Week 04 Day 05 - Resignation finished

George woke up in a panic. His heart was beating hard, dread smothering his entire body. His wife was gone, so were the girls, the sun whitewashed everything outside. George looked at the digital clock, he had truly slept in today, the subtle whines of Jack not enough to wake him; it was already noon. At some point the attention-starved dog had given up trying to get George’s attention and gone back downstairs to his bed. That’s where George found him after showering and changing into normal clothes. He had felt energized by yesterday’s walk and decided he would do the same today. The weather was a carbon copy of yesterday’s, inviting George to spend all day outside, but he and Jack continued on their walk briskly. The Saint Bernard and old woman were nowhere to be found today, but the hacking dog was right where they left him, almost exactly so. Without Beethoven’s warning, George and Jack caught the hacking dog unawares; despite being surprised, the salt and pepper dog resumed its same monotone grunting, at the same volume and rhythm, with the same accompanying hop as yesterday, as if an invisible hand had flipped a switch and set its gears in motion.

When they arrived back at the house George immediately set about the task at hand, avoiding yesterday’s pitfalls of coffee and video games. He opened his laptop, navigated to the websites for the various universities of the area, opening each in a different tab, and began searching the employment opportunity pages. Out of four different schools only one had any information technology positions listed, and it required way more expertise than George had. This was George’s biggest lead, what he felt would be the most workable option; the misfire left him searching for where to go next. As a whim he decided to check out the job postings for the surrounding cities; interested to see what his position would have net him, but the results were the same as the universities: nothing relevant.

George began searching generic technology terms matched with “jobs” to see if he could force inspiration. After fifteen minutes of the arbitrary exercise he began to notice a pattern: one website kept showing up every time, no matter what he searched. He followed the link, recognizing it as a paid advertisement as he did so.  It was a website to help you build your own blog, or photo gallery, or e-commerce shop; “whatever you need.” George had always wanted to be a writer, or more appropriately to write, calling himself a writer always felt pretentious, especially having not written anything of substance, but with most other things in his life the passion had taken a back seat when his first and second daughters were born. Now, with no job, George had ample time to dive in. It wasn’t a solvent idea for work, but it could keep him creative, or motivated, and it could be used in a resume depending on what he was applying for.

In no time at all George had convinced himself that this was the way to go, and he had already conceived of a format and preliminary content by the time he’d entered his bank account information. He released the not-insignificant funds for service, his own website with custom domain name and email, without thinking about the ramifications on his savings.

The first step for George was presentation, specifically a name. George wanted a title that was meaningful on different levels, intriguing, but also vague enough to be meaningless or take on any definition the reader inferred. Song titles, lyrics, movie quotes, idioms, famous speeches, all passed through George’s mind but none met his requirements. He got up and walked over to his bookshelf, searching for inspiration. He decided he would find it in the most weathered and creased book on his shelf, the book that reignited his interest in reading, and spawned his desire to write: Paul Auster’s The New York Trilogy. His immediate thought was to turn to Fanshawe’s passages in The Locked Room; the passages, of a friend who had lost his mind and locked himself in a room threatening suicide, were unsettling despite being read out of context, but did not inspire a name. He flipped back to City of Glass remembering the red notebook Quinn uses as an improvisational detective and the greater notebook theme that runs throughout most of Auster’s books; but The Red Notebook, or any variation of, seemed too generic and too obvious a nod to Auster.

After spending some more time with City of Glass, and ultimately striking out, George turned to the middle story, Ghosts, and was immediately taken by the first sentence: First of all there is Blue. Later there is White, and then there is Black, and before the beginning there is Brown. It was decided: this would be the inspiration for the title of George’s blog, he just had to rejigger it a bit, and justify the meaning and misappropriation of something he loved so much for something as trivial as a blog that he had no idea what to do with, and then he’d have a title.

Week 04 Day 04 - Resignation continued

Four hours later George set the controller down on the living room table; his coffee still three-quarters full, now lukewarm at best. He stood up and stretched, trying to shake loose the atrophy that comes with sitting hunched over for four hours straight, and walked back to the laptop. He pointed the cursor to the search bar and mimicked typing imaginary words, tapping the surface of the keyboard rhythmically, until deciding on what to search for: jobs.

