The Fable

"Having cheese makes you happy!" This line from the book kept echoing in the young man's head like a broken record.

During his lunch break, the young man walked six blocks to the grocery to buy an array of cheeses. "Cheese for everyone!" he announced to his new coworkers. It was a bit metaphorical, even silly, but it showed that he was someone who could be counted on, a real cheese sniffer as it were. The idea was brilliant. People got it and revered the young man for his stroke of genius.

Inspired, the young man went back to the cheese shop for more once everyone else had gone home. His employees would return in the morning to an office crammed with cheese in every open space. He turned off the light and locked the doors.

The next morning, the young man arrived at the office only to find a throng of people lingering out on the sidewalk. There was even a city fire engine and a sanitation-department official there. Before he could ask what happened, he saw his boss, Mrs. Littleperson, waving her finger at him, shouting, "There he is! There he is!

"That stunt you pulled must have attracted every guinea-pig-sized rat in the city. It's like the Middle Ages in there. Didn't it occur to you that leaving 40 pounds of cheese out overnight wasn't such a great idea?" Mrs. Littleperson barked.

In his defense, the young man said, "The quicker you let go of old cheese..."

Debra Hirschorn from HR tapped him on the shoulder, interrupting him. "I think you'd better come with me."

Once again, the young man faced a stark choice: Take a position as a junior account executive in the company's worst department or resign. He chose to stay.

"They call the place a 'toxic energy dump,' " Hirschorn said cryptically of his new department. "Here, you'll need this."

She gave him one of her many copies of Fish! -- which she fully intended to read someday -- in the hope that the young man's morale could survive. Despite recent events, she recognized his talent.

That night, he read through Fish! He liked what the fishmonger said about working at Seattle's Pike Place Fish Market: "Working in a fish market is cold, wet, smelly, sloppy, difficult work. But we have a choice about our attitude while we are doing that work." Before going to bed, he took out his journal and wrote.

Dear Diary, Fish! is right. This new department doesn't have to be a toxic energy dump. Look at what Mary Jane did in the book to get her toxic energy dump cleaned up: Play. Make someone's day. I should write these down again so I don't forget. Play. Make someone's day. It took three authors to come up with that, one of whom has a PhD. This must be a great philosophy for me!

Over the next few weeks, the young man tried to implement the book's lessons. He built a boccie court in the hall so everyone could play. He'd surprise his cube mates by bringing smoked-salmon canapes or make a neighbor's day by offering to watch her dog for a week. The department, slowly but surely, was becoming a great place to work. The world was righting itself. Fish! had really unlocked some powerful secrets -- or so he thought.

One evening, as the young man walked to his car from the office, he heard some voices up ahead but couldn't see anybody. Then all of a sudden, Joey, his cube mate, jumped out from behind a large SUV.

"Joey, hey, th -- "

Joey clocked him in the jaw, knocking him to the ground. As the young man rolled over, he saw his coworkers scowling at him.

"Yeah, that fish cracker you gave me -- what'd you call it, a canopy? Turns out it gave me a case of the worms," Joey growled. "I broke my ankle on one of your boccie balls, jerk," another shouted. A woman in the back piped up: "You gave my dog fleas!"

Then Joey, wearing a pair of work boots, kicked the young man in the stomach -- hard. He bent down and whispered, "Just let us all do our miserable jobs and be miserable about doing them, or next time you won't get off so easy, Mr. Happy. Capice?"

The next day, Debra Hirschorn from HR found the young man -- swollen and bruised -- waiting outside her office.

"Oh, my! What happened?" she asked.

"Let's just say I forgot to wear a HazMat suit to the toxic energy dump," the young man mumbled from his gauze-stuffed mouth. "I need a new job -- anything!"

"All I can offer you is a janitor position we're desperately trying to fill," she said. "And since technically you don't have any felonies on your record..."

"I'll take it," the young man said bitterly.

The next day, the young man reported to his new boss for work. "Hey, kid," the shift manager said as he chomped on a cigar. "I hear that you've been having a rough time of things. Here, my boss gave me this, but maybe you could use it more than me."