BENIGN TO FIVE
The year was 1989. It was a Monday. The teacher asked her Grade 1 class if anybody had something for show-and-tell. George Gionidis put his hand up and told us this: On the weekend he'd helped his grandma cook omelettes. She asked him to break an egg into a bowl and, upon doing so, a fully grown magpie emerged and flew out the open window.
Even back then – at a time when I believed that monsters would get me if I didn't run briskly down the hall at night time and that steam train driver was a legitimate career option for me to pursue – I knew the magpie story was a work of brazen fiction.
And I marvelled at it.
I marvelled at its transparency. I marvelled at my classmate's chutzpah to stand up and say it straight, without giggling or folding under teacher examination. I marvelled at how far it went: not just an embryo, not just a hatchling, not just a strangely large chick, but an adult of a species unrelated to the egg …
It was storytelling of the most glorious variety.
And, really, what is a career if it isn't about telling stories? You tell stories to get a job. You tell them to win over new colleagues. You tell them to persuade clients, to win new business and to get a better position.
Stories make the world go round. Ballsy stories make it spin that little bit faster, dizzying us in the most pleasing way.
Why break eggs to make omelettes when you can break eggs to release magpies?
Jonathan Rivett is the owner and head writer at theinkbureau.com.au. He tells George Gionidis-inspired stories at haught.com.au.