“Jobs,” unsurprisingly, returned nearly one billion results, half a page of ads, and a dozen local listings for temp agencies. George began half-heartedly skimming through pages, looking for appealing keywords and legitimate offers, dismissing what was obviously spam; he needed a spark: something that would provide him with direction, but he didn’t know what that was, or where to get it. After a discouraging five page expedition, farther than George had ever ventured in search results before, he checked the clock on the laptop: 01:30 pm. His wife would be home in less than three hours, and with her the girls; there was no way George could get any work done with the girls home, and what could he really accomplish with less than three hours left? If you add in the time it took to find a solid offer, it was probably more like two and a half hours, two if he took a shower, which he still hadn’t done today. George wanted to take his time with any application he found, less than two hours wasn’t going to cut it. He decided that in order to have the energy he needed to spend time with his daughters this evening he should take a nap, besides, George had been employed for the last five years of his life, not moving on from a job until he had another one firmly in place, and taking no time off to transition: he deserved a day off. He closed the laptop again, this time shutting the whole thing down beforehand, and trekked upstairs to take a nap.

When George’s wife woke him up the first thing he saw was the gray-blue sky outside their window, it was the color of wasted time. He looked at the digital alarm clock on top of their chest of drawers: 05:13 pm, and George thought, is it five o clock already?

Hey, we’re home, can you come down stairs and watch the girls while I cook dinner?

Yeah, sure, of course.

His wife didn’t wait for him to get out of bed, instead leaving before he even finished his short, half-mumbled, response. George knew that that probably wasn't a good sign. He could hear his oldest daughter running around downstairs, jabbering to herself, or to Jack, or to her sister, it didn't matter really, just excited to be home. George sat on the edge of the bed and stared down at his pajamas that he had now been wearing for almost twenty four hours straight. He contemplated changing, but decided against it because he hadn’t showered yet, telling himself he would definitely change after taking a shower. He put his slippers on and went downstairs.

George and his wife held a conversation while George acted as a horse for his daughter to ride on, occasionally grabbing her calves and straightening his back, bleating an unspeakably bad impression of a horse’s neigh.

So, how was your day?

It was good. How was work?

Work was fine. What did you do? Did you find any jobs?

Yeah, I just kind of took it easy.

So, “yeah, I found some jobs,” or “yeah, I just kind of hung out and played games all day?”

George pulled up and held his daughter to his back, unleashing a horrible braying that would never under any circumstances be mistaken for a horse’s neigh, it was not the noise George thought he was going to make.

Ok, let’s not do that anymore.

I don’t know, I tried to look for some jobs, but I really couldn’t focus, so I took the dog for a walk, made some coffee, cleaned the house a little, but, I don’t know, I just couldn’t figure it out. I think I got too much sleep, so I was kind of out of it all day. You know how that happens sometimes, if you get too much sleep you end up feeling more tired than if you didn’t get enough?

Sounds terrible. So you didn’t find even one job to apply to?

No, but I will tomorrow, I just needed a day to unwind, to get my bearings after yesterday.

George was unsure how his wife took this answer as she didn’t respond or extend the conversation any further, just continued to cook, while George continued to play. After dinner George gave both girls baths and put them to bed while his wife cleaned the kitchen. Once the girls were asleep George helped his wife finish with the kitchen.

I really hope you find a couple of jobs to apply for tomorrow.

I will, I just needed a day to settle down.

They finished cleaning in silence. George ended the night by taking a shower and changing out of his twenty seven hour old pajamas.

