Once upon a time, there was a hard-working man named Harold. He was the owner of a big office where he employed many sales reps and an assistant. One day, Harold's assistant came up to him with a problem.

"Mr. Harold, all the sales reps are making so many sales, but I don't have any work to do! What should I do?" said the assistant.

Harold thought for a moment and then had an idea. "I have just the solution for you," he said with a twinkle in his eye. "From now on, you will be in charge of counting all the sales that the sales reps make!"

The assistant was excited to finally have something to do, but it wasn't long before he realized what a difficult task he had taken on. Every day, the sales reps brought in stacks of papers with numbers on them, and the assistant had to count every single one.

Days turned into weeks, and the assistant became more and more tired. He was so tired, in fact, that one day he fell asleep at his desk while counting sales. That's when something very funny happened.

The sales reps noticed that the assistant was asleep, so they decided to have some fun. They quietly snuck into the office and started to play a game of charades, pretending to be different sales items. They sold everything from imaginary cars to invisible houses, and the assistant counted each sale with a nod of his head.

When the assistant woke up, he was shocked to see the stacks of papers with all these strange sales on them. He rushed to Harold's office, but when he tried to explain what had happened, he couldn't stop laughing.

Harold was confused, but when he saw the silly sales on the papers, he started to laugh too. From that day on, the sales reps and the assistant had a new game they would play every time they got bored.

The end.

Reflections

1. Who was the main character in the story?
2. What did Harold's assistant do every day?
3. What did the sales reps do while the assistant was sleeping?
4. What was the assistant's reaction when he woke up?
5. What did Harold do when he saw the silly sales on the papers?
6. Do you think playing charades in the office is a good idea? Why or why not?
7. If you were the assistant, what would you have done differently?
8. Do you think the sales reps were being mean or just having fun? Why?