Dexter dropped the kids off in front of the hospital so that they could visit their mother. They had instructions to send him an e-mail when they were ready to be picked up. He gave them the e-mail address for the website since he was going to swing by the apartment to check up on it and try to start another article. He wasn't ready to give them his cell phone number. He was sure that they would give it to Janet and she'd be calling all of the time to rub his nose in her affair.
He still had his old phone. It was filled with calls, text messages, and e-mails from Janet. He ignored them. Of course, there hadn't been any calls from the kids. That was just another reminder of his relative importance or, more accurately, the lack of importance that he had in their lives.
While driving to his apartment he thought about what might be a suitable topic for his next article. He wasn't sure what business woe to address next, but his conversation with Sam the previous evening had given him some ideas. Like everyone else, he had abused more than one new-hire to meet the demands of the overwhelming pile of work that was dumped on him. Shit rolled downhill and pity the poor person at the bottom.
Thoughts about Sam reminded him of the later events of that evening. The drive home from the hospital had been quiet. He assumed that the kids were tired from their day in school and evening at the hospital. It dawned on him that they might be worried about their mother. He decided that he could make some generalized comments about recovering after appendectomy without having to talk about Janet explicitly. Their reaction had been lukewarm at best. Sarah had continued to text her friends while Will stared out the window.
Breakfast was at a chain restaurant that morning so there hadn't really been much of a chance for conversation. The public environment made conversation about any topic of substance impossible ... a fact of which Dexter was most appreciative. It was crowded. The tables were packed together so that there wasn't much room to sit in the seat. His knees were hitting Will's knees under the table. He wondered if tables had shrunk. He didn't remember people not being able to sit comfortably in diners in the past.
The service there had been lousy, but Dexter didn't expect otherwise. The waitress had never offered him a refill on his coffee. No one delivered water to the table. The orders had been taken, the food delivered, and the bill dropped off on the table. Dexter didn't leave a tip.
He finally arrived at the apartment. He was surprised to find Eric in the study working on the computer.
As he walked in, he said, "Hello Eric."
"Hi, Dexter. Everything work out all right yesterday?" Eric asked.
"Yep," Dexter answered. "What are you doing here?"
"Just answering a couple of the e-mails," Eric answered.
"It's Saturday. You don't have to be here," Dexter said.
"I figured you'd be busy with the kids and all, so I came in to clear out some of the e-mails," Eric answered.
"Why not just do it from home?" Dexter asked.
It seemed to be a waste of time to drive to his apartment just for a few e-mails. Eric grinned upon hearing the question.
He asked, "Are you giving me a 'home office' stipend?"
"Huh?"
"Are you going to help defray the cost of having a 'home office'?" Eric asked.
"I hadn't thought about it," Dexter said.
"Well, think about it. Until you pay me to maintain a 'home office', I'm not working at home," Eric said.
Dexter grinned when he realized what Eric was saying. It had always irritated him that he had to pay out of his own pocket to get a machine loaded with his office's software, in order to be able to work from home.
"I think we have the topic for our next article," Dexter said.
"You bet!" Eric said.
"You know. I was spending a shitload of money for that damned company," Dexter said.
"Same here," Eric said. "It dawned on me last night when I went to boot up my computer, that I had gotten it for work. I don't keep my home budget on it. In fact, there is nothing of a personal nature on that machine. All my personal stuff is on an older computer that I had gotten for work."
"Same here," Dexter said.
"I also figure that you should rent an office and work there rather than at home," Eric said.
"Why?" Dexter asked.
He was surprised that Eric was trying to tell him how to run his business.
Eric said, "Your website is always harping on how you have to separate your work life from your private life. You should eat your own dog food before you start selling it to others."
Dexter shook his head as he asked, "Where do you get those witty sayings?"
"If you hang with an enough mangy dogs, you're bound to pick up a few fleas," Eric answered with a grin.
"So what do you suggest?"
Eric said, "I noticed an office building on my way over here with an advertisement for offices starting at three hundred a month. You should look into it."
"I'll do that," Dexter said.
"Also, we need to establish scheduled work hours," Eric said.
"What do you suggest?" Dexter asked.
Eric said, "I'll work Tuesday through Saturday if you'll work Sunday through Thursday."
"Sounds reasonable to me," Dexter said. "You'll be able to keep your family day that way."
"That was my thinking on the matter," Eric said.
"It still gives me a day off on the weekend," Dexter said, thinking that it wasn't a bad arrangement. He thought about it for a moment more, and then asked, "What would you think of four day workweeks?"
"That's even better," Eric said.
"Wednesday through Saturday for you and Sunday through Wednesday for me," Dexter said.
He could use the overlapping day to run errands out of the office. They could hold a meeting that day to sort out any issues that might have arisen. He figured that Eric was smart enough to give him a call if there was something really important that had to be addressed.
"Ten hour work days?" Eric asked.
"No. We'll stay with eight unless there's a problem," Dexter said. "I'll post the article on Tuesday. That way the majority of replies will be on the day we both work."
"Sounds good to me," Eric said. He was quiet for a moment and then said, "Of course, some people might not be happy about not getting an immediate answer to their e-mail."
"Fuck 'em," Dexter said.
"Fuck 'em?"
Dexter said, "This is a website about keeping work and life separate. We just put a notice that we have fixed working hours ... just like they should ... and let them know that we'll answer things during our operating hours."
"When you eat your own dog food, you take really big bites!" Eric said.
"Where am I wrong?" Dexter asked.
"You aren't wrong, though the visitors to our website might disagree," Eric said.
