How to become a BIG fish

Miserable Middle Manager has never been a big fish. She has instead always been a size 0 - Well, except during the year she spent in New York clubbing-non-stop and eating in the trendiest restaurants in town with her oldest friend Valentina. Only three months after arriving to the big Apply with a one way ticket, a tourist visa, an empty wallet and a suitcase full of saucisson, she could not zip her trousers anymore. That was her heyday: she was a size 2. For a year she enjoyed the glory of being a big fish but her joy ended when the US immigration department announced her that, unfortunately (it does not cost to be polite when you kill someone), she had not won the green card lottery and had to immediately leave the country or she would face a free trip to Guantanamo. She would go back to size 0 in Guantamo, so decided to take the first flight back to the the old continent.

Within two months without Valentina, she was again a small fish. How could she become a big fish again?

For the years to follow, Miserable Middle Manager worked very hard to become a big fish again: gained a masters degree from a reputable university, became fluent in 4 languages, travelled the world to learn about different cultures,  moved country 3 times, city 6 times, flat 9 times and  met many big fishes along the way. Miserable Middle Manager was on the right track. She worked hard and cleaned all the shit that her managers threw to her: under performers, über performers, sexual harassers, bullies, slackers, transvestites and muslims in disguise ( she never saw their face). She just needed a model to follow, someone who would lead her to success.

A synchronicity moment happened when she met Roundy Tête de Carrote, one of her most influent clients at Konarkingdom Ltd. Roundy definitively knew the secret. How could someone who barely knew his grammar, never went to uni, spoke no foreign languages and called colleagues his 'mates'  became a 'member of the senior management team'? How could someone holidaying in a caravan parked on an English beach could be a director? Was his yellowy moustache the secret of managing team of 62 fucked up civil servants-alike? Or was his call-it-casual dressing style that combined a Primark suit under a Vodafone jumper? I had to find out, Roundy definitively knew how the secret to become a big fish.

It was time for the weekly management meeting and my own agenda had just one item: to find out the secret. That was an opportunity I could not miss. Without  staring at him, I still managed to read his defensive body language and to carefully listen to all the crap coming out of his mouth while trying to keep my eyes out of the two middle buttons of his shirt that were trying to get propelled due to an excess of belly fat. The deception could not have been bigger. Roundy did not show any minimal sign of innate leadership, emotional intelligence, proper education of even geeky slang. To my surprise I found out that Roundy was definitively a big fat empty soul, and that becoming a big fish did not have anything to do with intelligence, emotions, experience, leadership, social skills or finance knowledge. I had been looking at the wrong place.

Does Mr Tête de Carrote's stellar growth secret reside in the little white and blue Tesco bag he pulls out of his dirty backpack at noon every day?