The Sports Agent’s Tale
On the bus there was a stressed Sports Agent,
A short and stocky fellow and was Asian.
Around his neck was a necklace bright gold,
And it resembled his speech, fresh and bold.
Always mumbling about how hard work is,
And how MJ might get back in the "biz"
His wallet seemed large and for good reason,
Since the NFL was in mid season.
His face was quite flat and his eyes squinty,
Although his suit and shoes were quite stingy.
He had a degree in sports management,
The topic of discussion was of it.
For he was a boastful man which
Everyone on the bus could not stand.
He lived in a house colored blue and white,
But he said the living space was too tight.
He had two children back in eighty-eight,
One named Jeff, one named Blake with last name Bates.
As I walked into work one Monday morning, I heard a young fellow say something about a trade rumor surrounding an up and coming basketball player that had just signed with me. The young man said that he was going to be traded to a team out in Los Angeles, where he would not play above 10 minutes a game. With my big prodigy on the bench my status at the company would be ruined, I might even get demoted for signing a deadbeat. But I was determined not to get too worked up about it, after all, I have 2 other clients. So I convinced myself that I would still be in line for a somewhat large raise after this quarter. As I walked to my cubicle I realized that everyone was staring at me.
Then someone tapped my shoulder and said, "Big John wants to see you in his office. Man, I feel bad for you!"
I thought to myself, "There is no way that Big John wants to see me! He is my boss’s boss!" So I told Big John’s secretary to tell Big John that I would be there in a sec. I went to the bathroom to make sure I looked all right and to clear my head.
In the bathroom I started talking to myself (as crazy as that sounds),"You are not losing your job today. You are not going to screw up in front of Big John, and you are not going to lose it if you get fired! OK I am ready." Just as I got my spirits up my coworker mentioned to me that Big John was extremely mad today, but he didn’t know why.
He also said, "Big John was yelling at the two efficiency experts about some employee that signed a benched B-ball rookie. Didn’t you sign the guy getting traded to LA?" I responded with a no just to prolong the inevitable chanting of "SCREW UP! SCREW UP" from everyone at the company as I left with my stuff. Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that we were going through massive layoffs.
After that disheartening chat with my coworker, I decided that I needed to pull myself back together, so back to the bathroom I went. I told myself that the rookie would come through for me and that I wasn’t a screw up, no matter what everyone said.
When I was at the bathroom door I started to think about what would happen if I got fired. I had two kids at home and a wife. I couldn’t afford to not have a job, especially since my wife Betsy just took a pay cut so she could get off of work earlier. If I was fired I would lose everything. My wife and kids would go to Betsy’s parents house and since my parents were both deceased, and I would definitely not be welcome at Betsy’s parents house after I lost my job and can’t put food on the table for my own kids anymore. I would be a poor, dirty old man on the streets of NYC, struggling to find food, never mind a job. If I was to lose my job I would probably end up being a tour guide at a small museum, asking kids from public schools of New York what they think of the Homo erectus stage in human evolution. After a hard days work of asking ignorant kids questions about our heritage, I would go home to my one room apartment in the basement of the city morgue. I would end up spending more money on bottles of Febreeze than I would on the apartment. After I died of air pollution from all the dead bodies, I would be transported up the stairs to have the highly paid professionals, with gasmasks, identify me and bury me in Potters Field because not even my X-wife would want to pay for my burial.
After what seemed to be about five minutes of silence in my mind, I was hit on the head by the bathroom door and one of Big John’s secretaries told me that I was needed in Big John’s office immediately. I picked up my briefcase and ventured onward to what I imagined would be a sports agent's hell. And to no avail I was greeted with a five-minute lecture on why to not sign a skinny kid from North Carolina when he was going to be traded to a team that would bench him.
After another lecture, which lasted at least ten minutes, on why he was firing me, two people from the company bolted in screaming, "Jordan is staying in Chicago! Bates, you’re a genius! Wow congratulations!" I shook their hands and looked back at Big John. He stared at me, and I stared back at him.
He then said, "Maybe we can reconsider your status in the company. Don’t want a top agent and a top prospect leaving too soon now do we?"
I ended up getting a raise, and that prospect I signed goes by the name of Michael Jordan. So here I am on my way to D.C. to see if he still needs an agent. Well then, who’s next?
