An awkward, unscientific lie is often as ineffectual as the truth  – Mark Twain, “On the Decay of the Art of Lying”

News comes to us today that the CEO of Yahoo has been ousted for lying on his resume. I don’t know when the lie showed up on the Scott Thompson’s CV. Maybe it was a new addition; probably it was there long before he held his previous job as CEO of Paypal. Thompson isn’t the first bigwig to get caught conveniently “misremembering” a degree. A brief search reveals similar senior executives at Bausch & Lomb, Veritas Software, Radio Shack and InterContinental Hotels have been revealed as resume padders. And that’s just since 2002.

It is disappointing to see so many CEOs fail at such a fundamental business skill as lying. These are the leaders of the greatest economy in history and they get tripped up by fraudulently claiming a computer science degree from Stonehill College? It is for this reason–to help the CEOs of the future–I present the five most common mistakes when lying on a resume.

1. Overreaching. The bigger the lie, the easier it is to trace. Any HR person worth their Wonderlic test will figure out you didn’t win the Pulitzer Prize in fiction. But a Pushcart Prize or an honorable mention in a Paris Review short fiction contest might just go unchecked. Claiming a law degree from somewhere like Whittier Law School is a much surer bet than opting for Northwestern. It’s just common sense, people.

2. Being too perfect. Don’t simply cut and paste a job ad and claim to have, line by line, the exact qualifications the position calls for. The bullet point “2-5 years experience in business management” is bound to be a red flag. The good news is no candidate is going to have the exact skill set the position calls for. Therefore, if you have all of two and part of a third, then fudge the third, lie about the fourth and leave it at that. Geez, didn’t they teach you anything in that MBA program you didn’t go to?

3. Don’t flaunt your lie. Once you get that CEO job, you have nothing to prove. Don’t pretend to be on the Cambridge alumni committee or friends with the dean at Yale. Definitely do not fill your office with doctored PhDs or lacrosse trophies you bought on Ebay. Play it cool.

4. Do your due diligence. “Many a young person has injured himself permanently through a single clumsy and ill-finished lie.” More good advice from Mr. Clemens. In other words, do your homework. If you’re claiming a degree from Harvard, at least know their mascot (it’s John Harvard, but the sports team are called “Crimson”). Check out a few pictures online. Read the Wikipedia entry. Find out who in the company is actually from that institution and have them transferred to Uzbekistan..

5. Not having your spin control ready. Odds are if you make it to CEO you’ll develop enemies. (Heck, I don’t know you and already I don’t like you.) And if you have enemies, one of them–even among people as slow-witted and lazy as CEOs–will find one of those lies on your resume. Okay, probably they’ll have a junior v.p. do the leg work, but you know what I mean. The point is, you have to be ready for that day–and it will come–when the Wall Street Journal reporter calls. Thompson lamely claimed his executive recruiter added that erroneous computer science degree. That’s not good enough by half. You should have your rap down cold, and the more confusing, meandering and hard to pin down it is, the better. Above all, never, NEVER admit to anything. O.J. Simpson never did and look at him. Okay–bad example.

Keep these mistakes in mind and you’ll soon be able to disassemble with the our nation’s captains of industry. And if you get caught, so what? You’re a CEO. It’s an old boys network and you guys take care of each other. At worst, you’ll get a multi-million-dollar golden parachute and end up heading a slightly smaller company. What comedian Lenny Clarke said about television applies to corporate executives: “In this business, there’s only one way to fail. Up.”

Chris Bittler is a proofreader with a bachelor’s degree from Trinity College in Deerfield. Like anyone would make that up.

“Where did you get that?” Inspector Grimes asked, eyeing the doctor with suspicion.

They were in a squad car, heading for the Comedy Cavalcade on the upper Northwest side.  Inspector Grimes was in the passenger seat.  Dr. Franks was directly behind him, trying to stay out of his line of sight.

“Is that the other half of my tuna sandwich?  Jesus, Franks!”

“I was famished.  I’ve not eaten in four hours.”

Outside, the sun was low and the wind had picked up.  Pedestrians were leaning into the wind, collars upturned.