Week 04 Day 03 - Resignation continued

When George got home he was still in a haze about what had transpired during his improvised exit interview; the conversation about it with his wife worked nothing loose and left his wife even more confused and worried about what would happen. Despite the unusual start to the morning, and the following impassioned interrogation by his wife before she left for work, the remainder of the day unfolded like any other: play with the kids, feed them, and put them to bed. It wasn’t until after his daughters were both asleep for the night that George thought about his exodus from Public Utilities or what he planned to do. He grabbed a beer, sat down at the dining room table, and crouched over his open laptop. George couldn’t stop thinking about how normal everything else had seemed despite the monumental decision he’d made earlier, how easily he’d forgotten about all of it. Unsure as to why he sat down at the laptop, George leaned back in his chair and closed its lid. The resulting space showed his dog, Jack, sitting on the floor opposite of where George sat at the table. The two stared at each other, blinking idly. What is he thinking right now? George thought. Is he disappointed in me? Are dogs able to sense big events in life? He knows, somehow he knows. He knows, and he’s judging me. Where is my food going to come from dad? How are you going to feed me? Why is he just staring at me? What does he think he is communicating to me right now? Is he wondering what I’m thinking about like I’m wondering what he’s thinking about? Maybe he knows I’m thinking about what he could be thinking about and is trying to comfort me by being as unconcerned as possible. Jack shifted his weight gingerly from one haunch to the other, unloosing a clipped fart that could’ve been mistaken for an untied balloon flying by overhead, his ears perking up as if to say: whoops! George let the dog outside. He sat back down at the table taking sips from his beer and trying to avoid thoughts of the upcoming days: what would he do, where would he apply, what does he want to do, how long would his savings really last. When he heard the dog scratching at the door, he let him back in, finished his beer, and went to bed.

The next day George’s wife was working the morning shift, and she dropped their daughters off at their grandparents; for the first time in eighteen months, since the birth of their first daughter, George was able to sleep in. He was awoken eventually by the soft, extended whines of Jack, who, George speculated, was sitting at the top of the stairs locked out behind the child safety gate installed a month ago. George lay in bed for few minutes, letting the dog whine, starring at the ceiling. When he realized he was in danger of falling back asleep he abruptly threw his legs out from under the covers and sat on the edge of the bed. He stood up, stepped into his slippers and met Jack at the top of the stairs. As he pushed through the gate and walked down the stairs, the dog excitedly followed him: constantly looking for a way to bypass George’s sluggish pace, anxiously jutting his nose between leg and wall, but ultimately trailing until they reached the bottom. George stood in the doorway while the dog went out. He took in the fresh sunlight and light breeze, welcomed it into the stale house, reveled in the majestic feeling that is a day off work with no immediate responsibilities; his mind began to whirl with choices, but was humbled when he remembered the surrounding circumstances. He closed the door and sat down at his laptop. George opened the lid and pulled up his homepage; before searching the internet for jobs he pinged his own brain for ideas. As he was doing so he noticed the surging sunlight outside increase its intensity: a day that already seemed perfect swelled with even more sunlight. He could see the dog out back bouncing up and down, dive-bombing the ground with his front paws, and thrusting his snout into the dewy grass; chasing butterflies, leaves, or his own shadow. George felt unprepared to start his job search and decided he needed some breathing room from just waking up before he would start. He exchanged his slippers for sneakers, grabbed the dog’s leash and collar, called him back inside, and headed out for a walk.

George and Jack used to be old pros when it came to walking outside, but with the birth of his two daughters, and a move to a new, less-friendly, neighborhood, their skills had withered. Despite the dog’s undisciplined zigzagging fifteen feet in front of George, something that would have never happened eighteen months ago, presumably in search of every smell to cross his path, the walk was very pleasant.  As they approached a two-story cape cod, Jack inhaling the earth beneath his snout, George noticed a giant Saint Bernard, which he immediately nicknamed Beethoven, lying down on the porch alongside a woman in a rocking chair. The woman looked to be in her mid-seventies, and the Saint Bernard appeared to match that in dog years. As George and his dog drew closer Beethoven’s head darted up and began to follow them. The laid back nature of the woman, gently rocking in her chair, paying no mind to the massive Saint Bernard, led George to assume the dog possessed the same slipshod attitude, despite its alert posture.  As they reached perpendicularity with Beethoven, he bounded off the porch, sprinting straight for them. George was caught so off guard that he froze in place, making him look a lot calmer about the situation than was truthful, while Jack dove back, shielding himself from Beethoven with George’s legs. At the last second a steel-cable revealed itself and yanked the Saint Bernard backwards, undoing his last three feet of progress. As George and his dog continued on, the Saint Bernard barked, continually testing the distance and strength of the lead. The woman continued to rock in her chair, never acknowledging George and his dog, or the demon incarnate that was Beethoven.

