"What the Hell? What is going on with this electricity bill?" I yelled. My wife Sophie just got in the door and handed me the mail and went into the kitchen to start dinner. Jake my eighteen year old son was playing video games in the living room. They were both ignoring me. A couple of years ago an electric bill wouldn't even register as a topic worth discussing, you paid it and that was that. Of course back then I was a vice president of a firm with over a hundred employees, and we were well off. But then with the melt down in the economy we had to downsize. We weathered pretty well, we didn't have that much debt - my background in finance allowed kept us from that trap. We owned a couple of rental properties, one is still generating a little income the other was abandoned so we moved into it. Our real estate agent told us we had a better chance selling our house since it was custom built on an estate lot in a great neighbourhood rather than this three bedroom bungalow in the city. Sophie is a nurse at the local hospital and from here she can take the bus to work, which allowed us to downsize to one car.
Our big problem was when I lost my job, the whole company went under. I was out of work for almost a year carrying the taxes and bills for two houses and sending my daughter Kate to college, and saving up for Jake who starts college in September. For the last year I have been working with this company helping them with their investments and currently restructuring to save costs, which was a polite way of saying looking to layoff staff. It was only supposed to last three to six months, but I have been finding ways to make myself useful. One nice thing about the job is that I get to work from home. Every Tuesday I go in for meetings, but usually I am left on my own, it works out cheaper for them not to have me in the office and I don't have to pay for gas and parking downtown. Of course, I don't get paid anywhere near what I was making before, and now all I seem to do is complain about how much things cost.
"I can't believe how much the bill has gone up, where are the old bills?" I asked myself angrily. I stormed off into my den and went through the files. I grabbed the folder and stomped back into the dining room. "See, look, we are paying almost double what we paid last month."
I didn't think anyone was paying attention to me, I rarely was acknowledged in my own home anymore especially when I was angry. So when Sophie answered back I was a little surprised.
"The price of electricity, like the price of everything is going up." She didn't raise her voice, but spoke in an almost condescending manner, not even bothering to look up but continued with her dinner preparations. "Of course if you are looking to blame someone for the electric bill, there is no point in yelling at us. Kate moved out, Jake spends the days with his friends and works nights so he is only here to eat and sleep, and I am working double shifts at the hospital trying to help pay these bills. If you want to blame someone for the electric bill, perhaps you should be yelling at the person who is here all the time. Not that you ever leave the house, but you may have heard that it is damn hot out there. I shower at work before my shifts because no matter what time of day I leave, I am usually sweating by the time I get there." She was right, we were in the midst of an unusually hot summer, every day was either breaking a record or damn close.
"If you want to cut down on electricity, maybe you should use less, turn off some of the gadgets. Of course if you are really serious you could turn down the air conditioner, maybe turn if off completely and walk around naked. That would do the trick" she smirked.
Having just put in my place, the only thing I could think to answer was "Maybe I will." It was the matter-of-fact way she spoke to me now, completely devoid of emotion. Sometimes I wish she'd yell, at least I would know she felt something towards me. Sophie slid two plates of equal sized portions cold chicken and pasta on the table and went to the bathroom. She told Jake his dinner was on the table as she passed him.
We ate wordlessly as she showered. I stared at Jake's expressionless face as he wolfed down his food. Nothing seemed to phase him. I always thought he would be happier as a cartoon character, all he thought about was hanging out with his friends and playing sports. His grades weren't bad, but he tended to skate by on his good looks and charm whenever he could. His trademark smile only disappeared momentarily when he sat down to the only thing he took seriously, eating. He was accepted to the same university his sister goes to, but he would have to move out and get his own place. Sure we could help with tuition and expenses, but when we sat him down and showed him that he would have to quit his current job and get something that allowed him to work a full 40 hour week in order to save up enough, and even then he would have to get a part-time job, like Katey did, he simply said no. He said he would rather go to community college and stay here with us, then he flashed a big grin stood up and walked away. That was that.
When we finished his smile returned, as he stood up he slipped on his baseball cap. "Do you want me to pitch in and help with the electric bill, I could maybe pay half or something." He picked up our plates and cutlery and took them to the sink.
"No thanks Jake, it was kind of you to offer."
"Anything to help out, Pop. You just tell me what you need." He knew that I wouldn't accept, but I knew he was sincere. He rinsed off the dishes and put them in the dishwasher. As Sophie walked he thanked her for dinner, kissed her on the cheek then went into the fridge grabbed two pieces of cold pizza, folded them into a sandwich and took a bite. He grabbed a soft drink and headed to his room. Sophie laughed as he walked away then stopped as she turned an saw me. She went into the fridge and grabbed a pre-packaged salad. I took that as my cue to leave.
"I have some more work to do." I got up and went to the den.
"I am working 7 to 7 tomorrow, so you'll have to make your own dinner."
"OK" I answered. I actually did have work to do. I went into my office. It wasn't a real office exactly, it was like a small family room or a parlor. It was a good size, I was able to put in two desks, one for my PC, and the other was full of papers where I kept my work laptop. I also had a couple of book cases and a large filing cabinet. The biggest problem was that it had no doors, it had an oversized archway maybe 48 inches across nicely framed with wood. The other problem is that it was centrally located, it was just to the right of the kitchen. On the other side was the laundry room / side door foyer that led to the garage. If you came in through the front door, walking past the powder room, unless you were going into the garage or laundry room you had to walk past it. Also, part of the doorway looked down the hallway that led to the three bedrooms and the second bathroom. So unless people were in the bedrooms, I could hear everything that was going on.
My assistant Gwen liked to clear off her desk on Fridays so she didn't have to worry about work over the weekend leaving me with a few hours of emails and various reports to read. It is one of the reasons we work well together, neither of us like to leave things undone. She is also very detailed in her tasks, which is very important when we are doing a deep dive into the numbers. When I started with the company I inherited her since no one else wanted anything to do with her. Gwen was the niece of one of the executives at head office, she was in her mid 20s, bright, recently finished her undergrad degree in England, and was currently doing her MBA part time. She didn't have any specific job description, just put on various projects when they needed help. She was very bright and capable but also very straightforward, to a fault. She was universally despised by the rest of the staff. Some hated her because she got to work on choice projects well above her pay grade, others because she done something to specifically piss them off by overshadowing them, or calling them out when the screwed up. It didn't help that Gwen also the backup for the receptionist when she was sick, or like now, on vacation. The idea that the 20-something assistant receptionist was working on their multi-million dollar projects raised the ire of some project managers. I checked my inbox and, sure enough, there were a few reports she completed that I had go over.
I barely got through my first couple of emails when I heard Sophie head off to the bedroom. That was her ritual, come home, make dinner, shower, eat and then off to bed. She would surf the Internet wile she watched TV from bed, then after a couple of hours, she would turn everything off and go to sleep. A few minutes later I heard Jake leave for work. I had the house to myself again, as usual.
I got an IM from Gwen. We chatted quite a bit over instant message. I told her I was going over the reports, she said she would be online off an on all weekend since she was working on a paper. She bounced a few ideas off me and asked what I had planned for the weekend. I told her I was probably going to work, I had to do some grocery shopping tomorrow, but no other plans.
She responded back with "All work and no play makes Tom a dull boy!"
