This, That, and the Other

Mark was tired. He’d been working for the firm for more than a decade, yet when it came to getting promotions and raises, he was always passed over. He never missed a day of work and was very diligent when it came to carrying out the responsibilities of the job. He couldn’t make any sense of it why he was not being promoted.

Mark’s frustration over his work situation was getting the better of him and he knew he needed to do something about it, but he didn’t do well with confrontation, so he felt stuck. But then, as he left his small suburban house to head to the office, he saw something on his well-manicured lawn glistening in the morning sun. He went to investigate what he saw and it was an ornate brass object that looked like one of those antique lamps you rub and a wish-granting genie pops out.

Mark picked up the object and took it back into his house. He set the item on his kitchen table and then walked into the dining room to look for a silver polishing cloth. He found it and walked back into the kitchen. Mark picked up the brass object, touched the silver polishing cloth to it, and started rubbing the cloth along the object’s side. “Genie,” Mark said, “show yourself and grant me my wish.”

Suddenly a puff of blueish-white smoke came from the object’s spout and from within that puff of smoke a large blue genie emerged.

In a thick foreign accent, the genie said, “You have summoned me. Your wish is my command.”

Mark suddenly saw an opportunity to quickly advance to the top spot at his firm and whispered his wish to the Genie. The genie nodded.

When Mark arrived at the office half an hour later, he noticed that everyone was staring at him. He assumed that it was his aura of confidence. He put his stuff on his cubicle desk and headed straight to his boss’s office and shut the door.

Mark’s boss looked at Mark and said, “Oh my God, Mark, what the hell happened to you?” Before Mark could respond, his boss marched him into the private bathroom, and told Mark to look at his image in the mirror. Mark was aghast as he looked at his reflection.

“Explain yourself, Mark,” his boss demanded.

“I found a genie bottle on my lawn this morning, rubbed it a few times and a genie popped out and told me it would grant me my wish. But the genie had a thick foreign accent and I think there was something lost in translation,” Mark explained.

“What did you ask the genie for?” the boss asked.

“I told him that I wanted to be the big man at the firm and it seems he took it too literally.

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Written for Christine Bialczak’s Simply 6 Minutes Challenge. Image credit: no attribution.