As they rounded a corner to a side street they could still hear the raucous Saint Bernard in the background, but the noise was slowly being overtaken by what sounded like a chronic smoker having a viscous coughing attacking. George immediately regretted the decision to take the side street and was already thinking of possible ways to avoid the potential interaction with the hacking man: George’s experience with smokers was that the more phlegm they had in their throats the more they wanted to talk to you, while working said phlegm out. The closer they came to the hacking man, the louder the hacking got, and the more rhythmic it got. George began to think that it was too regular to be an unexpected attack, and was more than likely a routine cough to clear out the hacking man’s lungs so he could fill them back up with more smoke. As soon as the duo passed a row of Medora Juniper trees the volume of the coughs skyrocketed, and the cougher was revealed to not be a man at all, but a salt and pepper coated dog with different colored eyes standing behind a chain-link fence. The dog’s bark sounded like equal parts cough, choke, and bark, while not being particularly committed to any of the three. The strain caused the dog’s front legs to hop off the ground about a foot, and made the barking seem involuntary, despite the consistency. George and Jack stared in unison at the hacking dog as they walked down the street until it was obscured by the converted trailer attached to the chain-link, at which point the dog stopped coughing/choking/barking; presumably to continue smoking.

When they returned home forty five minutes later, George realized that he hadn’t said a word all morning. It was an inspirational realization that left George energized with the possibilities of sustaining it for the rest of his life: getting by on smiles, or nods, or variations of insignificant throat clearings. No more miscommunications large or small, no more miscued greetings in hallways, or awkward conversation at check-out lines. The daydream quickly evaporated with thoughts of his oldest daughter, and how every morning started with entering her room and talking gently to her, trying to elicit some new form of gibberish she had developed in her sleep.

George sat back down at the laptop, still open from his earlier, tapped it awake, and stared at the homepage. Trying to think of the exact keywords to search that would find his perfect job, George was having difficulty collecting his thoughts. He stood back up and went into the kitchen to make coffee. He still felt a little groggy from the morning, possibly sleeping in too much, although the thought seemed absolutely ludicrous to George at this point in his life. He folded his arms and watched as the coffee grinds floated in the boiling water; fighting each other for a place at the top, the rest being submerged and used as support. After five minutes he pushed the filter down and poured himself a cup. On his way out of the kitchen George checked the microwave clock and saw that it was only a quarter past nine. Much like his speaking revelation, George recognized that he hadn’t bothered to check the time since waking up, and was surprised when he saw how early it still was, way too early to be looking for jobs, George thought. From the kitchen George looked to the dining room where his laptop was positioned, still open, the screen now a dim glow, eventually turning off. George checked the microwave again: 09:16 am. Wanting to wake up a bit more, to get his brain working so he could be in top form when filling out applications, George headed to the living room. He needed time for the coffee to take effect and to play some video games.

Week 04 Day 02 - Resignation continued

George sat in the driver’s seat of his car; everything was a blank from the moment he left Bess’s office to the moment the car door closed. His only regret was not being attentive enough as he walked out to validate his cartoonish impressions of the office staff; there was no going back inside now though. He placed his hands on the steering wheel, and pressed down on the gas, but instead of the familiar, delayed lurch forward from his ten year old compact, there was nothing.  A quick shot of panic filled George’s chest before he realized that the car was still in park; he grabbed the gear shift, but it was locked in place: the car wasn’t even turned on. George needed to reset, to get things back in order. He got out of the car, stretched, shook his arms and legs, thought can birds live on Doritos alone?, got back in the car, put his seat belt on, put one hand on the steering wheel , started the car, put the car in drive, put his other hand on the steering wheel, and pushed down on the gas; finally escaping the parking lot.

Hey, what’s up?

I quit my job.

The extended silence led George to pull the phone away from his ear to check the status of the call.

You did what?

I quit my job.

Why? I mean, you haven’t talked to me about this at all. What are we going to do for money? My job can’t sustain us and all the bills and everything we have to buy for the girls. What are we going to do about money?

I’ll figure something out. We’ll be all right for a few months with my savings.

How much do you have in savings? How can you be sure that’s going to be enough? What if something major comes up and we have to use your savings for that? What if you don’t find a job before your savings runs out?

We’ll be all right. We can go over the financials tonight, so we have a better understanding of where we’re at.

