Chapter 1: Slip Slidin' Away
It was late Friday afternoon and I was half asleep, sitting ... or more accurately slouching in one of those "designed for discomfort" chairs that every airport features. I'd flown in from North Platte, Nebraska, with a tight connection to home base, Cincinnati. No such luck. My commuter flight was on time, but the 737 was nowhere to be found when I got to Denver. It was the airline's hub, but there was no aircraft at my gate. "A mechanical," the girl at the counter said. "We'll let you know." Yeah, right!
I flipped open my cell phone and called home. It rang five times before the answer machine kicked in. I left a message for my wife, Sylvia, telling her that I was delayed and wouldn't be home until late. I looked at my watch and realized she wouldn't be home until later anyway. Friday night had become her night out with "the girls." Ever since she went back to work five years ago she had been exerting her independence. I wondered how much that had to do with her deteriorating attitude toward me and our son, Tommy.
I admit I've been on the road far too much lately; lately being the last three years. It's all a result of the company's "belt tightening." Things hadn't been going well at Faraday and Crosse. We'd been losing market share to competitors. The company made packaging equipment, and had for many years. Old Jonas Faraday, still alive at nearly ninety, founded the company following WWII. At one time, Faraday & Crosse had been a big player in the packaging business across North America. Lately, however, it hadn't been much of a player at all.
We'd been caught and passed by several competitors, both domestic and foreign, and that had resulted in some drastic cutbacks at the plant, as well as in the field. I've got seniority, so that was the good news. I'm also the best service tech the company has. That's not bragging, it's just a matter of having been around longer than the others. Most of the other guys who had worked with me have either retired or quit.
What started out as a six man department was now down to three. On top of that, our quality had been slipping, so I spend more time fixing things that should never have left the factory. Then there was the cost cutting edict. Bonuses disappeared, along with a lot of other benefits. Gone was the company's contribution to the pension plan, the accumulated time-off benefit, and the sick days benefit. I never took advantage of them anyway, but they meant something to a lot of other people.
A couple of years ago we changed travel agents, and at the same time a new epistle came down from above. Any travel had to be authorized by the individual's supervisor. All extended travel (three days or more) should commence on Sunday to avoid wasting a day's work. Return travel was not to commence until after 4pm unless no other option was available that same day. Then there was the matter of our new travel agent.
I was assigned to a woman name Sue Fracas. What an appropriate name! Sue's mandate, I found out later, was to route my travel by the most economic (read cheap) method possible. In addition, our schedule would be set by our supervisor to maximize efficiency. That meant leaving Sunday and getting back Friday after being in two or three different customer plants. It didn't matter how urgent the situation was with our customer, we were going to be efficient, no matter what.
Once the assignments were set, the supervisor would contact the travel agent and she would make the flight, hotel, and rental car arrangements. Take a wild guess how well that worked. After several colossal screw-ups, not to mention irate customers, the plan was scrapped and we went back to making our own travel arrangements. Well, our own except the travel agent would book the flights, hotels, and rental cars, but we would get to tell them where and when we wanted to go, and when we wanted to return. The result was little different. The capper was when Mrs. Fracas routed me home to Cincinnati on a Friday night from St. Louis via Dallas. Apparently, she saved the company fifty dollars.
My son, Tommy, had been listening to my complaints about this woman and suggested I book my trips on my own computer. It was easy to do, he said, and was happy to show me how. In a moment of brainlessness, I agreed, and we set up my next week's travel. Tommy was right. It was easy. On top of that, I could get discounts at various motels and car rental places that I know we weren't getting now.
I was pretty proud of myself right up until the moment the General Manager called me into his office and proceeded to drill me a new rectum. I turned out that Mrs. Sue Fracas was a personal friend of Mrs. Joan Whipple, wife of said General Manager. She found out about my handling my own travel and complained to Mrs. Whipple, who filled the ear of Mr. Whipple. Hence my whipping from Mr. Whipple.
It was at that point I knew I was beaten. He didn't give a damn about my personal comfort or how many hours I spent in airports or hotels. As far as he was concerned, I was living the good life, and I had a lot of damn nerve complaining about it. It was the old joke we shared with the sales reps and my fellow tech reps: The glamour of travel. The accounting mentality now had a vise grip on Faraday and Crosse.
As I sat waiting for the next installment of my flight delay, I was doing some serious thinking. Now this probably wasn't the best time for it, since I was already in a lousy mood, but I got to thinking just what my life was like at this particular moment. I didn't like the answer I was getting. Sylvia had been sniping at me fairly regularly lately. She seemed unhappy about everything, but I couldn't get her to open up and tell me what was bothering her. We seemed to be talking to each other less and less with each passing day.
When I tried to think back to when it all started, the only point I could find was after she started her new career. When Tommy turned sixteen, she took a job in an insurance company office, and within a year she had earned a promotion, and then two years later, another. She was now the manager of claims for a large branch of a national company, and her salary reflected it. When we filed our income tax returns earlier this year, I was surprised to see that her income was nearly as much as mine. That brought about another point of friction.
When I saw what she was earning, I asked her where the money was going. It certainly wasn't going into our savings account. True, she had bought a fancy new car, complete with payments, but aside from groceries and her clothes, all the rest of the household expenses were born by me. That included the first two years of Tommy's college tuition. I was probably a little irritated when I asked her where the money was, but I wasn't prepared for the reaction I got in return.
"It's my money, and I'll do what I like with it." She was speaking in a tone that would indicate she thought the matter was closed. It wasn't.
"Since you live in this house and you are married to me, I expect a civil answer to a reasonable question. Where is the money going?"
"If you must know, it's going into a non-taxable savings account. I'm planning for our retirement, even if you aren't."
"I'm saving whatever we can, but it doesn't help when you don't contribute."
"I told you, I am contributing. It's just not to your fund. Now quit pestering me about it."
That ended the conversation, but it left me with an uneasy feeling about what she was doing with her income. In typical fashion, though, I pushed it down into my memory recesses and let it go. Now it was back up, front and center. As I thought about it, Sylvia and I hadn't been getting along for at least as long as the three years since travel had been intensified. I'd been using the old "rope-a-dope" technique, trying not to absorb any heavy blows, letting her shots bounce off me. Why?
Why had I decided to tolerate her nearly abusive behavior? Not hard to answer that. It was the easy way out. Just like sticking with my lousy job for all these years. It was easier to go with the flow than make waves. I am forty-three years old, the same age as Sylvia. Half my life is past me, but I'm still in what most people would think of as their prime. I have twenty-four years of experience behind me and surely someone would value that. Hell, my customers regularly told me that if I ever wanted a job to come see them.
So, what was keeping me from changing everything? Inertia? Yeah, probably. Better the devil you know than the one you don't. Fear? That too. Where would I go? What would I do? So instead, I just learned to live with it. I felt like I was walking close to the edge of a cliff. Another few steps and I would be over ... falling into what? All I had to do was stop, turn around, and walk the other way. So easy to say, so difficult to do.
It was almost seven o'clock when they announced our aircraft would be at the gate in five minutes, and after a quick crew change, we would be boarding. I walked over to the growing lineup of people anxious to be on their way. I noticed quite a few had disappeared since our original flight time. Had they found other ways to get home, or had they just given up? And why did that sound like the same question I had been asking myself over the last several hours?
