Plot Summary for
"Cheers" The Executive's Executioner (1985)

Norm's boss, Mr. Hecht, comes into the bar looking for Norm. Norm's afraid that Hecht's come to fire him for slacking off. Norm does leave work early every day, today being no exception. Hecht corners Norm in the men's room. Hecht does indeed want to talk to Norm about being fired, but it's not quite what Norm thinks. Hecht wants him to the "corporate killer" aka the person who notifies employees that they're being fired. He states that the company wants to find someone as non-threatening as possible to do the job, as studies have shown that people having just been fired feel more humiliated when done by someone in power. Norm has nothing in his life that anyone could envy or resent, thus he's the perfect person. This job change is not a request from Hecht, but a directive, albeit one with a 300% salary increase. How can Norm refuse?! The first victim, Billy, is a sweet young guy who Norm doesn't have the heart to fire. It becomes more and more difficult when Norm hears his story: he loves his job, his wife is pregnant, they just bought a new house. Norm can no longer stand it and breaks down in tears and fires him, but says he's sorry. Billy is just so overtaken by Norm's empathy and sorrow and floodgate of tears, that he is more concerned with making Norm happy than he is about his just received firing. Unbeknownst to Norm, a company henchman witnessed the firing - it's company policy to observe employees in their new positions - and tells Norm that the way he fired Billy was brilliant: Billy felt he was fired by a caring, sensitive organization. This modus operandi is to become Norm's new shtick in firing. But at least Norm's being sincere. He finds it emotional draining to fire people time after time, but at least he's good at it. That is until he has a nightmare where he is pushing an unending line of accountants down a bottomless elevator shaft, one of those accountants who is himself. Finally, his tears dry up and the emotion is gone. He knows he can't do the job anymore, so calls the office to quit. Person after person he tries to call yells in horror and hangs up the phone on him. He apparently is known solely as the company's killer. Norm decides that as his final act he is going to call Mr. Hecht to give him a taste of his own medicine. Written by Huggo

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