Jeff lives at home. Despite graduating magna cum laude after four years at a highly-regarded university,
and btw, piling up a mountain of student loan debt for his trouble, the job market did not welcome him
like the second coming of…anybody. Jeff works as an intern for a large corporation. And thus, he can be
reached at home in his childhood bedroom.
9 A.M. – Jeff, in hoodie and jeans, arrives at work, arms full with his daily morning coffee and donuts
run. He hands his supervisor his favorite donut, chocolate with nuts and sprinkles, and
deposits the rest in the break room.
9:12 A.M. – Jeff’s supervisor begins choking on a peanut. Jeff tries but doesn’t know how to
perform the Heimlich properly. And everyone else is in their respective cubicles enjoying their coffee
and donuts. The supervisor dies. Jeff is distraught.
9:32 A.M. – Jeff is promoted to supervisor.
10:47 A.M. – Jeff is called into HR, where he is told that his current boss has quit for a better job. Jeff is
promoted to department head.
12 Noon – The division chief enters Jeff’s new office and invites him to lunch.
1: 07 P.M. – While Jeff is enjoying an expense account meal at the hot restaurant in town, his boss’
cellphone rings with news that his widowed mother had a stroke at her home, halfway across the
country. He immediately bolts from the restaurant, leaving Jeff with two entrees. The boss’ has fries,
which Jeff was thinking about ordering. Jeff shovels his division chief’s spuds onto his plate.
2: 28 P.M. – Back at the office, Jeff has been called to HR, where he is told that the division chief won’t
be coming back. A replacement has been hired.
2:35 P.M. – As Jeff enters his office, the phone rings. It’s HR. The replacement division chief was killed in
a car crash on her way to the office. Jeff is the new division chief.
3:07 P.M. Jeff, now dressed in a fashionable sport coat and slacks combo, acclimates to the beautiful city
view from his new corner office, while the Bloomberg financial channel fills his sixty-five-inch tv. The
program is interrupted by a bulletin. The corporation’s CEO has been fired due to accusations of
inappropriate behavior at the 2007 company Christmas party.
4:14 P.M. – Jeff, now sporting a five thousand dollar Armani suit, acclimates himself to his office suite as
the new CEO of the corporation. He learns from watching Bloomberg News on his ninety-five-inch tv
that Wall Street hated the fired CEO and with new blood at the top, the company’s after-hours market
stock price has rocketed by twenty-two percent.
5:30 P.M. – Because of the stock jump, Jeff is celebrated with a champagne toast, where else but in the
break room.
6: 19 P.M – Jeff completes a phone call with BMW, where he will pick up his new 650 sedans which he
will drive to the stockholder’s meeting the next morning. But right now, he was going to check out a few
luxury apartments in town. No more parents’ basement.
Jeff is inches from exiting his office when the giant tv suddenly screams out another bulletin. The
corporation’s largest factory in Sri Lanka has called for a massive workers’ strike that could spill over to
the conglomerate’s other factories around the world. The stock plummets over forty percent in the after-hours market. Jeff’s phone rings. He hesitates for a moment and then picks it up. It’s HR.
9 A.M. – Jeff, in hoodie and jeans, arrives at work, arms full with his morning coffee and donuts run.
The takeaway: Nut-free donuts only.
