Charity begins at work

Great start to the week. A rush-job has come in to the office and the boss wants to know whether I’m available to come in and work next Saturday to help finish it. The money would be handy, might even help me pay for the Nike Mercurial Vapor Superflys I bought on the wife’s credit card. But come on, Saturdays are me-time, my chance to shine on the sidelines.

‘Sorry boss, I can’t do it,’ I say.

‘Why not? Family stuff?’ he asks.

‘No, I coach a travel soccer team and we play every Saturday.’

‘You get paid for that?’ The moment he asks the question I sense the opportunity to turn this to my advantage.

‘No, of course not, I do it for the kids.’

‘That’s very noble of you.’ I know he and his wife do a lot of work for charity so I start to lay it on thick.

‘Yeah, it’s all about helping the children. That’s me. If I can just improve one boy’s life through the game of soccer I’m happy.’

‘I’m very impressed. I had no idea you were so philanthropic.’

‘Yeah, I try to use sport to keep these poor boys off the streets. Otherwise they’d get in with the wrong crowd and end up in trouble with the law.’ I’m almost blushing as I say this. None of the kids on my team arrive at practice in anything smaller than a Lexus and the only law most of them could run foul of are their lawyer parents. Of course, he’s not to know that.

‘So do you guys win a lot?’ Now he’s really interested. 

‘I don’t even keep score,’ I say, somehow keeping a straight face. ‘To me, it’s about the joy on their little faces when they get out there. The results don’t matter.’

‘What a great attitude to have. Keep up the good work then.'

With that, he walks back to his office, no doubt to put a few lines in my HR file about this hitherto secret aspect of my charitable life. Another excellent result.