The Gilded Water Cooler

A large bubble formed in the depths of the water cooler and slowly made its way upward, breaking the surface with a muffled bloop. Two men and a woman conversed over their cups.

“It would be nice if we got to go to the mountains once in a while like the boss instead of having to hang around here and do all the work.”

“Wouldn’t it? Questions come up and he’s never here to answer them. Everyone who has a problem wants to talk to the man in charge, and frankly, I’m sick of telling them to check back next week. Don’t they have phones at that conference center? Why doesn’t he return his calls?”

“Give him a break,” said the third party. “He’s already gotten us a better working agreement than we‘ve had in a long time, and there’s talk that when he gets back this time he’ll have an even better one - all down in black and white.”

“I‘m not any better off than I was 5 years ago,” said the first. “I haven’t seen or signed anything.”

“That’s right,” replied the second, drawing another cup from the cooler. “The company cafeteria may be free, but the same thing day after day? I miss the old haunts and a little variety.”

“You have something against low-fat yogurt, salads, and fruit - every day? It very nourishing!” the woman said in mock amazement.

“Humph!” the man grunted, tossing down his water in a gulp. “I could go for a hot reuben sandwich and a cold beer.”
The brother of the absent boss entered the office and strolled toward the water cooler.” “Morning,” he said. “This is the meeting of the minds?”

“This is it,” came a short reply. “This is about the only place any decisions get made around here anymore.”

Surlier than usual, thought the brother as he stepped toward the door of his office.

“Any word from the divine Mr. M?” a well-watered employee asked.

“Nothing yet,” the brother said. “But you know how those contract meetings can drag
on. I imagine he’ll send a fax when he knows something. Well, I ‘d better get back to work.”
He walked away, tired of defending his absent brother, tired of trying to manage a family business.

That afternoon, a few more disenchanted people gathered around the water cooler. “Why can’t anyone tell me if he ordered the parts or not?” a man shouted. “If the line shuts down, it’s my fault. If we wind up with a double inventory of parts, it’s still my fault.”

“Consolidated Engineering says that without our main man’s signature on the contract this afternoon, they’ll cancel their order.”

“I don’t get it,” a woman said. “We have fax, E-mail, cellular phones, Fedex, and the United States Postal Service, and all we get from him is silence.”

The talk became more heated, the threats more concrete, the plans more radical. The more they talked, the more they forgot.

Somehow they forgot that the boss had hired every one of them out of a situation of personal difficulty. Many had been overextended with their creditors and heavily in debt. Some had been convicted of financial misdealings and sentenced to prison. Others had been only a step away from a similar fate.

They all forgot that they had been given a new start, including a profit-sharing plan and a generous stock option. In reality, they owned the company. But the more they talked and complained, the more complete their self-inflicted amnesia became.

No one remembers who came up with the idea to send out for pizza, but a little impromptu office party seemed just the thing to forget their troubles - a head start on the weekend. It all began innocently enough.

“You know,” said one man, “this old water cooler has been around for a long time. It has been really important to us. We have gathered around it and enjoyed being together near it. If it hadn’t been for this water cooler we never would have gotten where we are today. It was all those talks around the cooler that did it.” They ordered more food and sent petty cash to the closest liquor store for some intoxicating spirits. The party was really cooking.

Before long, bottles appeared and soon the water cooler was up on a desk, its contents being mixed with fiery waters of another origin. Laughter! Toasts! A tipsy song sung to the conquering water cooler.

Hands wavered toward glistening foreheads in mocking salutes. “Present arms! We salute you, our fearless leader!”

More laughter. A demand that the boss‘s brother acknowledge the water cooler’s role in their deliverance. “Make him spray-paint it gold and salute it himself.”

The brother, fearing for his own safety and eyeing the security guards who had joined the insurrection, yielded to the demands among cheers and toasts. He took the spray-paint can and covered the old water cooler with a gilded glistening of gold color.

Why fight an unruly crowd? he said to himself. Maybe we can straighten it all out over the weekend after they all sober up.

The party was in full swing when the door opened quietly and the boss slipped into the room. He stood unnoticed, just inside the door, his face a mixture of pain and rage. He had planned a special celebration to accompany his presentation of the new contract, but now this. Would these people ever learn? In their cynical impatience with him, they had unknowingly traded Prime Rib at the finest restaurant for pizza from a cardboard box. Somehow it seemed to symbolize their whole approach to life.

And the contract. Would they ever know what they had lost?

Half the people still didn’t see him walk slowly across the room, tearing the new contract to shreds. But when Mr. M. hurled the huge glass water cooler against the floor, the party was over.

Exodus 32:1—20
When Moses didn‘t come back down the mountain right away, the people went to Aaron. “Look,” they said, “make us a god to lead us, for this fellow Moses who brought us here from Egypt has disappeared; something must have happened to him.”

“Give me your golden earrings,” Aaron replied.

So they all did - men and women, boys and girls. Aaron melted the gold, then molded and tooled it into the form of a calf. The people exclaimed, “0 Israel, this is the god that brought you out of Egypt!”

When Aaron saw how happy the people were about it, he built an altar before the calf and announced, “Tomorrow there will be a feast to the Lord!”

So they were up early the next morning and began offering burnt offerings and peace offerings to the calf-idol; afterwards they sat down to feast and drink at a wild party, followed by sexual immorality.

Then the Lord told Moses, “Quick! Go on down, for your people that you brought from Egypt have defiled themselves, and have quickly abandoned all my laws. They have molded themselves a calf, and worshiped it, and sacrificed to it, and said, ‘This is your god, 0 Israel, that brought you out of Egypt.

Then the Lord said, “I have seen what a stubborn, rebellious lot these people are. Now let me alone and my anger shall blaze out against them and destroy them all; and I will make you, Moses, into a great nation instead of them.”

But Moses begged God not to do it. “Lord,” he pleaded, “why is your anger so hot against your own people whom you brought from the land of Egypt with such great power and mighty miracles? Do you want the Egyptians to say, ‘God tricked them into coming to the mountains so that he could slay them, destroying them from off the face of the earth?’ Turn back from your fierce wrath. Turn away from this terrible evil you are planning against your people! Remember your promise to your servants - to Abraham, Isaac, and Israel. For you swore by your own self, ‘I will multiply your posterity as the stars of heaven, and I will give them all of this land I have promised to your descendants, and they shall inherit it forever.

So the Lord changed his mind and spared them. Then Moses went down the mountain, holding in his hands the Ten Commandments written on both sides of two stone tablets. (God himself had written the commandments on the tablets.)

When Joshua heard the noise below them, of all the people shouting, he exclaimed to Moses, “It sounds as if they are preparing for war!”

But Moses replied, “No, it‘s not a cry of victory or defeat, but singing.”

When they came near the camp, Moses saw the calf and the dancing, and in terrible anger he threw the tablets to the ground and they lay broken at the foot of the mountain. He took the calf and melted it in the fire, and when the metal cooled, he ground it into powder and spread it upon the water and made the people drink it.
The Living Bible version

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