The Tallest Man in the Smallest Bank

Mr. Johnson worked at the bank.

It was a small bank, but the biggest in town. Its floors were made of marble, its pillars made of stone (the cheapest cut, but stone, no less). The tellers used brass tills, and the vault had an impressive lock and door, which led the men who owned it to believe the bank was much more important than it was.

Mr. Johnson had started there when he was young and had much to learn. He walked in on his first day with stars in his eyes and a chuckle in his throat. He hadn’t always wanted to be a banker, but by golly, he was determined to become the best banker there had ever been. He quickly found a mentor. He learned how to use the till. He began to work his way up the bank’s ladder.

It was hard work, full of long days spent locking the vault and the doors behind him. But he told himself it was worth it, if it meant becoming the best banker there had ever been.

Only, one day, he discovered it was much easier to climb when he stole the rungs from beneath others’ feet and placed them on his own. He started with one. He felt guilty at first, making his neighbor’s ladder wobble just so his own could stand straighter. But no one noticed… so he kept going. And no one ever did.

Mr. Johnson was agreeable. He always had a smile on his face and a friendly word ready at the counter. Shake with the right, take with the left. All the while, he hid the stolen rungs behind his back. The marble floors looked much more polished the higher he ascended.

After several years, Mr. Johnson came to believe he was the most important man at the bank. He had a certain set of skills, he told himself. A certain way with the till, a certain charm with the customers, a certain understanding of how things were done. In short, he was indispensable. So he climbed and he climbed, until finally, his ladder was the tallest in the bank, reaching nearly to the vaulted ceilings, where he imagined he might one day wipe the cobwebs away himself.

And that was how Mr. Johnson lived: He went to work. He came home. He ate his bland food. He washed his threadbare clothes. He read his yellowed books. He slept soundly in the simple life he had created, dreaming only of the ladder waiting for him in the morning.

Then one day, a much larger bank bought the small bank. Surely, they would see Mr. Johnson for the asset he was. Surely, they would understand the height of his ladder. After all, how else could a man have climbed so high? But that day, his ladder disappeared with a pink piece of paper. And Mr. Johnson went back to his simple life.

The larger bank became an empire.