Editor’s Note: The following column is satirical. It is meant for humorous purposes. All interviews and individuals are fictitious.
Recently the 9-5 grind has been wearing me down. I’m dissatisfied with my work as an usher in the William D. Mullins Memorial Center, named after my distant cousin on my dad’s side. I thought that this would be an easy path to an executive leadership position, but I was sorely mistaken.
It was during these trying times that I saw the Mullins Center was looking for an employee to undergo the severance procedure to fulfill “an important role for the fan experience.” This was my chance to move away from the monotony of making sure fans are sitting in their correct seats.
I took the chance with no hesitation. The men’s basketball team plays in about three hours. I wonder what I’ll be doing.
*****
I have no idea where I am. I’m wearing some kind of suit that restricts my movement and my eyesight — it seems like I’m wearing a headpiece of some kind. As I go to take my felt head off, hoping to regain my peripheral vision, a voice shouts out from behind me, “Welcome, Sam M! I’m sure you have many questions.”
As I do a full 180-degree turn to find the source of the voice, I see Athletic Director Holden McGroyne standing with a VHS tape in his hand. “I think you’ll want to hear what the person on this tape has to say,” McGroyne says.
“My name is Sam Mullins. I’m making this video roughly two hours before it will be shown to me,” a strikingly handsome man, who I recognize as myself, says. “I have, of my own free accord, elected to undergo the procedure colloquially known as severance. I give consent for my perceptual chronologies to be surgically split, separating my memories between my work life and my personal life. I acknowledge that, henceforth, my access to my memories will be spatially dictated. I will be unable to access outside recollections whilst on Mullins severed floor, nor retain work memories upon my ascent. I am aware that this alteration is comprehensive and irreversible. I make these statements freely.”
I have no idea what time it is. I’ve been told I can clock out anytime between 9:00 and 10:30 p.m. depending on when “the event ends,” whatever the hell that means. I’m still not entirely sure what this job entails.
Most of the time I was told to hang out with the family of the game, partake in several promotional videos and really do everything that would be expected of a mascot. But I don’t even know if I’m a mascot. These people in the stands all seem to know me though; every time I walk past a large group of spectators, they all yell, “Sam!”
The work is mysterious and important, that much I know.
*****
I woke up in the elevator and walked to my car in the parking lot. This job might be the dream — I’m not needed again until football season for some reason.
Sam Mullins can be reached in the parking lot of the Mullins Center following home games for the Massachusetts men’s and women’s basketball team, and the Massachusetts ice hockey team. Sam M. can be found dancing and high-fiving fans during the contest.