Inspector Grimes chewed another half inch off his cigar.  “Now when we get there let me do the talking.  The last thing I want is for the scandal sheets to get the idea that we’re investigating some kind of crazy midget murder spree.”

Dr. Franks swallowed the last morsel.  “I like the sound of that:  Midget Murder Spree.”

“No, no, no!  There are some odd coincidences here:  the manner of death, the size of the victims, that business card.  That’s why you’re here.  But as far as the police are concerned, as far as I’m concerned, these are still four unrelated deaths.”

The doctor watched Grimes’ bald head jerk angrily from side to side.  It was wide and pale and always reminded him  of a porcelain toaster.

“As long as I get my fifteen bucks a day.”

“I thought we said ten.”

“Let’s just make it thirteen then.”

Jerry and Jacky Fulch had been, up to Jacky’s untimely demise, a famous and beloved duo.  They started in the vaudeville circuit as The Funny Fulch Brothers and their act had included a bit of everything:  soft shoe, grifting, slapstick.  Especially slapstick.  Onstage Jerry was the smarter, bigger, abusive brother and Jacky the stupider, shorter, abused sibling.  Nearly every bit would end with Jacky being smacked on top of the head, falling to his knees and uttering his famous line, “Check please!”

Offstage, things were pretty much the same.

They made a series of successful movies for Fox, including Hobo Hijinks, The Mistaken Millionaire and Jerry & Jacky Join the Seabees (also known as Propellers Aweigh).

In the Fifties there was little use for the duo at the studios, where lavish big screen pageantry was in vogue.  Even feigning communist sympathies got them no press.  Neither could they find a place on television, since Milton Berle had cornered the market on dull-witted humor.  So they were back to doing stage shows, usually as an opening act for bigger, younger names like Eddie Fisher and Chatter.

Dr. Franks and Grimes found Jimmy in his backstage dressing room, sitting on a chair, wearing a ruffled shirt, black socks and little else.  His pants and underwear were hanging from a valet nearby (“to prevent wrinkling,” he explained).  There was nothing memorable about his face, save that it was wrinkled, puffy and famous.

“Mr. Fulch, I’m Inspector Grimes of the NYPD.  We’re sorry about your loss—”

“Sir, can you perhaps put on some trousers?”

“And this is Dr. Franks.”

“A homo—”

“He’s a consultant.”

Fulch looked up.  The bloodshot eyes and red nose told Dr. Franks that the man had been crying or drinking or both.  Fulch went into the bathroom and returned a moment later wearing a towel that barely circumnavigated his waist.

“I just have some routine questions about the accident,” Grimes said.  He shot a preemptive glance at Dr. Franks upon uttering the word accident.  For once, the doctor got the message and kept his mouth shut.

Fulch crossed to a dresser, his back to the visitors.  He was looking at a framed photo, a movie still.  The brothers were dressed as clowns and Jimmy was about to clobber Jacky with an oversized mallet.

“That was from Lyin’ Tamers,” he said as if to himself.  “After Jacky recovered from his concussion he said that was the best bit we ever filmed.  He was a comic genius.”

Inspector Grimes coughed.  “From what I understand, you and your brother had an altercation?”

Fulch turned.  “We were just goofing around, the way brothers do.  You know, a little punch to the head, a friendly eye gouge.”

“And then you fell on him?”

Fulch buried his face in his hands.  “Oh, God. He was so tiny, you know?  And I’ve—I’ve put on a few pounds.  It was horrible.”  He collapsed on the couch.  The towel became taut.

“Perhaps you’d feel better if you put on some pants,” Dr. Franks volunteered.

Inspector Grimes eyed Fulch suspiciously.  From the neck up.

Depressed Bin Laden thought about ‘al-Qaida name change,’ White House says (ABS OTUS News, April 30, 2012)

It’s a pleasure to meet you, Mr. bin Laden. And salaam alaikum to you too. I don’t know if your heavily armed admin told you, but I’m Dax Philips–one L–senior v.p. at WanToo Creative in New York. No, I don’t know anybody from Sterling Cooper. No, the trip wasn’t bad at all–everyone who didn’t shoot at me was very accommodating. More than you can say for Detroit. Yes sir, that was supposed to be a joke.

