don't know," Eric answered.
Staring at the floor, Dexter said, "I don't know either. I was the stranger in the house. I was the misfit ... the odd man out."
Things had never gotten that bad for Eric. Things had been a little rough once the kids became teenagers. They were developing lives outside of the house. Eric and his wife had worked hard to make sure that Sundays remained family days. No matter what happened, they set aside as much of Sunday as possible to spend as a family. His business trips often cut out half of the day, but he made the effort to take the latest flight available.
Still staring at the floor, Dexter said, "The day I got the text message from my wife, I just gave up. I saw my place in the family and it wasn't with them. So I said, 'Fuck them.' and headed out on my own."
"Do you still love your kids?" Eric asked unable to imagine walking away from his family like that.
"I don't know. I honestly don't know," Dexter said.
He glanced up at Eric to see his reaction knowing how his answer sounded. Eric didn't know what to say, and his face showed it.
Thinking that further explanation might put himself in a better light, Dexter said, "Do I love the kids I remember? Yes. Do I love the strangers in that house? I don't know. Based on how little I know about them, I'd be hard pressed to know for sure that they are even my kids."
"That's fucked up," Eric said. Seeing the look on Dexter's face, he quickly added, "I mean ... I understand what you're saying. It's just the ... situation ... I guess ... is fucked up."
"Yes, it is," Dexter said thinking that was the best description of the situation.
"What now?" Eric asked.
"I'll make hotel reservations and pick up the kids," Dexter answered.
Eric looked at the e-mail program and said, "We're getting all kinds of e-mails."
"Answer them as best you can. I'll look them over tomorrow, sometime," Dexter said.
Eric said, "People really want their vacations back."
"People want their lives back," Dexter said.
Edited By TeNderLoin