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predictions, each slide edited and approved by Biosphere’s northeast regional manager, who had wanted to drive home the importance and urgency of the sales force’s vigor in promoting TerraFlu’s laboratory efficacy against pandemic grade viruses. Biosphere launched TerraFlu with several FDA-sanctioned clinical trials demonstrating its superiority against seasonal flu strains, but it was still viewed as unproven against pandemic-grade viruses.
    Alex had recently completed his six-month probationary period with Biosphere when Ted Stanton eagerly volunteered the district to provide the lecture. When nobody from Alex’s district team volunteered to stand in front of the entire northeast regional sales team, he reluctantly agreed to spare Ted the agony of assigning the lecture to one of the team’s less enthusiastic and less capable members. The decision to give the lecture had changed his life.
    First, it had solidified his opinion of Ted as a micromanaging, egocentric, compassionless ass-kisser. He had his suspicions from the very beginning, but Ted had never done anything overt to threaten his autonomy or sour their relationship. At least not before Alex volunteered to give what appeared to be the most important lecture of Ted’s career. Sure, he’d witnessed some despicable leadership behavior, but in his mind, he couldn’t hold this against Ted, as Ted’s leadership came mainly from books. He had been hired by Biosphere right out of college to sell vaccines and had quickly risen to the rank of district manager, where he appeared to have been stuck for the past three years.
    Despite the relative calm they enjoyed, there was an underlying current of tension, barely perceptible, but strong enough for Alex to sense. Ted was uneasy in his presence, in part likely due to the fact that Ted hadn’t been given a choice when it came to Alex’s assignment to the district. Biosphere was expanding its sales force for the upcoming launch of TerraFlu, and rumor had it that Ted received a call one week before the job had been officially publicized. The call, supposedly placed from the vice president level at headquarters, informed him that his district would be joined by a decorated war veteran and seasoned pharmaceutical sales rep. Ted Stanton was more than displeased with the forced assignment, and his attempt to torpedo the decision was apparently a big part of why his fast-tracked career had skidded to a halt.
    This explained Ted’s initial discomfort, but Alex was pretty sure that most of the distress stemmed from the massive gulf between their ages and experiences. In 2003, while he was commanding marines under the constant threat of enemy machine gun and artillery fire in Iraq, Ted was busy dodging keg stands and tequila shooters in his fraternity house at UCONN.
    Alex had included copies of his military decorations with his original resume submission to the vice president of sales. Biosphere was a small operation in the grand scheme of pharmaceutical companies, and he suspected that copies of his decorations, or rumors of them, had found their way to Ted. Whatever the cause, Ted had kept his distance from him, which was exactly how Alex liked it, until the big lecture in Stamford had brought them a little too close for comfort.
    No fewer than thirteen videotaped practice lectures later, two of which were full dress rehearsals in a rented conference hall, and he was ready to kill Ted with his bare hands. The mere mention of his name or the buzz of his smartphone caused Alex to clench his fists. He had seriously miscalculated the situation when he volunteered to give the lecture. He hadn’t factored in the possibility that this lecture was a key part of Ted’s career redemption plan, and the oversight cost him dearly. Hourly emails and texting; several daily phone calls. He was convinced that Ted had quit doing everything except for micromanaging his thirty-minute lecture.
    He even got Michelle Harke, their regional