Well, I see you’re a busy man, sitting there on your mattress watching–um–are those two men or two women? I can’t tell.

Anyhoo, to cut to the chase, you’re looking for an agency to help change your organization’s image. Your Q rating is slumping, you’re losing key team members and you’re afraid of losing the top spot in the global terrorist market. Basically, al-Qaeda needs a brand refresh.

By the way, do you have any bottled water? That lamb stew was a bit heavy on the tumeric.

First the good news. One, you admit you have a problem. Two, your brand is not diluted. Twenty-seven of 28 focus group members identified al-Qaeda with evil and mass murder. The other person thought it was a basketball player.

The bad news is that your brand, while possessing a high recognizion factor, is rather unpopular. And even among your key demographic–angry Muslim teens–it is seen as having lost its touch.

Whoa, whoa! It’s not me saying that. Yes, yes–death to America by all means. By the way, you may not be able to service mark that phrase. On the other hand, who’s going to stop you from putting it on a T-shirt? I mean, you guys are lawless, am I right?

We think you need educate the public about all the great senseless attacks you sponsor every year. At the same time, you need to step up recruitment. We can kill two birds–or should I say two innocent victims–with one stone by creating company uniforms. Nothing fancy: some embroidered caps and polos from J.Crew should do the trick. That way, every time a bomber’s bloody torso is shown on Al Jazeera wearing your colors–we’re thinking teal–it will reinforce your brand as the leader in sensless violence.

At the same time, the new corporate colors will stimulate recruitment. The palette we have in mind will communicate to potential operatives that the new al-Qaeda is a passionate, forward-thinking franchise that also cares about the deluded, brainwashed young men–and women!–it is sending to their deaths. Have you considered a dedicated recruiting site to sell terrorists on the benefits of Al Qaida? Possibly yourIEDfuture.com. Think about it.

The name change? Yes, I was coming to that. Sorry, I feel lost without my iPhone. We absolutely love your idea about updating the name, and I’m not just saying that because you’re holding that Kalashnikov. Our creatives have come up with a few ideas: That Terrorist Joint, Evil in Motion, AAA+ Qaida. That last one puts you first in the phone books.

One more thing. As the figurehead of the organization, it might be worth considering a personal makeover. Nothing dramatic: a cheek lift, some highlights … do you own any skinny jeans?

So–when do you think you’ll be making a decision? Of course, of course. I know you’re busy with the wives and the Pepsi and the pornography. Thank you for your time. Did I give you my card? Remember that we’re a full-service agency: PR, spin control, social media. You know, a Google AdWords campaign might really pay off. I wish I could have shown you the color palette, but I had to trade the Pantone book to some kids to get my Kenneth Coles back.

Wait–I hear helicopters. Are we near an airport? I wish I would have known that. Would have saved me that hike through the Khyber Pass.

The story itself begins with a pie and ends with a broken door, but the backstory is crucial to understanding the emotional and psychic forces informing the event. Those emotional/psychic forces were buried somewhere in the subconcious of one Sam Simpson.

Once again, this tale is from my college years, of which I am proud to say there were only four (I know several people who were on the six-year undergraduate plan). What can I say–pie loomed large in my educational experience.

But, back to Sam Simpson. Sam (not his real name) was one of my suitemates my senior year. The dorm at my small, private college had the look and feel of a fleabag motel, consisting of two long three-story brick structures that facing each other across a courtyard, with two semi-enclosed stairways at either end. Each side of each floor had five doors, and each door led to a shared lounge area with communal bathroom and four separate dorm rooms. The 8-12 students living in these rooms were, by definition, suitemates. It was a different set-up than most college dorms, but not a bad one.

Being an Evangelical liberal arts college, we had separate dorms for men and women (again, not a wholly negative arrangement), so all my suitemates were men.

Living in one of the rooms, along with two students from Hong Kong, was the fascinating Sam Simpson. Sam was a short, swarthy sophomore with straight black hair and matching moustache. He looked so much like a cartoon characature of an Italian you half expected him to see him with an organ grinder and monkey. Actually, we never knew his ethnic background.

