"Ah yesss, yesss. Another fine day dawns. Hmm.... What shall I do this day? Ahh- sir! Sir! Could you bring me another jelly donut?"
"Right away". Waiter scurries over to the pastry rack. Coming back, he is met by another question.
"And could you refill my coffee, please?"
"Yes sir. More coffee"
Freddy Flounder looks out upon the street. He sees his pal Gabby Hayes strolling up to the gate, and entering the cafe’s entranceway.
"Over here, over here, my good man" Freddy calls out. "Ahh. Yesss, yesss. Sit down. I saved a spot for you"
Gabby sits. "Howzit, Freddy?"
"Another glorious day of retirement. Ahh yesss"
Two more friends of Freddy's enter the cafe, Benny Dawson and Eddie Peters, making it now four at the table.
"Waiter" Freddy yells. "Three cups of Joe for my friends here. And bring some creamer with you, please"
"Right away, sir"
Freddy turns to his pals. "Isn't this the greatest? The world turning without us having to lift a finger?"
Eddie Peters agrees. "You bet. I got all the time in the world now. Used to be I was pressed for time but no more. The wife and I are gonna take a road trip next week. Visit some friends over in Scranton"
"The beauty of retirement" Benny cuts in, "is that we don't have to do jack anymore. Everything is done for us! I feel like a frickin' king"
"You got that right" Gabby says, joining in. "For the rest of my days, lazy days! Lookit out on the street here at all the shmucks going to work! Not us anymore!"
Freddy and Gabby
Shane Rounce-Unsplash.com
An obviously still-working guy enters the cafe and strides briskly up to the front counter.
"Looks like that guy is pressed for time" Freddy says, pointing him out. "I can tell by the way he's desperately searching for somebody to take his order that he's in a hurry. I used to be like that"
"Me too" Benny says. "But now I'm not in a hurry to get anywhere! Except maybe off the first tee!"
Chuckles all around.
"Say Freddy" Benny says, jabbing him in the shoulder. "Poker's at your house this week, right?"
"Sure. Same time as usual. 6:00. I'll have the room set up with hard liquor, ashtrays, and... uh... what kind of chow you guys want? Mexican?"
"Sounds good'
"I'm okay with that"
"Me too"
"Alirght. 6:00 then, my place"
The impatient patron at the counter gets his coffee and pastry to go and hurries towards the exit. Waitress cries out "Sir- you left your phone!"
Freddy, seeing this, laughs.
"Lookit workin' man over there! I used to be like that guy, always rushing, never any spare time, for 37 years! And for what?"
"So youse could play poker with us on Tuesday nights?" Gabby jokes.
"No" Freddy turns serious. "I wasn't thinking about playing poker with you louts on Tuesday nights. I was just praying that I'd survive my time in the shark tank. Every week was a struggle, every working day a pain"
Knowing nods to this all around. Freddy continues.
"You know, if I had to do it all over again...."
Benny groans. "You'd probably do it different!"
"You bet I would" Freddy growls, in response to Benny's 'heard it all before' jab. "What a waste of time working was! I never understood if I was making a profit for the company or not, how they calculated my worth to the company. I still don't know what my 'worth' is. Damn company brainwashed me....."
"Yeah, uh, me too" Eddie pipes up. "What exactly was my time worth? Not a heckuva lot, compared to some people"
"And that poor schumck headin' for the exit without his phone a minute ago probably doesn't know what he's worth either" says Freddy. “Nobody knows. Each company sets a value on your time compared with a bunch of factors- what other employees in the same line of work are paid, the availability of labor, whether they have to pay for general labor or skilled, the various and sundry costs of doing business like advertising, raw materials, maintenance, and packaging, the number of employees they have, the greed or generosity of upper management, the lease on the building, or on the fleet, the cost of equipment, the taxes they have to pay, you name it. It's pretty easy to be devalued when you're on the shop floor or out on the road, away from the office and the actual profit and loss statement. Accountants and managers- some of them- are privy to that information while the rest of us live by the old saying "Employees are like mushrooms. Kept in the dark and fed s___”.
Put a pile of cash, physical or virtual, in front of a management team and how much of that do you think makes it past their outstretched bonus-and-perks hands? Not much. There's a massive lack of transparency in business, it's built into the system. I woulda like to have seen that change in my time working for The Man but true transparency is probably the last thing that's ever gonna happen"
"Why the hell didn't you start your own business then, like I did?" Gabby retorted. "I've heard sob stories like this all my life"
"I thought I had it good, compared to what people around me had" replied Freddy. "I didn't feel that changing jobs was a good idea, and starting a business seemed too risky"
"Serves you right then" Gabby smugly replied.
"I had bills to pay, there were things I wanted to buy" Freddy continued. "Unlike you, I wanted my weekends free so I could go out on dates and party"
"Ach, it's all water under the bridge" Eddie jumped in. "It don't matter anymore! You get old, you sit around, and you end up thinkin' too damn much. Who wants more coffee?"
"Not me" Benny says, rising from his chair. "I gotta get going. Gotta take the wife shopping today for gardening stuff"
"Uh, yeah, I gotta get goin' too" Gabby says, taking Benny's cue. "Gotta knock down about a week's worth of grass"
Eddie too decides it's a good time to push back. "Guess I'll see you all at six" he says, looking around. "I gotta go take a leak, then a walk"
Freddy says his goodbyes then watches his buddies go. "Sure woulda done it differently back then" he thinks. "If I only woulda had the gumption to do it! Coulda, woulda, shoulda! But, it don't matter now. Good or bad, it's all water under the bridge. At least I can make what's left of my life count by trying to drop all that unworthiness crap I was conditioned into believing about myself!"