Yeah Cheers, Thanks a Lot

I was having a "getting to know you" chat with one of my new London employees. On the last trip I had drinks with him and his brother (both really good guys), and we'd discovered a common Alias obsession attraction so we've been exchanging speculations as to the return of Spy Mommy and why Sloane owns us all.

Now that I'm gonna be his boss I thought we should move away from plot development and touch on professional development. So we talked about his role, what he likes doing, what he doesn't like doing, etc. I asked where he wanted to be a few years down the road and he smiled and said, "I have no idea."

He's been to medical school but he didn't fancy it as much as he'd thought, and has unexpectedly found himself being the "fix it" guy for a lot of data automation projects here in the happy land of asset management.

I completely empathize. Six or seven years ago, I was going to be an actor ... and now I'm the would-be doctor's boss. You never really know where you're gonna end up.

"You were an actor? That's brilliant. You could have been on Alias," he says. "You'd have been perfect for it."

The demo reel of Bob as sexy, head-kicking spy-boy played in my head, reminding me of my long-abandored fantasy carreer of CIA agent (with my cover being a college English professor).

"I can totally see you as the gadget guy."

Back in my auditioning days I had an casting director tell me "your're a hard one to type. You're not quite handsome enough to be the leading man, but not quite quirky enough to be the guy next door."

"You mean Marshall?" I asked ... questioning if my quirky quotient had multiplied over the past years.

"Yeah, you'd be spot on."

He's so fired.