Week 2 Story: The CEO's Share
There were once four college friends. Three of them were chemical engineering majors while the other was a business major. One Saturday night, the friends gathered for some fun and games. Over dinner, the engineering majors discussed starting an experiment based on some of their studies. None of them knew what would become of the experiment, but that was all in the beauty of science. After laboring and working together until night turned to day, a breakthrough discovery was made. The engineers discovered a mechanism by which water could be turned into the most delicious wine that has ever been tasted. It was truly a delicacy. The process for creating this wine, however, was tedious and labor intensive. Being a business major and knowing the value of their discovery, John knew that they could all profit off this.
“Everyone should be able to taste this wine, but at a price,” John said.
The engineers all agreed. They would do the work while John promotes and pushes their product. It could truly be the start of a beautiful marriage between inventors and businessman.
Years had passed and the company was wildly successful. People travelled from all over the world to get a taste of this most delicious wine. The company quickly rose the Fortune 500 charts. There seemed to be no end to their amazing profits. But the three engineers were laboring so hard that they had little time for anything else. None of them had families or social lives. In their contract, John was the CEO. He built the business, so he oversaw his friends’ salaries and all business negotiations. John amassed so much wealth that his office was moved to the top floor of the Empire State Building. Meanwhile, his friends were laboring away and receiving barely enough funds to survive. When they confronted John about this wealth gap, it became clear that he had all the power according to their business contract. They were stuck. There would be no wealth for the three engineers. One thing became quite clear to them: They shared the labor of the great company, but not the spoils.
Author's Note:
My story is based on a lion fable from the anthology. In this fable, a lion and three other animals cooperate to kill a stag in a hunt. After the hunt, the lion orders the three other animals to cut the stag into four pieces. He then proclaims that all pieces belong to him as he is all powerful. The other animals realize that they can share the labor of great people but not the spoils that go with it. This same idea was used to create a story with totally different characters but the same message. The three engineers are like the three animals, and the CEO is like the lion. The CEO does little of the work but enjoys the greatest rewards.
Bibliography: The Lion's Share, Aesops Fables
Ha ha, this is great, Andy: the idea of CEO is perfect for lion's share... and now you know what the lion's share really is all about: lions do NOT share; the lion's share is the whole thing. Which is why it is good for engineers to learn something about the business world... that way they can run their own business, and not have to rely on lions for the marketing. Go, engineers! Water into wine! Yay! :-)
ReplyDeleteAndy, this is a really clever way to spin the original story! It made me laugh -- putting old tales into modern contexts instantly makes them more relatable and engaging to the audience. Nice job finding a way to keep the central theme of the story intact, while still managing to make it your own. I look forward to reading some of your other stories!
ReplyDeleteAndy, I thought this story did such a great job of modernizing the message from the original fable! It was really clever to change the stag into a company which had the engineers working hard to produce the product with the CEO taking the "lion's share" of the profits. When you said the process for making this wine was labor intensive I was kind of confused because I thought there was a certain product they created that made wine from water. Later on when it's discussed the engineers are working so hard I realized you meant the process for creating the wine is very difficult and its actually the wine itself that is being sold. What if you gave the engineers, CEO, and company a name. The fact that you didn't definitely called back to the original fable which doesn't have any proper nouns but I think it could help the reader connect more to the characters since the story is much longer than the original fable. Can't wait to see what you write next!
ReplyDeleteAndy, I really liked the way you took a fable and made it modern. It is much more relatable to the readers now, especially since we live in a country where sometimes things like this actually happen. One thing you might change is how you introduce your characters in the beginning. You don't mention the name John until later, so readers have to assume he is the business major mentioned before. You could give everyone a name at the beginning or you could only mention the engineers first and then have them go to their friend John, the business major, after they create their invention. Another thing I noticed was that you switched from past to present tense occasionally. If you reread it, you should be able to find those places and fix them quickly. Other than that, I really liked the concept and the story. It was really engaging and had a good moral as well.
ReplyDeleteHi Andy,
ReplyDeleteYou are the lucky person for me to try out the "Let's Pretend" method of commenting. I will be commenting from one of John's friends.
Andy, why did you write the story like this? I ended up with nothing, while that John ended up with everything. I worked off my butt off, and at the end, I am left with nothing except some dust in my pocket. I want you to change the story to the money getting shared among us, maybe not John though (I don't really like him). I'd really appreciate it if you talked more about my character. What did I major in? I, too, am a major part in this story because without me, John would have never succeeded. I would like to see more of me!
That was really weird to comment. It felt like a tiny character in the story was talking to their creator. It felt like Toy Story in a way, if only the toys talked to Andy. Anyways, your story was fantastic!
Good job!
WOW Andy,
ReplyDeleteI was blown back at the way you were able to take an old fable and make it so relevant to today’s society. You had some really awesome points in this story showing how they all started as friends, but the business major let money and power get the best of him. I wonder if there could be some way that the CEO friend could have been brought down in the story by the three engineers, because in my eyes if they wanted to end the company they could because the business major had no idea how they were making the wine from water. What if the three engineers revolted in this story and brought the CEO back down to their level and put him in his place? Just a thought. All in all I thought that this was a very well planned story and I truly look forward to reading more of your stories!
Best,
Drew Fazzino
Hey Andy,
ReplyDeleteGreat adaptation! I have read a couple different versions of this story that our classmates have written, but you made the deepest changes I think. I really liked your back story, and how you changed the story to surround the idea of sharing, rather than the actual object (stag, in the original). Your version tells the idea that sharing the PROFIT is the real stag here. Did you purposely limit the story, or "refine" it to the core story, making it very closely similar to the class fable? If so, I think you did a great job. The company making it to the Fortune 500 is a classic way of making success anecdotal. There are not many other things that people would immediately jump to when thinking of financial success in the United States. So it is definitely follows the classic element in fables where the story jumps to simple and stereotypical ways of setting up the story.
Andy,
ReplyDeleteYour choice to humanize the story made complete sense to me. Also the idea that the lion was turned into the businessman that become CEO makes brilliant sense. I do have to wonder about a few things though. Why was the business major able to take such advantage of his engineering counterparts? I feel like all of these kids were pretty smart, so it would be hard to pull such a fast one on all three of them. Maybe you could go into detail of how the business major was able to trick all three of his friends. He could have possibly lied to them or really burried it in a long contract.