A Fresh Start

Fandango

54A2797E-55A8-4820-97C7-2C5889B1E610Jim was nervous as he walked into Stephen’s office. “Sit, Jim,” his boss said taking a seat on his office sofa and pointing to a chair next to it.

Jim sat down. “You want to talk to me about my report?”

“Yes, Jim, I do,” Stephen said. “Your research was excellent. Very detailed and in-depth, very well annotated. Unfortunately, your written report was problematic.”

Jim was confused. “Problematic?” he said. “I don’t understand.”

“You’re way too deep into the weeds,” his boss said. “It’s sixty pages long, for crissake. No one is going to take the time to read it all. What you need to do is put an abstract of your research at the beginning and a summary at the end. That way, people can read the abstract, get the gist of the report, skip to the summary, and voila, they’re done. Sort of like a pebble skimming the surface.”

“I feel like I’ve just entered the Twilight Zone,” Jim said. “I’m a research scientist and you want me to just skim the surface in my written reports. That’s nonsense. That’s not what I spent my time getting a PhD to do. I don’t think we have a match, Stephen. I quit.” Jim got up and started to leave Stephen’s office, when Stephen reached out and grabbed Jim by his right wrist.

“Jim, wait,” Stephen said. “Listen, the holidays are coming up. Take some time, think things over, and when you come back, we’ll get off to a fresh start. We need people like you with your work ethic. I’ve got my eye on you for bigger things, son.”

Written for the Mindlovemisery’s Menagerie Tale Weaver prompt (weeds) and for these daily prompts: Fandango’s One-Word Challenge (written), Your Daily Word Prompt (problematic), Ragtag Daily Prompt (pebble), Word of the Day Challenge (Zone), Daily Addictions (wrist), and The Daily Spur (holidays).

11 thoughts on “A Fresh Start”

  1. Lisa Coleman August 22, 2019 / 10:40 am

    Sounds about right. This should be the first scene in a Hallmark Christmas movie. Cut to the scene at the ski lodge. 😊

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  2. Marleen August 22, 2019 / 10:52 am

    Reminds me of the president or chairman of China being pulled back by the arm by, when on stage during a visit with, George W. Bush. A bit inappropriate, but hopefully it’ll work out.

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  5. bushboy August 23, 2019 / 9:12 pm

    I used to have to write articles based on scientific papers………oh that was difficult especially when I asked for a few dot points of the gist of the paper. Scientists cannot get to the point lol

    Liked by 1 person

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  6. Violet Lentz August 24, 2019 / 6:58 am

    Nicely done. Wondering if it might be Stephen that needs a time out to realign his priorities…

    Liked by 1 person

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