The Job of Your Dreams

This is an open-ended story. How it ends depends on you.

But it begins with a woman named Jeanette. Jeannette had just graduated from college and had gotten the job of her dreams, working for the ZX Corporation. And it was on the day her boss sent her out to see the waste disposal factory by the beach that the most incredible thing happened.

A gigantic tentacle came out of the ocean, wrapped itself around her waist, and pulled her into the ocean. Down to a depth of several miles.

For a minute, Jeanette was worried what the salt water would do to her designer dress, but that seemed less important when she found that she was staring into the eye of a giant octopus.

"Why are you doing this?" said the octopus.

"Um. . .Doing what?"

"Dumping that disgusting stuff into our ocean."

"Oh. Well, it's how we make our product.. And you got to make products."

"Why?"

"Well, products are what companies sell to make money. We need money."

"You don't need the ocean?"

"Well, . .Personally no. I mean, when I was a kid I used to like swimming in the ocean, but now I've got my health club membership so I don't bother. You know how it is. . . "

"You repel me," said the octopus and he sent her flying back to the shore.

After that, Jeanette thought hard about what the octopus had said to her.. She did some research online and then she decided to make an appointment with her boss.

"Thank you for seeing me," she said to her boss.

"Yeah well, you're wasting my time thanking me for seeing you. Just tell me why you want to see me."

"Well, I did a little research and it turns out that ours isn't the only way to manufacture products. In fact there's a better way."

The boss gave her a cold look. He was a proud man confident of his brilliance. Any insinuation to the contrary offended him. "The way this company does things is my way. Exactly, how could any way be better than that."

"Well, the other way doesn't produce chemicals which have to be dumped into the ocean."

"The ocean? Ha! The process you're thinking of costs a lot more. So now you want to cut this company's products for an ocean. I don't need employees like this."

"Well, yes, but we could raise our prices a little."

"Raise our prices? Do you know what happens when a company raises its prices? People stop buying the products and the business goes bankrupt!"

"Well. . .maybe but I was going to suggest--"

"You know," he interrupted. "This is why I hate hiring women!"

"Er. . .Excuse me?"

"Everyone knows that women are worthless when it comes to business, but somebody always has to insist that the company hire more women. Get out of my office and never come back!:"

"All right," said Jeanette standing up. "I don't think I will."

Well, that was the end of Jeanette's dream job.

But you know what she did next? She decided to start her own company. A company that manufactured products the more expensive company and she did a huge marketing campaign which helped to promote the idea that her products were better because they didn't hurt the ocean.

And what happened next?

Well, that's the part I can't say.

One possible ending is that people wanted so much to help the ocean that they didn't mind spending a little bit more on her products. Pretty soon, everyone was buying products from her and not from ZY corporation which eventually went bankrupt.

But the other possible ending is that when people saw how expensive Jeannette's products were, they turned their backs on her and continued to buy from ZY. Eventually, Jeannette went bankrupt and ZY which incidentally has no woman managers now, continued to dump chemicals into the ocean until there were no fish, octopi, or anything else left.

I don't know which ending actually happened. Perhaps you would like to talk with your family about which one you prefer.