I wrote a short story called, “Fairchild, McGowan and the Detective” . It appears in Work Literary Magazine and it’s a fiction that draws from some of my past BOSSES and my experiences with them.
Like most of what I write – the characters are hybrids of many people, real and imagined.
One of the comments I received from the Niume Reads audience where I placed a link was, “Thanks for honoring work”. This struck me as I had not set out to honour work, nor had I paid particular attention to the work – I thought – as much as the characters who were employed in the imaginary workplaces (Loeb Lumber and Grambles Department Store).
I thought about the comment and it occurred to me that not only should we honour our work, but it is an honour to work. To hold a job; to be able to work; to have skills and so on is a prize. (Too often a surprize – but you know what I mean.)
Work is not a given.
Work can be an example of some of our best behaviour as humans. To get along at work, as we all know, can be trying. And yet, we manage it. An overwhelming number of us don’t swing a hatchet, be it figurative or literal, in response to the many that whiz (virtually) by our naked skulls on a daily basis. We act like grown-ups at work, even though most of us qualify for that distinction more by the pure fact of our age and not of our deeds, day-to-day.
And the little town slept.
That’s my signature segue (“And now for something completely different,”) that leads into…
HERE are a few other stories of mine that concern work and how we get through to the weekend. And by weekend, I unfortunately mean the time when a dismaying number of us do other work – whether that’s laundry, finding that all-important LEGO piece, getting the kids to ball practice, slinging burgers, or fixing the damn eavestrough. Again.
- “The Rothmans Job” is a wintery, noir-comedy-caper story set in the seventies in downtown Winnipeg that ran in Canadian e-zine CommuterLit.com and was later re-printed in Sick Lit Magazine.
- Two more Arbeit Macht Frei stories appear on Fiction on the Web (UK): “Nothing to Lose” and “Heavy Artillery”.
- And for those who like their Twizzlers – and their yarns – black and twisted, read “Breezy and the Six-Pack Sneaker” which appears in Literally Stories (UK) along with four other short stories of mine.
P.S. – We all struggle with bosses, don’t we? I do. I did. Most of us are not graced with great leadership skills. Personally, I finally realized – after 40-odd years – that I did not have good followship skills either. My LinkedIn connections seem to agree as this story is the most-read post on my LinkedIn page in a long time.
allfornow – Mitch
Mitchell Toews 