Joe and Terry walked into their boss’s office. His secretary was typing something at her desk by the window. When she saw them, she raised her head and said: ‘He’s waiting for you.’ Then she started typing again and she said no more.
Joe knew that there was some trouble. Their boss always let people wait for five or ten minutes, before they could come to talk to him. Always. And now this. Joe thought that it was a bad sign.
They entered his room and closed the door. Their boss didn’t get up to greet them or shake their hand. He just looked at them and for a few seconds he didn’t say anything. It was another bad sign.
‘Take a seat,’ he said while he was still looking at them.
They sat down and waited for their boss to speak.
‘Do you know why you’re here?’ he asked.
‘No, not really,’ said Terry. Joe didn’t say anything.
‘When I was young like you,’ continued their boss ‘I and my best friend Richie worked for the biggest newspaper in the city. We worked hard. We worked really hard. But sometimes, we liked to go to a bar and drink. We had many friends and we usually drank until the early morning.
‘One day, we went to a bar and we drank as usual. One of our friends was celebrating his birthday, so we drank a lot. As we were drinking, Richie and I got this crazy idea: we decided to go to Rome. Immediately. That night.
‘So we called a taxi and when we got into the car, we asked the driver to take us to Rome. Do you understand? From London to Rome, it is approximately 1,800km by car to get there…
‘Of course, he didn’t want to take us there. He wanted to know who would pay for that. But we told him not to worry. We told him that we worked as reporters for the biggest newspaper in the city. We told him that the newspaper will pay for our trip to Rome.
‘And so he started the car.’ The boss made a short pause here and looked at Joe and Terry.
‘And do you know what he did next?’
Joe and Terry were sitting quietly.
‘He drove around the city and then he took us right to the newspaper offices. It was shortly after midnight. Yes, he saw that we were drunk and so he took us to the offices. He didn’t even ask for the money.
‘If I met that guy again, I would give him a good job here. Any job. And do you know why? I would give him a job because he was smart. That taxi driver was much smarter than most of the people who work in this company.’
Another bad sign. Joe and Terry were quietly waiting for their boss to continue…
raise /reɪz/ – zodvihnúť
sign /saɪn/ – znak, znamenie
greet /ɡriːt/ – pozdraviť
take a seat – posadiť sa
approximately /əˈprɒksɪmətli/ – približne
shortly after midnight /ˈʃɔːtli/ – krátko po polnoci
Sparrow's English Reader 