A young man about to lose his first job and inherit another

John Doe woke up on his 18th birthday just like he did any other day. He had breezed through school and was thus already done with it before officially becoming an adult. He could have gone on to college to study this or that, but to be honest, he just didn’t see himself spending additional years in what effectively would have been another school full of people living the easy life, not taking their studies seriously and still getting through based on family money and influence.

Maybe John was a little bitter about life. He always had a roof over his head and a warm meal on the table, but he also had to work hard for all those things. Be it mowing the neighbours lawns or delivering the newspaper, John was known as an industrious young man.

And after school he continued that trend. He started working at the grocery store two streets over, stocking the products, manning the cashier or mopping the floors. Whatever needed to be done, he was already on it before his boss could even notice something needed to be done. Which might have been a problem. Mrs. Anand never gave John the recognition he deserved.

But still, it was good and honest work. Aside from that, John did need the money dearly. His parents had made it crystal clear, that although they were happy to have him live with them, he would have to pull his own weight. So off to work it was.

He got out of bed, brushed his teeth and dressed and made his way down to get a little breakfast in before leaving. His parents, from which he got his busy-bee attitude, had already left the house, so he munched his bowl of cereal alone at the kitchen table. On his way out of the house, an envelope fell through the doors mail slot. John looked it over and it had some kind of official looking print on the outside. A little weird, but he was getting late for being early, so he put the letter on the counter and left.

“I can’t believe my wife didn’t tell you, but we did terminate your contract”, Mr. Anand told John while simultaneously opening the store and with the tactfulness of a drunken donkey.

“Terminated? What are you talking about Mr. Anand? Did any of the customers complain about me? So far they all seemed very happy. I’m always on time, I’m a speedy worker and I swear by god, I never broke anything. Why wou-“

“You see Mr.Doe this is nothing personal. But now that you’re of age, we would by law be **** to pay you the minimal wage for the position and that’s just not possible with our budget”, he didn’t even look John in the eye to tell him that. He turned the lights on and looked around the store checking if everything was in order in the different aisles.

No wonder he isn’t saying this to my face, as it is complete bullshit, John thinks to himself. The store wasn’t by any stretch of the word *big business*, but they were doing really really well compared to the few dollars they paid him.

“So this is it? You’re just gonna give the job to the next hopeful teenager and kick him to the curb as soon as he turns 18?”, John walked in front of his former employer, demanding an answer.

“Oh boy, you might be 18, but you’re still a child, aren’t you? Don’t take this too serious John. Trust me, once you join the workforce proper, you’ll understand. Sometimes the world is a tough place”, his face turned at least an ounce apologetic. He grabbed a chocolate bar from the counter and handed it to John.

“Here, take this. You’re still a valued customer, you’ll just have to look for a job better suited for you.”

John Doe, unemployed. That’s a thing he hadn’t been for a long time and in fact he had never been the one to be let go. He usually transitioned from one opportunity to the next, moving up in the ranks. He hadn’t expected the convenience store to be his big career booster, but he had hoped it would carry him over to a place that would value his diligence. But nope, unemployment it was. And if he didn’t find work soon, it would be unemployment with homelessness on the side. What a glorious future.

John was really downtrodden when he cam back home. It was still early, as instead of a whole workday he was only gone for a few minutes of walking and a bare minimum of talking. So the house was of course still empty.

With nothing useful to do and him still being too angry to settle down in front of either his computer or the TV, John remembered the letter he got this morning. He grabbed the fancy looking envelope and unceremoniously ripped it open. Inside was a rather short slip of paper. On it were sentences, printed in an old-timey typewriter fond:

Dear nephew/grandson/cousin/[enter familial connection here],
If you are reading this, then I am dead and you have become of age. So congratulations on your birthday and don’t be too sad about my ****. Depending on how close or distant we are related, I possibly died a long time ago.
Be that as it may, my attorney must have found you to be my most proper heir and thus you inherit my worldly possession. Now don’t get too festive, I don’t leave you with monetary riches and a plethora of physical goods, no. Instead I leave to you my whole pride:
Doe Inc.
With the successful delivery of this letter, you have now become the owner of my company and all it’s assets. Like I said, I can make no good predictions on who you will be and how much time will have passed, so some of your new assets might have passed their usefulness, but others will have ripened like fine wine. I will leave recollecting these valuable assets up to you.
But my time is becoming short, so I should instruct you a little on how to run what at this point will be my former company. The one thing you need to live by is that Doe Inc. is a full time job for you and to have it running smoothly you will need the help of others. What exactly we (or should I say you?) do here is entirely up to you, but you should keep an open eye for all kinds of talents around you and recruit the women that don’t flourish in their current employment. And don’t bother with conventional forms of compensation. Working for you is compensation in and of itself.
So I end my last will with one final wisdom, from one proud business owner to the next:
Is a womans place in the kitchen? Of course not! Her place is wherever her boss needs servicing.

Ok, that letter was strange. Even apart from the sexism at the end, that didn’t age well at all and might hint at the letters sender (who did not put his name under the document) being dead for at least two decades. Probably more. But still, something about the letter feels right. As weird as it sounds, John Doe is now the owner of Doe Inc. and will soon be an employer.