The Irishman Who Refused to Be Fired
When a grocery clerk was handed his walking papers, he used the fine print on the envelope to outwit his boss.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
The manager of the wholesale grocery house was surprised to see Mike at work in the shipping room, after having notified him by mail a week or so previous that his valuable services would no longer be required. 'What are you doing here?' inquired the boss. 'Didn't you get a letter over a week ago telling you that you were fired?' 'Yis and be jabbers,' replied the ingenious Irishman, 'and didn't it say on the envelope, 'Return in ten days to the Jones Grocery Co?' Thim ten days was up yesterday.' Mike kept his job.
“Yis and be jabbers, and didn't it say on the envelope, 'Return in ten days to the Jones Grocery Co?' Thim ten days was up yesterday.”
While this lighthearted anecdote relies on the common, often stereotypical, tropes of the era, it captures a perennial workplace fantasy: using bureaucratic logic to reclaim agency in the face of sudden unemployment.
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