I hope so.  I wish I could quit my job like that. You know I’ve been talking about how much I’d like to stay home with the girls. Anyway, what happened?

I don’t know.

What do you mean, you don’t know?

I mean, I don’t know, I just, I showed up for work and I couldn’t do it anymore, I couldn’t go to that job anymore.

So, what did you do? You just walked in and told Bess you quit?

Not exactly, I had this whole spiel…

You had a spiel? So you were planning this? Why didn’t you say anything to me about it?

I didn’t know I was going to go through with it, if I knew for sure I was going to go through with it, then I would have talked to you about it, but, I just decided on my way in, I just couldn’t do it anymore.

But if you had a spiel then you were planning for longer than just this morning.

Yeah, I had been thinking about it for a long time, but I didn’t think until this morning that I would go through with it.

What time this morning?

I don’t know what time. Some time this morning.

Why didn’t you talk to me about it before you went to work?

Because it was after I left for work but before I got to work. Come on, if at any point I knew I was serious about it, before I went to work, I would have talked to you.

So what happened?

I don’t know, I went to Bess’s office first thing, like before I went to my office, and I was going to give her this well-thought out, articulate, resignation, but I sat down weird, and then I couldn’t start thinking about how nobody was in the front office and those things kind of threw me off, and I just started rambling.

You sat down weird? What does that even mean?

I sat down without taking my bag off or putting my coffee down, so my bag was like wedged in between my leg and the chair and it was hovering over my crotch like I was trying to hide a boner. And then I didn’t know what to do with my coffee so I just left it in my hand.

That is weird.

I know.

Ok, so, anyway, what did you say?

That’s what I mean, I don’t know.

How could you not know, you just said it what, twenty minutes ago?

Yeah, it’s just kind of blurry. It was just a lot about how I couldn’t sit in the office for thirty years and there’s never enough work to do and all the crazy things James has said to me and how I lied during my interview.

Wow, so you really went for it huh?

Yeah, I guess so, and it ended with Bess telling me to go see a doctor. All I said was thanks.

Did you cry?

What? No, why would I cry?

I don’t know, seems like a pretty intense situation, for some reason I default to crying when I get overwhelmed. I probably would’ve started crying.

I guess I did have a moment when I thought I should have cried. I mean, I had the thought, should I be crying right now, I’m overwhelmed. But I didn’t, that would’ve only made it worse. I think that counts though, I was basically crying without the tears. My words were my tears.

What are you a robot? Based upon my calculations I should currently be expressing my emotions in the form of tears. System failure. No algorithm for tears. I have no tears. I am overwhelmed. My words are my tears. That doesn’t count; you have to cry actual tears.

Ok, well by that definition I didn’t cry then.

You should have cried.

Look, I agree with you, we just disagree with the definition of crying.

You’re on your way home now? What are you going to do? You should start looking for a job today.

Yeah, I’m on my way.

Week 04 Day 01 - Resignation

George shifted the car's transmission from drive to reverse, palmed the headrest of the passenger seat, turned his head clockwise from twelve to four, and backed his car into the farthest possible parking space from the entrance of the Public Utilities building; he wanted the extra distance to mull over his forthcoming announcement.

George arrived to work only five minutes earlier than normal, but the building’s interior seemed completely different: there was no one yet in the front office, no doors left sociably open, no one wandering the halls, and only a handful of needed lights turned on. George’s inner monologue took a back seat to the thoughts and images of his co-workers arriving like locusts in the next five minutes and franticly opening doors or turning on lights. He continued down the thinly-lit hallway to his boss’s office, passing by his own in the process.

Good morning Bess.

Good morning George, how are you?

I’m ok; can I talk to you about something?

Sure, have a seat.

George entered the office, closing the door behind him, something that Bess took note of. Instead of putting down his coffee and removing the laptop bag slung around his shoulder, George just sat down, awkwardly trapping the bag in between the chair’s armrest and his leg, and leaving his arm at a ninety degree angle, coffee thermos in hand. As George stared at Bess he tried to remember the much-rehearsed opening line of his resignation, but couldn’t stop thinking about the stupid laptop bag wedged by his leg and how much of a psycho he must look like after closing the door to his boss’s office unsolicited and then sitting down without making any of the adjustments that a normal human being would make. He was also getting flashes of the front office staff arriving for work: running in and out of offices turning on and off lights and opening and closing doors like a Benny Hill sketch. When George noticed Bess shift uncomfortably in her chair he realized he had already begun talking.