Sam was loud, easily surprised and incredibly naive. As such, it was almost impossible not to prank him. My roommate and I tried time and time again NOT to prank him but couldn’t help ourselves. It wasn’t just that he was gullible and easy to get a rise out of–he was also really, really annoying. He would pester you, follow you, hang around when you were trying to study. He always had a strong stench of Dorito’s. Sam would never take a hint, or even a direct command to leave. Once, when Sam wandered into our room, stinking of Dorito breath, we told him to crawl into my absent roommate’s bunk as a surprise, said bunk having a blanket draped in front of it for privacy. My roommate knew as soon as he walked in that Sam was hiding in his bed–he could hear the loud tittering. He angrily told Sam to come out, and when he smelled the Dorito breath he got angrier than I’d ever seen him. Sam, however, didn’t pick up on any of this. His mind somehow interpreted my roommate’s anger as a joke.

That was just one of the odd things about Sam: Whenever you were serious with him, he thought you were kidding. Conversely, when you were lying to him he always believed you. As when Tim Sanderson told Sam his roommates were communists.

I didn’t know Tim well. He had always seemed a normal guy. Friendly, but not overly involved in extracirricular activities.  What we called a dorm dweller. What I learned that year was that Tim was a trickster who had during his time at college masterminded some of the most amazing pranks in school history–including putting a car in the cafeteria. It turned out Tim lived to prank.

One day, Tim sat Sam down on one of the indestructible couches in the lounge and told him he suspected that Sam’s two Chinese roommates were communists.

Sam’s roommates, as I mentioned, were from Hong Kong. One was a biology major and the other chemistry. They were quiet, serious and very nice. It took a bit of convincing, but not very much. Especially since the rest of us backed up the story.

“Yes Sam, those red Bibles they carry aren’t Bibles–they’re Mao’s little red book,” we told him.  “That radio–it’s a shortwave to Peking.  Why our college?  Obviously, to undermine America’s Christian values.”

I can’t remember how many discussions of this kind we had, but to Sam’s credit he always remained a bit skeptical.  Even when Tim convinced him to report his roommates to the college president.

There was also the day when the suitemates had had enough of Joe running around naked in the communal bathroom and tossed him, fresh from the shower, out on the catwalk. A sensible person, when locked outside with no clothes, would make as little noise as possible. Sam, on the other hand, pounded loudly and repeatedly on the suite door, yelling “I can’t believe you locked me out here completely naked.  I’m out here completely naked!”

I was returning from working the breakfast shift in the cafeteria at the time. When I saw Sam up on the third floor catwalk, I turned around and headed to French class without my book.

Tim’s roommate was something of a wild prankster himself, or at least was not adverse to wild behavior. Once, in retaliation for the jocks in the opposite suite shooting wads of wet toilet paper at our door, Tim’s roommate heaved an entire wet roll at their window. Somehow it didn’t break. I can only assume the jocks had replaced the pane with bulletproof glass.

That should be enough background for the pie story, which I will recount next month.

One other quick note. Our suite that year was an experimental one. It had a 24-hour quiet time rule. The idea was a sound one: a refuge for students who really needed to study. I signed up because I had a heavy classload, my roommate signed on because, well, he was my roommate. The Chinese students were stereotypically studious. Sam was in there because he hoped it would help his study habits. Two other students shared a room and were apparently very serious about their classes because I don’t remember ever seeing them, although one of them got up at 5 a.m. each morning and steamed up the suite with his 30 minute showers. Tim and his roommates had no business being there. All in all, it wasn’t very quiet. Especially when Sam was there.

One of the most important criterion is certainly cost of living. For 2011, AARP The Magazine lists among its thrifty ten places like Winchester, Va., Cheyenne, Wy., and Midland, Texas. As nice and affordable as those places might be (Midland, Texas!?), I have already found the cheapest place in America, and it’s in Wisconsin.

Having lived in various parts of Illinois, California and the Badger State, and spent time in many other locales, I can safely declare the town in which I currently abide the best place in America for cheapskates. Like me.

