The Adventures Of A Uncommon Man

Chapter 11 The Turning Of The Tide

Long ago, in another time and place there lived a tribe of mountain people who lived a peaceful existence. They were only a small tribe of less than a hundred and lived in small tents. They owned animals which consisted of livestock and horses and they cultivated the land, growing crops, sometimes hunting. Life was good.
Living amongst this tribe was a man of eighty years of age. He had lived on these lands for many years and grew crops. Life was good and he was proud to call these mountains and lands home.
But one day, one of the village elders had awoken from a vivid dream where he told his people that the great spirits of the sky had visited him. In the dream they told him of a great calamity that was coming to these lands and that he and his people should travel further south towards the ocean where the lands were green, fertile and abundant.
The people of the mountains believed the elder and they gathered all their belongings, preparing for the great journey south. Everyone except for the old man who stubbornly refused to leave. He had grown up on these mountains and valley's, forests and meadows and he called this place home. He was not about to leave this place, even though the great sky spirits that his people worshipped had told them they should leave.
Many of his people and village elders tried to persuade the old man but he refused to listen to anyone but his own inner voice which told him that he should stay. Even though he was old in age, he had an abundant food source that he could live off for many years, grain, fruit and meats he had stored.
So, with a pang of dismay and sadness, the people of the mountains left the old man and continued their journey south to new land's. The old man did not care. He had his own inner voice to talk and listen to because he always talked to himself and the voice in his head always listened and talked back.
Weeks passed without any incident. But gradually over time, the old man noticed the absence of wildlife in the area. It was starting to grow colder as well. Even more startling was the lush greenery, vegetation, plants and flowers which began to die out. Then the rain and winds came. It rained hard for over 40 day's. The old man had adequate shelter from the elements but slowly his food supply began to dwindle. The floods soon came, bringing mudslides down the mountains. Soon the conditions became unbearable and the old man's shelter was starting to fall apart from the violent elements. During one night, in his dreams, the sky spirits came to him...
"Foolish man," they said to him. "We warned you that great calamities would come to these land's and you did not listen."
"But this is my home," he told them. "This is where I belong and will stay."
"And it is here where you will die!" they said. "But you can still save yourself. When the new day comes, the storms will calm themselves and allow you safe passage from these land's where you can still travel south and rejoin your people."
"What if I choose not to?" said the old man to the sky spirits.
"Then you will die here cold, miserable and alone," was their answer to him. They showed the old man his future and he saw how he died. He saw, with his own eyes the full extent of his own selfishness, the price of his own inability to change and he realized that even though his precious land's that he grew up in would dissapear, it was not important as the most precious thing he had already had, his life and that the quality of one's life experience was more important than the material possessions he had considered important in these lands. The land's to the south where his people had traveled were more beautiful and the old man soon realized that he was denying himself the pleasure of experiencing these land's.
So he woke up a man with a changed mind and he noticed the storms had died down. With this, he packed whatever possessions he could and began the long journey south, confident in the knowledge that the great spirits of the sky were watching over him...

I had a lot on my mind when I returned to my cleaning duties. Josh had not commented much on the list that I had written, only that he would check over it in his own time and offer me feedback. For now, he advised me that I should just focus on doing a good job and spending more time with my wife, Natalya. He kept reminding me that my time was running short and that now was the right time for me to act and that he would help me. His only condition was that I should do exactly as he said, no questions asked. That part I did not like. I never liked people telling me what to do just as much as I hated working in a job for an employer. I guess you could say that I have authority issues. I never felt comfortable working in any job for anyone because apart from having my life dictated to me, it's the fear of being fired anytime. No job is safe and I always knew that eventually it would come to this, that one big fear when one day you come into work and are told to go to a meeting where they dish out the bad news, the very thing you don't want to hear. I only have myself to blame for not acting like I should have done years ago. Pursuing my dreams instead of making myself miserable and depressed doing something I hated, that made me feel empty and hollow.
I tried to fill that emptiness by buying things I did not need, junk that I had accumulated over time, running up debts and making myself worse in the process. That in turn makes one more dependent on their jobs and before you know it, you are living for going to work because you need the money. Now, the inevitable has happened, the day that I dreaded, that I might lose my job because of automation. Even if it's not a robot that will be replacing me, it will be some temp from an agency. Josh was right when he said that companies are no longer loyal to their employees. It's all about profit and competing in a cut throat economy. It was more important than ever now that I do something with my writing, start creating that book that I have been meaning to write. Depending on a employer to make or break your day is just plain insanity. I needed a plan and something good to happen in my life and I needed it quick.
I quickly mop up the floor to the men's toilet, the smell of sweet lemon detergent filling the air. It certainly was a better smell than the shit and piss that normally greets one in toilets. I had already given the cubicle toilets a good going over and the sinks were spotless, the urinals having been given a good bleaching. I still had the ladies toilets to clean then there was the polishing and hoovering of the upstairs office's. I certainly was ahead on schedule and this made me feel slightly better but thinking about the smug grin on Mr Bradshaws face did little to quench the burning fire of anger and frustration inside me.
"Whats wrong Mr Anderson? Worrying about your little precious job?" came a familiar voice from the urinals.
I looked up and saw Mr Bradshaw pissing in one of the urinals. He was dressed in a tuxedo looking all smart as if he was ready to go to a posh party. I knew this was just a figment of my overactive imagination and wondering mind and I tried to ignore the troublesome thoughts that were invading my head. I don't know why I was imagining Bradshaw in a tuxedo. Maybe it was a part of me, a part of my jealous mind that saw him as perfect, a part that wanted to be like him. Now he was here in the toilets with me, a representation of my deepest anxieties, frustrations and fears talking directly to me.
"What you going to do now Anderson?" he said to me, zipping his trousers up. "You are about to lose your job and there's nothing you can do about it. Clocks ticking...tick...tock...tick...tock and here you are cleaning up shit...If you don't get your act together soon boy, you'll be out on the streets, no job, no home, no wife to kiss you goodnight. You'll be face down in the dirt eating shit!"
"Get out of my head!" I said firmly to my imaginative representation of Bradshaw. "I know I'm punishing myself and I don't deserve this. I deserve better things!"
Bradshaw grinned at this and came up to me. "Do you?" he asked me. "You keep on dreaming boy. Look at you...holding a mop and bucket, trying so desperately to cling onto what shitty job he has, drowning in debt, trying to keep his crumbling marriage together while living in his little Walter Mitty world, dreaming that things were different."
"I'm not afraid of you," I said to my imaginative Bradshaw representation. "I'm worth more than this job pays. I can and I will be much more than this."
Bradshaw laughed as leaned up close to me, getting right into my face. "Then why haven't you told me to go fuck myself? Wheres that plan you have to be a successful writer? That book you are going to write? I don't see any proof or evidence of this. I don't see any evidence of you making any plans or move to change your life. Lets face it little kiddo, you are a loser. You will never amount to anything in your life."
I gripped the broom I was holding tightly as if it was a weapon. Just how crazy was that, about to hit something that was nothing more than a figment of my imagination.
"I'm not going to ask you again, but kindly get out of my head!" I said firmly and assertively.
The Bradshaw of my imagination grinned at this. He leaned back, adjusted the dickie bow on his tuxedo and then laughed.
"Ooh! I'm so scared Mr Anderson. What you going to do? Soak me with the mop?"
He pointed over at one of the urinals. "You need to clean up a spillage Mr Anderson. When pissing in the urinal I accidentally spilt some on the side. Just a nice little puddle for you to clean up. Betta hop to it boy."
I looked to the urinal and saw there was nothing there. When I turned to face Bradshaw, I found that he was no longer standing there. He had gone, probably dissapeared into the dark recesses of my imagination like a sea monster dissapearing into the dark depths. I was once more alone. Whether he would be back with a vengeance remained to be seen. Breathing a sigh of relief I continued to finish my cleaning duties before lunch time.