I just don’t know if I can do this for the rest of my life: sitting in an office all day, behind a computer. I mean, what am I even supposed to be doing anyway, what are my job responsibilities? I don’t have any work to do, so I just sit in my office, and I can’t do anything on the internet because it will show up on the usage report, so I just sit. I just sit in front of a computer all day and do nothing. I sit and I think to myself I can’t do this for the rest of my life. I think about how my dad worked for thirty three years as a firefighter without complaining. I don’t know if that’s what he wanted to do with his life. I don’t know if he didn’t sit in his office at the firehouse and have those same thoughts. Am I not man enough? Whatever that means. Is my role as a father, and husband, and provider, just to shut up and father, husband, and provide? Obviously firefighter is a way cooler job than whatever it is that my job is, but doesn’t everyone hate their job to some level? Am I just being dramatic? I’m very grateful for the job and opportunity, don’t get me wrong, but it’s making me hate everything. I don’t enjoy anything anymore because Monday through Friday I’m trapped in a windowless interior office with literally no more than five minutes of work to do. And then I think about how ungrateful and over privileged that sounds, and how lucky I am to be in a better position than probably ninety nine percent of the country, if not the planet; so I don’t say anything, and I’m not complaining, or at least I’m not trying to complain. I compare all of this to my dad because that’s the example I have, but I didn’t know him well enough to ask any of those questions, and now he’s dead so I can never get those answers anyways. And that’s what I do for eight hours. Yesterday, I got trapped in a two hour long conversation with James about whether or not Bon Scott was gay because of the lyrics in Dirty Deeds and then he started talking about sending death row inmates to islands populated by cannibals so we don’t have to spend our tax dollars on them anymore. I mean do you know the lyrics to that song? He just kept saying no no no, he says ‘backdoor man,’ don’t you know what that means? He’s a backdoor man, man, he’s gay, that means he likes guys’s backdoors!  He ignored literally every other word in the song and just kept referencing backdoor man; it’s like he was purposely getting it wrong to push my buttons. It takes a lot of effort to misinterpret something that poorly. Have you seen him use the ice cream machine? It doesn’t make any sense. It was one of the stupidest arguments I’ve ever had in my life and it was followed up by an argument about feeding people to cannibals which is THE stupidest argument I’ve ever had in my life. I can’t work with someone like that, even though there’s going to be someone like that wherever I go. I just don’t know what I’m supposed to do. Do I just suck it up and sit my office for the next thirty years because it provides for my family? In the face of that all other options seem incredibly selfish. Why shouldn’t I be happy with that? I have a job that more than provides for everything I need. Woe is me. But I just can’t do it. I can’t force myself out of bed another morning to go to a job I hate for another day to spend another eight hours starring at my dumb reflection on a blank computer monitor. Thank you so much for opportunity I know you took a chance hiring me for the position and I do really appreciate it. I hate that I’m leaving you holding the bag on this, but I don’t know what else to do. I really can’t do it another day. I just can’t. This can’t be what I’m supposed to do with my life. There are so many other things I would rather do with my life. I practically lied about all of my experience in the interview anyway. I don’t feel I’ve done a bad job per say, but I’m sure you could find someone way more qualified for this position than me. I don’t even enjoy computers that much for starters.

George...

All that stuff about my experience with databases was a lie; I had worked on one before that interview, and I had to watch hours of YouTube videos to finish it, which I guess could be a commentary on the modern workplace, I don’t think it’s that terrible, but it definitely sounds bad, I watched YouTube videos to learn my job. I even bought one of those Databases for Dummies books, which is a total piece of shit. I mean who’s going to read eight hundred pages about databases? I suppose you could use it as a reference but even then, have you seen it? It’s the size of a phonebook, it’s not even a regular book size; it’s probably like sixteen hundred regular book pages.

George, I think you need some help; maybe you should go see a doctor

Ok, thank you.

George stood up, opened the door, and left. He felt refreshingly empty, and no longer regretted holding onto all of his belongings when he sat down, as he now had nothing to delay his exodus. The realization felt rewardingly efficient.