It helps if one live within walking distance of work, which I do. The office is located in the thriving (some would say funky) downtown, and I live just across the river in a quiet, cheap apartment. My car spends most of the week hibernating in the heated indoor parking garage. I fill it up so infrequently there is often a fifty cent per gallon swing in the price of regular unleaded. The lack of driving, combined with a bag lunch and free soda at the office mean my biggest work week expense is shoe rubber.

For readers, this town can’t be beat either. It has what is officially the best library in the state–also within walking distance of my apartment. Having access to a real, actual library is quite a change for me. The last two places I lived were farm towns, and I’m fairly certain their collections consisted of books and periodicals left at the Hardee’s. One of those libraries had exactly one book on World War I, and it only covered up to the second battle of Ypres. I still don’t know what happened to the Kaiser.

This library is also clean and safe, unlike the libraries in West LA and Santa Monica, which were the abode of the homeless. Not that I blame anyone for being homeless, but the smell is hard to get used to. Or forget.

A few weekends ago I found another free form of entertainment in town: antique stores. I had never been antiquing, but if you walk any distance in this downtown you can’t avoid it. There are at least three–all set up in what were probably once grocery or hardware stores. Surprisingly, antique stores are not crowded little shops filled with expensive and fragile knickknacks that I would never be interested in in a million years. No, it turns out antique stores are filled with absolute junk. Cool junk. Ancient tools of inscrutable purpose. Old Look magazines. Broken Lite-Brites. Stacks of vinyl records. Old pocket knives behind glass. Crappy upholstered furniture. Obsolete sporting equipment. And everywhere the pervasive odor of wet crawlspace. In other words, fascinating junk you can spend hours perusing without feeling the least bit tempted to trade money for.

There are coffee shops and bars right downtown as well. If you grab a library book and head for the coffee shop you’re good for an entire afternoon for the cost of a large Americano. That’s living, fella!

Perhaps the best thing about this cheap old town are the Goodwill stores. Yes, I said stores–because this burg has two. One of the first things I purchased for my apartment was 24″ color television at Goodwill for two bucks. I was going to pop for an HDTV at Best Buy, but dropped in at Goodwill on a whim, and there in the back was a shelf full of fairly recent sets. Probably they were donated by people who had just purchased giant flatscreens. Actually, I could have purchased a 32″ TV for two bucks, but the 24″ was the biggest one I could lift.

I’m thinking of getting back into golf. I’m horrible at the game, but it’s pleasant if you don’t go with the wrong people. Last weekend, I woke up the car and drove to the driving range, stopping first at the Goodwill to pick up a three dollar driver. It worked great; I was driving the ball straight in the air for 150 yards, which for me is maximum performance.

The only downside is a bucket of balls is five bucks. I could get, like, two and a half TVs for that kind of money.

My scepticism, or I should say my aversion, may also have been due to my reluctance to touch a screen. I’ve spent so most of my adult life scowling at coworkers who tried to jab at my computer with Twix-stained digits that the idea of pawing at a $500 iPhone goes against my professional training.

TV commercials for mobile phones have not exactly piqued my interest either, but I suppose those ads are aimed at upselling the converted rather than converting the ignorant (like me).

The fact is, with or without me, there are millions of mobile users who can’t live without their sleek little gadgets–and faithful readers (both of them) know I have never been one to question the majority. So I have joined the new media revolution. In fact, I would like to think I’ve become something of an expert. With that in mind, I’d like to share some of my favorite apps.

Star Walk. This amazing and educational app tells you what constellations you can’t see in the sky because you don’t live in Alamogordo, New Mexico. It’s just three bucks for the iPhone version, which isn’t bad for something you’ll never use.

Foursquare. One problem with our modern, individualistic culture is it’s difficult to attract and cultivate a really dedicated stalker. Foursquare ups the odds by telling every lunatic stranger you’ve ever accidentally friended exactly where you are and when. For best results, upload sexy photos of yourself to iPhone Profiles and Flickr.

Siri. It’s not just the name of a sure-to-be-maladjusted celebrity offspring, but also a sure-to-be-unshakable personal assistant right inside your mobile device. Siri, with all the warmth and sincerity of a Verizon customer service rep, will verbally remind you to call your mother, tell you what movies are playing nearby and even locate an ultra-hip noodle shop. Best of all, Siri gives you more opportunities to annoy strangers by talking to yourself in public restrooms.

