Here’s where a lot of you stop liking me.  I’m going to tell you the lengths to which I’ll go for personal gain.  If at the end of this you decide to stop reading my blog, I’ll understand.  I can even recommend some other blogs to you—like the guy in Iraq, or the funny girl with the Doris Day song, or that geek from Star Trek.  (I’m not going to provide links.  You think I’m going to make it that easy?)

Anyway, earlier this week I sent out a routine press release about a technology upgrade my company had completed.  It was standard stuff, but it happened to overlap slightly with a current, red-hot business story.  Before I knew it, a camera crew from CNBC was in our office interviewing our Chief Information Officer.

None of this is bad.  In fact, free publicity to a PR/marketing guy like me is like mass quantities of crack, heroin, and LSD.  People said to me, “Hey check out the cameras,” and I was all “Shut up, I’m sitting here watching the trails.  Hey! The walls moved.”

But then the camera crew wanted to shoot more footage of our office.  In particular, they wanted to film one of our employees using our Internet portal, pretending to be a customer using our product.  One of our VPs went to go set it up; I stayed and watched the interview with our CIO.  The interview finished, and the VP came back and said, “Great, Ted’s all ready for you.”

Ted? 

Ted was going to be the pretend customer?

See, here’s the thing.  The camera crew was there for hours, but the segment would be a matter of seconds.  We didn’t know what they would show.  We didn’t even know if we would come out looking well.  It was crucial that every second of footage counted, that we looked our best.

And Ted?  How shall I put it.

Ted has a great face for radio.

So I ran out of the room and barged into Cindy’s cube.  Cindy is...well, I need to be clear about this.  She is not a dumb blonde.  She’s funny and smart.  But she is blonde.  She has striking blue eyes.  She’s…

She’s pretty much a hottie.

I said, “Cindy, how’d you like to pretend to be a customer using our web site while a camera’s stuck in your face?”

She said, “Okay, but isn’t Ted doing that?”

“No no, we’re just using Ted’s workstation.  You’ll be the pretend customer.”

“Oh.  Okay.”

And then I charged over to Ted’s area, and I said “We’re going to have Cindy be the pretend customer.  But we definitely want your workstation because your monitor is huge.”

“Oh cool,” said Ted, and amiably stood off to the side.

And Cindy sat at the desk, facing the computer that demonstrated our customer portal.  Since we didn’t want to show any real customer’s information, the screen displayed a fake name: “Doris Johnson.” And several VPs stood off to the side with me and Ted while the camera crew prepared the shot.

And one of the VPs said, “Ted, this seems strange.  Why are we filming your workstation, but with Cindy sitting in your chair?”

And I froze.

Because I didn’t want to explain.

I didn’t want to say that this was a cable TV segment, which is national, and CNBC is a business channel, which means it’s a bunch of guys watching, and they’re more likely to pay attention to the segment if they suddenly see a pretty girl.  To make matters worse, I like Ted; he is so not the kind of office guy you want to kick in the head repeatedly.  But he’s never been asked to model Revlon products.  He’s never been asked to be on the cover of Vogue.  He’s never been asked to be Cameron Diaz’s butt double.

I mean, Cindy’s never asked to be any of those things either, but she’d be higher on the list than Ted.

I prepared myself to lay out my entire evil plan, the way that all the bad guys do—"Your fleet has lost. And your friends on the Endor moon will not survive. There is no escape, young Skywalker. The Alliance will die...as will your friends.”

But as my face curled into a dark scowl, Ted furrowed his own brow.  He shifted from foot to foot.  He hesitated.  And then he said: “Well, you couldn’t have me sitting there.”

Everyone blinked at him.

“Because...the fake name on the screen is Doris Johnson. I’m a guy, so that wouldn’t work.  It has to be Cindy.”

And everyone nodded.  They seemed to be a little bit confused.  After all, the name on the screen was tiny; it never be picked up by the camera.

But no one pursued the matter.

And I breathed a sigh of relief.  I had got away scott free.  I suddenly knew how Keyser Soze felt.  And Hannibal Lector. And O.J. Simpson.

Tomorrow, I will be a liberal again.  I will rail against media images and stereotypes; I will rant and rave at the shallowness of the Hollywood body types; I will shout the names of Susan Faludi, Naomi Wolff, and Kathy Bates. But today it was my company and my story.  Today, I am Ted Turner, Rupert Murdock, and Al Bundy all rolled up into one.

Now, please excuse me.  I have this powerful yearning to go practice some supply side economics.