"The internet is twenty-four/seven, but that doesn't mean that we have to be twenty-four/seven. We've got our lives to live. I'm not hiring six more people so that Joe Shmoe can get an answer to his e-mail at three o'clock in the morning," Dexter said feeling the rightness of his words.
"It's your business," Eric said.
Dexter said, "I met a young man at the hospital last night. He's in his late twenties. We were talking and I feel like he's got a real issue that should be addressed on our website."
"What issue?" Eric asked.
"The poor guy can't get time off to meet women. He's single and wants to find a wife, but he's working God awfully long hours, because he's the low man on the totem pole where he works," Dexter said.
"You're right. We should address that issue. Of course, that problem is more organizational than anything," Eric said.
"We might want to start addressing some of the organizational issues. You know ... hiring secretaries, realistic time reporting, rational scheduling, meetings management ... all that crap. So far, all I've done is write about how companies are using their employees as a source of interest free loans and off-loading some of the operational costs onto them," Dexter said.
"Right," Eric said.
Derrick was silent for a minute while considering his current circumstances. He had all that business with Janet in hospital and the kids at the hotel to take up his time. According to the new work schedule, he was supposed to work all day tomorrow. He knew that things were slow enough that he could get by with working only a couple of hours.
Dexter said, "Here's what I'm going to suggest. Wednesday, you and I talk about what we want to post the next week. You work on the article during your work hours and answer any e-mails that come in. I'll pick up the article and finalize it on my work days. I'll post it mid-day Tuesday.
"We'll start the new schedule beginning tomorrow. I'll work most of the day, but I've still got that garbage dealing with Janet and the kids. I should be able to get away with a partial day tomorrow."
Eric said, "You're the owner. You can work when you damned well please."
"I keep forgetting that," Dexter said with a grin.
He still tended to view it as a job. A lifetime of work habits kept drawing him into working.
"Right," Eric said. "I'll finish up here and head home. I'll see you Wednesday."
"Great," Dexter said. "Put some of your ideas down for the article."
"I've already been working on it," Eric said.
"Excellent. I'm going to see about renting an office," Dexter said.
"Okay," Eric said.
"If an e-mail comes in from my son or daughter, give me a call," Dexter said.
"Why don't they call you directly?" Eric asked.
"I don't want them to have my cell phone number," Dexter answered.
It dawned on him, then, that he could have told them to call his old phone. Of course, it probably needed charging.
"Why not?" Eric asked.
"They'd give the number of my former wife. I don't want her to have it," Dexter answered.
Frowning, Eric said, "I guess that makes sense."
Dexter headed out of the apartment in search of a location for his new office. He liked the idea of separating his business life and private life. For one, he wasn't very comfortable with having Eric working in his apartment. It would get worse if he hired another person, although he didn't see that happening anytime soon.
The fact of the matter was that he had gotten into the habit of walking around the apartment naked. Maybe it was a little personal rebellion against the constraints of society, but he liked doing it. It bothered him that he had to dress first thing in the morning, because Eric was coming in to work.
He came across the small office building that Eric had mentioned about three blocks from his apartment. There was a sign in the front advertising office space for three hundred dollars a month. He was pretty sure that it would be a single office with minimal services for the price. Of course, he didn't need much more than that.
Dexter went inside the building not expecting to find anyone there. Much to his surprise, a woman was seated at a receptionist desk. She was working on a computer. He went over to her and said, "I'm interested in renting an office."
The woman looked irritated for a second at the interruption. She looked up at him and asked, "How many people will be working in the office?"
"Two."
"Do you need telephone service?" she asked.
"No."
"Internet?"
"Yes."
"I've got a two person office available for five hundred a month," she said.
"I'll take it," Dexter said.
Raising an eyebrow at him, she asked, "Don't you want to see it first?"
"Sure," Dexter answered thinking he wasn't making a very good impression as a businessman.
The office was large enough for two desks with a little room left over for a chair or two for visitors. It would be tight, but with their staggered schedules it wouldn't be that bad. After years of working in cubicle hell, Dexter knew good working conditions from bad. He didn't see any problems with the office.
"My employee and I work staggered schedules so that we can cover the whole week. That means we'll be in on weekends. Is there any problem with that?" Dexter asked.
"I don't care when you work. We have a key pad on the front door for twenty-four hour access. You'll have a key for your office," she answered.
He whipped out his checkbook and asked, "How much do you want?"
"A deposit of three hundred and two months rent," she answered.
He started writing a check for the full amount.
Feeling like she was dealing with an amateur, she said, "We have a conference room that you can schedule for twenty dollars an hour. It has a conference phone and computer projector. You'll have to pay the long distance charges at the end of the month."
"How difficult is it to schedule?" Dexter asked thinking he couldn't see a reason for them to need a conference room. He and Eric would talk in the office on Wednesdays. The website didn't require them to have customers dropping by. If he needed any professional services, it would be he who would go to their offices.
"It is available most of the time. You can access the calendar showing when it is scheduled, on the internet. I'll give you the website," she answered.
"That's great," Dexter said.
"I'm also available to provide secretarial services. I charge by the task," she said.
Dexter said, "I'll keep that in mind."
He looked around the office feeling pleased with it. He would have to get two desks, but that wouldn't take more than a few minutes online, or he could stop by the office supply store and purchase two desks there with a credit card.
They went through the process of filling out a lease. It was a typical short-term agreement, in which the office was rented month to month, with a thirty day notice before leaving. Once a year the terms of the lease were reviewed. Dexter didn't have any problems with the lease.
He had just finished with the lease and gotten the keys when his cell phone rang. It was Eric telling him that the kids were ready for him to get them. They would be waiting in the hospital cafeteria for him.
He headed for the hospital, wishing that the weekend would come to an end.
Edited By TeNderLoin