Instagram. Google just paid $1 billion (did I stutter?) for this nifty little photo-sharing app. With Instagram, you can take a photo, doctor it up with cheesy effects and send it to friends, who will immediately delete it. Great for cat fanciers.

Groupon sends amazing deals on products and services you don’t want and can’t use right to your mobile device, saving you the time of opening the emails at home to see that that half-price coupon for the Goulash Hut is only good between 2 and 4 am on alternate Tuesdays.

Shazam. This hot app “listens” to any music you are hearing (live, on the radio, etc.) and identifies the artist and song. At a cost of only five bucks a month, it makes one wonder how we ever lived without it. I hear in the old days, people actually had to (shudder) “ask” a non-virtual reality avatar (i.e., person). Of course, you don’t need Shazam to identify songs used in TV commercials because that’s always Ingrid Michaelson.

AroundMe. Probably my favorite app, AroundMe informs you of stores, bars, and other points of interest in your vicinity. The locations can either be shown on a map or, with the augmented reality feature, through your camera. Sadly, AroundMe does not inform you when you are about to fall down stairs, walk into traffic or drop off a pier. Although that would also be a cool app.

Yep, I’m all over the whole smart phone thing now. So all over it, in fact, that one day I might even get one.

If the divinity [of Jesus] is true it is certainly terribly revolutionary. That a good man may have his back to the wall is no more than we knew already; but that God could have his back to the wall is a boast for all insurgents forever.

Christianity alone has felt that God, to be wholly God, must have been a rebel as well as a king. Alone of all creeds, Christianity has added courage to the virtues of the Creator.  … In that terrific tale of the Passion there is a distinct emotional suggestion that the author of all things (in some unthinkable way) went not only through agony, but through doubt. It is written, ‘Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God.’ No; but the Lord thy God may tempt Himself; and it seems as if this was what happened in Gethsemane. In a garden Satan tempted man; and in a garden God tempted God. He passed in some superhuman manner through our human horror of pessimism. When the world shook and the sun was wiped out of heaven, it was not at the crucifixion, but at the cry from the cross: the cry which confessed that God was forsaken of God.

And now let the revolutionists choose a creed from all creeds and a god from all the gods of the world, carefully weighing all the gods of inevitable recurrence and of unalterable power. They will not find another god who has himself been in revolt. Nay, (the matter grows too difficult for human speech,) but let the atheists themselves choose a god. They will find only one divinity who ever uttered their isolation; only one religion in which God seemed for an instant to be an atheist.

I have always assumed that I never think about high school because it was so uneventful. I got decent but not exceptional grades, didn’t attend games or dances, and was only on one team–mathletes (slide rule and inequalities were my specialties, if you must know). I had good teachers and bad, interesting classes and boring ones. Mostly, I just got on the bus and went home.

Now though, racking my brain for monthly pie stories, I suddenly recall a horrifying, traumatic event that could possibly explain why I have blotted four years out of my memory.

Of course, it involves pie.

I went to a large high school of with over 3000 students. It was a cobbled-together building, basically a figure eight built in three phases. The old portion making up one half of the eight, lengthwise, was two stories of red brick. The new half was three stories of off-white brick. Then there was the newest part, on the bottom of the eight, which was built after the ’67 tornado ripped through town. It was also three stories, but with a more modern exterior than either the old new half or the old old half. To make things more confusing, the two halves of the second floor, split width-wise, didn’t align horizontally and were connected by a ramp on one side, split length-wise, and stairs on the other. If that makes no sense, you have some idea of what it was like for freshmen. In fact, freshman were issued what was called a “bennie folder” with a map on the back to help them navigate. And the first thing a freshman learned was to cut out the map and put in some other folder so sophomores wouldn’t see them looking at it and harass them.

Thinking back, freshman year was the worst time for me. I was new, short, fat and nerdy; in the high school terms–a target. In addition, I believe I wore plaid Sansabelt pants most days. I was bullied a lot that year, although back then we simply called it high school.

