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- 01/22/2011
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Note: While authors are asked to place warnings on their stories for some moderated content, everyone has different thresholds, and it is your responsibility as a reader to avoid stories or stop reading if something bothers you.
Martin's Flash Fiction - 2. Chapter 2 - The Importance of Homework
“Hey, son, what’re you doing still watching the TV? I thought you had homework to do” said Bill, frowning a little.
“Awww Dad!” moaned Perry, “Why should I have to do it? It’s only learning some stupid Shakespeare quotes. I mean, what’s the point in doing that? It’s a waste of time!”
“Shakespeare quotes? A waste of time? Pah! Shows what you know, doesn’t it”.
“What? They are a waste of time. It’s not like I’m going to end up as the CEO of a major company just ‘cause I know a Hamlet soliloquy, is it?”
“Listen, son... I’m going to tell you a story about when I was a lot younger...
It was back in my mid-20s. I was working as an assistant for a very important member of a large transport company. A meeting was taking place involving the management of three companies. Gillingham Cargo, Import Shipping and Whiplash Couriers were merging to form Gimplash Inc and I was asked to sit in on the meeting in order to takes notes for the big member during the meeting.
Well, there I was sitting and writing whilst the bigwigs talked a load of nonsense about “tripartite management goals” and whether they should be used and some major marketing scheme called “cellular unificating nodular taming” and how they can prevent people from noticing the unfortunate acronym. It was at this point that the Chairman, who would be retiring in a month, made a joke about Hamlet and when nobody understood it he asked the people there to tell him the first few lines of the famous “To Be” speech. Well, none of them answered and so he went around the room, asking each individual person. When nobody could give the correct reply, he noticed me in the corner and asked if I knew it. Well, I did and so I said to him
“To be, or not to be: that is the question:Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,
And by opposing end them?”
He was really impressed! After that happened things moved rather quickly and so there I was, merely a month later, CEO of the entire company! I couldn’t believe my luck! I had heaps of money, a huge house and a cellar containing 3000 gallons of the best whisky in the world.
Of course, I’d only been in the job for a week when I had a meeting with the board of directors. Some of them were unconvinced of my suitability. At first it seemed to be going well. They were largely impressed with my business abilities and in particular found my thoughts on how the company could expand incredibly exciting.
However, that is when it all went wrong. We were discussing the potential profit to be made from creating a portable MP3 player that was both user-friendly and stylishly white. A new calculator was needed as the one we were using didn’t go to high enough numbers and whilst we awaited that one of them asked me about the significance of the paper weight in George Orwell’s famous novel, ‘Nineteen Eighty-Four’. I didn’t know. When we read that book in school I had been too busy setting up a profitable sweet-shop in the corner of the school yard to bother studying it too much. Needless to say they were horrified. I was, in their eyes, a total halfwit. I was told to never consider myself associated with the company again and was immediately escorted from the building.
... and that is how I went from immensely rich to where I am now- a clown-themed male stripper in Brighton who spends every Saturday night wearing nothing but custard and whipped cream. So get upstairs now and do your homework. There’s no knowing when it’ll come in handy”.
Note: While authors are asked to place warnings on their stories for some moderated content, everyone has different thresholds, and it is your responsibility as a reader to avoid stories or stop reading if something bothers you.
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