Teddy Loses His Job
My mother always tapped her forefinger on the side of her head when she talked about Cousin Ted. “There is something loose up there,” she’d say. “You can hear it rattle when he walks.”
Teddy is a smart guy but does seem a little off. He was fired yesterday. I met him this morning at the coffee shop to listen to his side of the story and to try to encourage him.
The long and short of it is that Teddy did a twenty minute verbal assault on a company product at a rollout meeting yesterday. “I really got into it,” he said. “I remember telling the managers who pushed the product that their actions were something the Nazis would be proud of, that the product had already cost the company jobs, and that the result of the product on the public would be worse than Thalidomide.”
“Teddy,” I said gently. “I thought your company made plastic pipe.”
“I read somewhere,” continued Ted, “That being in the public eye—in the middle of things—was much more important to advancing your career than what you say or do.” “But they fired me.” “They seemed particularly upset that I didn’t seem to understand that the product had not been released yet—and, that while I held the floor for twenty minutes, I never once suggested anyway in which the product could be improved.”
Ted, who lives in Texas, has decided to run for public office. I think it might work for him.