The Company Man by Ellen Goodman
Summary
In "The Company Man," Ellen Goodman describes a man who worked himself to death at fifty-one. She presents fact about the man's life and work.
Phil was fifty-one years old and vice president. If the president died or retired he could be the president, he knew that. He was a hard-working man, a workaholic. He worked six days a week, five of them until eight or nine at night. Even on holidays, he went to work. He thought himself as an important person for his company. He had no outside extracurricular interests. He was overweight because of eating egg salad sandwiched everyday.
He had a wife and three children. He had never spent time with them due to that he was like a stranger to his children. His wife Helen of forty-eight had left her job after mothering and had spent her whole life missing her husband. On the day he died, he was working, he worked himself to death, at 3: 00 A.M. Sunday morning. It was a holiday.
Before the funeral, Phil's elder son asked neighbours what his father was like. They were embarrassed. At the funeral, the sixty-year-old company president told Helen that her husband meant much to the company. It would be hard to replace him. Helen didn't want to listen to these things, she wants to listen to finances and the stock options. On the evening of the funeral, the company president had begun inquiries about Phil's replacement.
The author shows that some people only focus on work instead of focusing on more important things such as family. She used irony and sarcastic tone to show that Phil's beliefs were insignificant and wrong. She gives us a message that you are always replaceable, no matter how hard you work.
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