The Superhero

At my very first job in Cube City, I worked for a total character. He was:

• A former quarterback at Duke
• A former lawyer
• Married to a beautiful and highly intelligent psychologist that he'd met at Duke
• The son of a self-made millionaire
• A major sexual harassment case waiting to happen
• The most obnoxious CEO I've ever met

A year or so into the job, I learned that a journalist would be coming to Cube City to interview the CEO for a popular entrepreneurial magazine. The journalist came and went, and we eventually received several copies of the magazine in the mail when it went to print.

The day that issue of the magazine arrived in the mail, my manager walked up to my cubicle looking pale, with very wide eyes. She dropped the magazine on my desk, sat down in my guest chair, and put her head in her hands. She feverishly said, "We are DONE FOR."

I picked up the magazine and read the article, which portrayed our fearless leader as an animated superhero whose super power was lying to get the sale. The tragic part of the situation was that the superhero CEO loved the article. He was very proud of it and had no idea that he'd been portrayed as a jackass who had a big mouth instead of a big product. I'm not sure he was able to get past his awe of what he looked like as a caricature in a six-page spread.

My manager and I started applying for other jobs that day. We didn't want to see our superhero's biggest fall.