One day that fall I was in the cafeteria. Okay, I was there every day; I freshman’s gotta eat, right? The food in our cafeteria wasn’t awful, at least not to me. My family only experienced real food when we visited relatives on holidays; other than that, it was a lot of Frosted Flakes, Campbell’s Soup and Banquet Frozen Chicken. So cafeteria food was fine. The haburgers were decent, the tater tots were warm, and the French bread was fresh.

The environment was something else. In decibel level, cleanliness and ambiance it resembled the food fight in Animal House. Peas were dropped and no one cleaned them up, Jell-o was thrown and no one was sent to the dean. People were tripped and no one helped them to their feet. One ate warily, like a prisoner or a marine in basic training, always on the lookout for culinary incoming.

I believe it was spaghetti-mac day. I can’t remember what the dish was officially called, but it was spagetti made with macaroni noodles and served with French bread. It was the highlight of the menu rotation. I believe I also grabbed a piece of cream pie, either banana or chocolate. They had tasty pies–sweet and fully thawed. I mention the pie because, well, it’s a Pieday story for one thing, and also to establish there was a lot of pie in various states of existence throughout the dining area. Some were only a memory, with a bit of crust to mark their passing. Others were waiting patiently in their assigned square on a food tray.

Others were on the floor, waiting for a short, fat, nerdy freshman to step on them.

I remember scanning the room for my friends, walking quickly as I did so to avoid being an easy target. I did not see the pie. But everyone else did. In fact, waiting for someone to slip on a conspiciously dropped food item was a spectator sport in the cafeteria. Nowadays, we would call this cruel, but back then we called it high school.

I remember slipping, I remember falling backwards, I remember my spaghetti-mac flying up in the air. I remember corn on my glasses. I don’t remember anything after that. There must have been laughing and jeering, even by my friends, but I can’t recall it. In fact, I don’t remember much of high school after that incident.

This is obviously such a painful memory that my mind can’t face it. Perhaps I need a year or two of therapy to help me process and deal with some deeply buried emotional issues.

Or perhaps I just need some pie. Mmmmm … banana cream.

But there is just as much to be learned from the less flashy characters. In fact, the one I have in mind is the exact opposite of flashy. A face in the crowd, if you will.

Waldo.

That’s right–the stripe-shirted titlular character from the successful Where’s Waldo series. What lessons can we learn from this lanky, unimposing fellow? After all, Waldo is not magical like Galdalf or strong like Rambo. He doesn’t get in trouble like Curious George or toss off coffee mug quips like Garfield. Still, Waldo has been very, very successful. What are the lessons we can take from this humble publishing giant? Five come to mind.

1. Focus on your core competency. Waldo does one thing and he does it consistently well. Blend in. In branding lingo, we’d say he’s passionate about it. Everything Waldo does is about blending in, whether he’s at the beach, the ballpark or the amusement park. He is 24/7 all about the blend.

2. Always be branding. Even childless adults know the Waldo brand: the distinctive red-and-white shirt, the ever-present blue trousers, the gratuitous beanie. He’s so recognizable you can pick him out in a crowd, although it might take you a while.

3. Create a desire. Marketers will tell you an emotional tug is much more compelling than the most urgent of needs. After all, most people need cars, but car commercials don’t sell them–they sell a lifestyle. You don’t want that Mazda–you want to be the cool people in the Mazda commercial. Waldo does them one better. Nobody really needs to find Waldo, but somehow he has planted within the reader the irresistible desire to find him.

4. Know your weaknesses as well as your strengths. Waldo isn’t an athlete, so he doesn’t run. He doesn’t look good in close-up, so you only see him in group shots. He is rail thin, so he makes wise use of fattening horizontal stripes.

5. Waldo goes with the flow. Not every business needs to be the leader in its field to be consistently successful. OfficeMax has done just fine with the strategy of being the third horse in a three-horse race of office suppliers. Yamaha acoustic guitars are inferior to those of Gibson and Martin, but they are mighty fine for the price. Kohl’s isn’t Nordstrom, nor does it want to be. Sometimes it’s better to go unnoticed while the big boys battle it out.

For more of my leadership tips, go here.