"Kobe Bryant" of Travel Insurance Industry Absolutely Unbearable, Fired

Glendale, CA--After more than a decade of openly feuding with management, publicly shaming coworkers, and declining overall productivity, Nick Kelly, the so-called "Kobe Bryant" of travel insurance salesmen, has finally been fired.

"This was a tough decision for us as an organization," Larry Stephenson, chief operations officer at Travelsafe Insurance, said in a statement released earlier today. "In many ways, Nick Kelly was synonymous with TravelSafe. But at a certain point, we had to do what's best for the company. And constantly screaming at coworkers and customers to 'get the fuck out of the way, it's winning time for mamba' during peak travel season was simply not best for the company."

News of Kelly's dismissal was greeted with a wave of overwhelming enthusiasm and relief by the remainder of the TravelSafe sales force, many of whom feared Kelly was lobbying management to lay off the entire department after a year of disappointing sales.

"That guy was a nightmare," said Jeremy Garrett, who had worked alongside Kelly for five years. "I don't know what was worse--when he would call to tell you 'you have no fucking balls' for taking a sick day, or when he would just stare at you from his cubicle with that look of vacant disdain. There's even rumors he tried to sleep with Paul from accounting's wife, for Christ's sake."

Vacant disdain

Kelly had served as the leading salesman for TravelSafe since joining the company straight out of a high school. While undeniably a talented and prolific salesman, Kelly was constantly embroiled in conflicts with coworkers, many of whom alleged Kelly's sales stats were inflated because he was stealing their own shots with clients.

"At first, I was totally behind his whole no-nonsense, all that matters is closing, Glengarry Glen Ross without the irony approach to things," said Stephen Fishman, who joined TravelSafe earlier this year in the hope of partnering with Kelly on new clients. "Then I saw him threaten to kill our IT guy's family when his Outlook account froze for like fifteen minutes."

"It just keeps getting worse as he gets older. Maybe it's the divorce."

Kelly leaves TravelSafe with several of the company's all-time sales records, including total career sales, total sales in a 24 hour period, and total acquittals from sexual assault charges.

"Percentage wise, he really isn't that much better than the rest of us," said Garrett. "He just works on volume and knows how to promote himself. Best closer in the industry, my ass."