O – The Overachiever…If you only really knew him
Larry was an overachiever. Everyone knew it, yet he was still liked and trusted. That was a big mistake. For you see he only gave the appearance of being an overachiever. In fact, he mastered the way to deceive people into believing that he’d done things in his past, that he hadn’t really done.
Larry was a go-getter in high school. He was involved in lots of after-school clubs and activities. That was probably why he was so well-liked. Everybody knew him. He was on the high school’s championship football and baseball team. Actually, he was the gofer on the football team and the batboy for the baseball team. But that counts that he was on the team. All the players and coaches appreciated all the work he did. So, onto his resume, he wrote that he was on the championship high school football and baseball teams.
His college credits included a 3.89 average. Granted that only happened during one semester, and that was the semester the faculty went on strike and the COVID shutdown occurred, all of which when resolved allowed students to get grades of Pass/Fail instead of letter grades in any course they took in their major. Larry would have received D’s in 2 of his major subject classes which would have brought his GPA down to 2.13, but by allowing him to take those classes Pass/Fail, his average for the semester was 3.89. No job application ever specified what the college GPA you put down represented. It was assumed it was an average for his entire four years. He actually graduated with a GPA of 2.57. Yet based on what he put on his application, he was looked upon as a top-notch student.
That helped him get a job with a prestigious securities exchange firm. Of course, they realized really early that his math and economic skills weren’t the best and he was quickly demoted to do menial tasks. The company did not want to fire him with the credentials he professed; fearing lawsuits and the like they kept him on. All he said to others was that he worked for their company, and no one questioned doing what.
And then his great uncle Marvin died. He was a very rich great uncle. Larry had been buttering his uncle up for years spouting of all his accomplishments and the many places Larry had been to. It helped that Larry played GeoGuessr* on his computer a lot. Larry could name places his uncle had never even heard of and he made up stories about all the streets he’d traveled on. If his uncle ever wanted to check to see if Larry was telling the truth, his uncle would have discovered that the places Larry referred to were real.
So it was no surprise that Larry inherited the bulk of his uncle’s money. Larry quit his job. Now he could do all of the things he claimed he did. But why bother? He liked how he lived. He liked being admired for things he didn’t do. There was no need to change. He just continued his life of luxury and deceit.
Sometimes living out a lie works.
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*GeoGuessr is a geography game that takes you on a journey around the world and challenges your ability to recognize your surroundings. https://www.geoguessr.com/