I was joined at lunch by Vicky and office worker Chad. He was a short guy with brown, spiky hair. He looked like your typical computer geek and he was quite intelligent when it came to computers, though it was a mystery as to what he was doing shuffling papers in a office than writing computer code for a system. Yet another example of someone whose talents were going to waste.
We sat outside on one of the picnic tables of our workplace watching the big lorries coming in and out of the loading bays. It was slightly cold and with the dark, grey clouds hanging overhead, it looked as if it would rain any minute.
While I stared at the brown liquid that was my coffee, Chad was banging on about the announcement and all the gossip that was circulating around the office.
"I can't believe this is happening," he told Vicky as he chomped down on his baguette. "Those idiots we have for management should realise the kind of hardworking people we are. We are the lifeblood of this company. We spilled our guts out for them and this is how they return our thanks by saying that many of us are going to lose their jobs."
"Who do you think will go?" Vicky asked Chad eagerly.
Chad shrugged as if he did not know the answer.
"Maybe they will start at the bottom and work their way to the top. It makes no difference anyway who goes. Fact is, eventually we will all lose our jobs because automation of factories will be the end result for the future."
Vicky nodded as if agreeing. "Like Terminator. Humans obselete, management don't give a fuck therefore we lose everything, they gain everything."
"I always thought that one day that arrogant idiot, Bradshaw, would fire us all," added Chad. "Now he's doing just that. You know that one day he boasted to us all about what the word Boss stands for to him...Built On Self Success. The guy literally thinks he's self made that's why he's so far up his own backside."
"He can take the Glokspiel system and shove it where the sun don't shine!" grumbled Vicky. "We work hard for that ungrateful jerk and he screws us all over. Guess I'm going to have to look for a new job now."
"They say that when the Glokspiel system comes online, it will reduce the workforce by almost a quarter," explained Chad. "I think Bradshaw though will be planning to fritter us down slowly before next year comes about."
Vicky looked surprised by this.
"What? You mean he wants to get rid of some of us this year?"
"Thats the rumours circulating round the office," Chad said. "The Glokspiel system is only the start of a long automation process. Soon the whole factory will be running on machinary alone."
"I don't know whether to scream out or walk out," said Vicky.
"Walking out would be the better option," I suddenly said.
Both Chad and Vicky turned towards me, surprised by my comment.
"What?" I asked, looking at their surprised reactions. "By firing yourself you'd be doing yourself and Bradshaw a favour. No more pain and suffering. I mean, look at us, each and every day, coming into work, into jobs we hate with management that are a bunch of assholes who treat us like dirt. And what do we do? Nothing. We bitch and moan to each other as to how bad things are. And does that solve the problem?"
I waited for their reactions. They just looked at me as if they were hanging on my every word.
"Nothing changes because even though things are bad we are not really sick and tired of the crap we endure day in, day out. We just tell ourselves it's okay. We justify our situation and that's why we've stayed stuck, making ourselves cosey with each paycheck we receive, spending it on drink and God's knows what. It's now taken something as bad as this to kick us up our backsides, the threat of job loss."
"So what do you propose we do?" asked Chad, in a challenging tone.
"Isn't it obvious?" I told him. "If there is anything that needs fixing in this situation it's us. We got to get our shit together and do something because if we carry on as we are, complaining about our jobs, Bradshaw and the workplace, we are just going to make things worse for ourselves. Time for complaining is over. The tide is turning now."