In the mornings, at about six o'clock, Louie would adjust his uniform in front of his mirror in the bathroom. After that, he would go downstairs to the ground floor of the house to quickly eat his breakfast and say a few words to his family. In fact, they could only see each other's faces when they went to eat. He and his wife had very busy work schedules that left little time to talk. They had children together, but they could barely talk to them anyway. After they went to work, they would leave them with a nanny who would take care of them until they returned at night. In part, all this intensive work they had was because they had more than one job. The economic situation they were in was hard because they had debts and if these were not paid on time, they would increase due to late payment fees.
In Louie's case, he worked on a car assembly line. His specific job was to assemble the car engine into the chassis. Since he was a child, he had always liked being a mechanic and he liked his job. At least in that sense it was a good thing because since he liked his job he had good performance and often got raises that helped him get ahead. So far so good, the bad thing about this job was the inflexible hours. Also, if he asked for fewer hours of work he could lose his job or the position he had. All this because in his city this job was in high demand and there were many people waiting for a position, so whoever had one had to take care of it.
With all this, as I was already explaining to you, the money was not enough because they had many debts, so he was forced to work in other places after leaving the assembly factory. You see, there is something I have not told you yet. Louie did not train as a mechanic in his youth, his parents were theater singers. And they taught their skills to Louie so that he could follow in their footsteps. He studied singing for several years and was very good at it, having inherited his parents' talent. But as always, something changed plans. After graduating, he met Irene, who would become his current wife.
After several months of dating, he decided that he wanted to marry her. But he didn't earn enough from his part-time jobs to be able to support a family. That's why he joined the car assembly factory. With that stable job he was able to rent a house that he would later buy in installments, he married Irene and spent part of his youth happily. It's true that he had to temporarily abandon his career as a singer but at least he was building his life in other aspects. But later in time when the children came and the expenses increased, that job was no longer enough, and now we come to the present.
To compensate, he had a very brilliant idea. As you may remember, he was a singer in his youth, so when he found out that one of the local clubs was looking for a singer to liven up the atmosphere, he saw the opportunity to work there. But there was a problem, he didn't want his family to find out that he was a singer again because he had agreed with his family that that was a thing of the past. Also, the club where he worked didn't have the best reputation, so he was afraid that it would affect his other job and what his family would think of him. For that reason, in order to sing he had to wear a mask. That way he could do his job, which was to sing without anyone knowing who he was.
That worked for a while and gave him enough money to cover the most pressing debts. So that was his daily routine. In order to work at the club at night he had to tell his wife that he had to do overtime at the assembly plant and she didn't say anything to him because they needed that money to get by. All this hiding from his family was because the reputation of the club was not the best, so he didn't want to let them down. Meanwhile, every time he went to work at the club, more and more people came to see him sing. Many liked his music, so little by little his talent improved the reputation of the place. More and more people came, attracted by him. The owner of the Club decided that it was time to change many things within the establishment, such as the rules of what was allowed and the decoration.
This of course was done in order to make the Club more accessible to families and people interested in music. That's why he prohibited drinking alcohol at certain times and it was no longer allowed to get drunk or smoke inside the club. With all these measures, many more people came to the club every day to see Louie and of course because of the good reputation the place was gaining.
It wasn't long before the owner himself told Louie that he would double his pay if he started working more hours with them. Because according to him, it wasn't enough at night, because during the day many people wanted to see them too. Of course, Louie couldn't answer yes immediately, because there were many things at stake. First, his wife didn't know yet that he had been working there for a long time. And his job might not agree to give him flexible hours. So he was in a dilemma.
When he got home that night, he lay down on his back in his bed and thought about everything the owner of the business had told him. The first thing he recognized was that now the Club was much better and had an excellent reputation, so there was no need to hide it from his wife any longer or to have to wear more masks when he sang. So he decided what he was going to do. First thing in the morning he sat them all down at the table and before they started eating breakfast he told them the whole truth about what he had been doing for the last few months and what he was going to do now.
He explained to them that he was going to ask for fewer hours at the factory to devote himself more to his passion of being a singer. But he didn't think he was going to leave his job at the factory because one of his passions besides music was being a mechanic.
When his family heard everything, besides being speechless, they were a bit upset. Not so much because of what he was going to do, but because he didn't have the confidence to tell them. But their tempers calmed down when Irene acknowledged that she had done it for a noble cause. However, they made him promise not to do it again. The hardest part of this decision was thinking about what they would do if they fired him from the factory, because they wondered if they would be able to support themselves with just working at the club. Louie explained to them that if this worked out in a short time they would solve their debt problem, so it was necessary, otherwise they would have more and more. So in the end everyone decided that this would be the best thing to do.
The next day he went to work at the factory and asked to speak to the boss. He explained everything that was happening and what he needed. And you know what happened, against all odds, the boss agreed to give him preferential treatment for all the years he had dedicated to the company. So he gave him a flexible schedule. When he left there, he went straight to the Club and gave the good news to the owner, who was very happy because now the two of them would have the opportunity to earn much more with less work. The next day, the new routine began, which was now calmer, now they had more time in the morning to talk. And he also came home earlier. One day he worked at the club and one day at the factory.
All this allowed Louie and his family to get ahead, but now more united and without secrets. They had more time for themselves and the debts were slowly beginning to disappear. But now he also had his passion back and made a reality, he could be a singer and a mechanic at the same time. The best thing about all this is that they learned good lessons, there should never be secrets in the family, you can't be afraid to take a step forward and not stay stuck in the same place just because you're comfortable.
Credits: The images used are free to use and royalty free. They were taken from pixabay.
