The Small Man

It was just somewhere to be for a year. Maybe two.
   That's what Stan told himself when he took the job. He didn't know what he wanted to do or where he wanted to go or what he intended his life eventually to become. But he knew this job wasn't it. Two years, max. Hell, six months if he could find something else that paid a little better.
   At the one year mark he told himself he had six months to find another job or else quit. He told himself the same at the two year mark. Then at the three year mark he stopped giving himself six months to quit.
   Stan got married in the summer of his eighth year on the job. His first son was born in the winter of his tenth year. He and his wife bought a house six months later.
   By the time he'd reached fifteen years at the same job Stan was going gray at the temples, and he wondered where the time had gone. Fourteen years longer on the job than he'd intended, and still no end in sight. There was college to plan for, and weddings for his three kids, and then retirement. His one year on the job looked like it was going to stretch into thirty.
   Then the economy tanked and Stan got laid off while some overpaid bastard took home millions in undeserved income. Stan foundered on unemployment - he'd never learned a skill marketable outside his company - and let himself feel emasculated while his wife shouldered the burden of being the family breadwinner.
   But one day Stan realized something. He wasn't shackled any longer. He was a free man. He could do anything. Literally. Follow his bliss. Find his passion. Indulge in the way he never had before. He found a new career.
   Stan never made millions, but he provided for his family and he held his head up and answered proudly when people asked him what he did for a living. And that was something he never could do before.