The alarm on your phone rings, the same familiar tune. You reach for your phone in the same familiar spot, and swipe to the left, as you have a thousand times before, to snooze the alarm. Your right arm bends around, to slide along the back of the sighing spouse beside you.
Ten minutes later, the alarm on your phone rings again, and you swipe to the left, but this time you unlock it and start your morning routine, checking group chats one by one. XMPP has a fresh spate of arguments about Linux distros. Matrix friends are mocking the American war effort in Iran. There's photographs of sea life on Deltachat.
A trot to the pot and return to the bed, and you find a text message from your boss. "I need someone to blah blah whatever". Your back stiffens, your blood pressure and cortisol spike. 'There goes Saturday' you think, as you fling the phone to the bed and sit upright. "I have go to go to work," you lament as you turn to get your feet onto the floor.
"Do you?"
The question doesn't come from your spouse, but from within. You've been putting up with a lot of shit, not just over the last month or so, but for the past N years. Your boss is a good guy, but a company man first, and this is Saturday, and you've been run really ragged lately. You stand up anyway, staggering slightly from the previous night's whiskey. You reach for your nearest set of chair-clothes.
"Fuck him. Fuck that."
Once again the voice is from inside. You stand in the middle of the room, looking at the notification. In your mind are history, impacts, budgeting, the job market, and a thousand other esoteric factors. You think suddenly of the resignation email sitting in your drafts folder for the past nine months. Is today the day? You know how goddamn bad the job market is; you've been hunting already, but you've been pushed too far this time. You've had enough. Fuck him, indeed. Fuck that, fuck them.
You're suddenly torn; do you reply back with "fuck you"? Do you send instead a "damn that's crazy"? Do you message your team lead instead? Quickly, clarity reaches you: you swipe away the notification and go on with life. You take a shit, you browse some memes, you turn on the stove to heat the old cast iron pan. You fry some eggs, you make a few omelettes, and you enjoy your breakfast. All the while the ratshit manager is left wondering. Or maybe he isn't. You don't know, nor do you care. That's not important right now. What's important is the cheese on this omelette.
The peace you find from ignoring a text message is immeasurable. A sudden realization strikes; wording matters a lot. If your boss had I said "I need you to" instead of "I need someone to", then today might really have been the day. That's how close you are to the edge. Fuck him. Fuck that. Make them fire you. Do us both a favor. You wouldn't dare.
You go and enjoy a blissful, warm, sunny Saturday, the way God intended. You gloat of your dismissing of work, to your friends as well as your opps. Maybe it will blow back on you, maybe it won't. Maybe the team lead will stick up for you, or maybe not. It doesn't matter at this point. The die is cast, the decision was made. Time to put some miles behind us.
