Short story: Bike Horn Greg
This is a short story I wrote based on the prompt: Write a short story inspired by the sentence “He lived in constant fear of being abruptly fired.” Enjoy. :)
Greg had a job. At his job, the company made and sold bike horns. He liked his job for the most part. However, he lived in constant fear of being abruptly fired. He was always afraid of hearing those terrible words from his boss. Those words that would mean he had been suddenly fired.
So, Greg was always anxious, trying to go the extra mile to get things done.
You see Greg had been put in charge of running the whole bike horn business. He was taking part in marketing, bookkeeping, sales, and all the other departments. Plus, he was somehow still expected to do work on improving the bike horn product itself.
Arguably he already had a terrible schedule for work, working from early in the morning to late at night, but that wasn’t the worst of it.
He’d work late nights and weekends (yes, he’d work 7 days a week with no break) on seemingly unimportant tasks, basically as insurance against the thought of being fired.
Oddly enough, although Greg worked very hard continuously all week, his boss was rarely happy or satisfied. Instead of praise or congratulations, his boss would push him to do more, sell more, work more.
So Greg spent basically every waking second selling or working on bike horns for the business.
Sadly, it seemed the more Greg worked, the more the boss expected. To Greg, it became like running on a treadmill where he could never reach the point at which he felt he would be secure in his job. And how could he when his boss wasn’t happy? He could be fired any moment.
Finally one day, Greg had a mental breakdown. He couldn’t handle the pressure anymore. He didn’t come to work anymore. He just lay in his bed with fits of anxiety for days.
A good friend of his, Jeremy, who had heard about his friend’s sickness, decided to help him get well. He stayed by Greg’s bedside and slowly nursed Greg back to strength.
When he was well enough, Greg began to be anxious again. “My boss, he’ll be unhappy with me. I’ll be fired,” he moaned painfully.
Jeremy’s eyebrows furrowed, his lips slightly raised in a half serious, half amused smile, “Fired? Greg, I thought you were self-employed?”
Indeed, he was, and the truth is that Greg himself was his “unhappy boss.”
You see, we’re often hardest on ourselves. We’re sometimes our own worst bosses, our own worst self-imposed stress nightmares.
So from then on Greg remembered Philippians 4:6-7, which says:
“Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to Yahweh; and the peace of Yahweh, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds through Messiah Yahushua.”
And that’s the story of bike horn Greg.
THE END