Some Have Greatness Thrust Upon 'Em

Be not afraid of greatness. Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon 'em. ~William Shakespeare, Twelfth Night

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Rey answered Finn's call on her cell. She sat back in her office chair. Her best friend had started a new job a couple of weeks ago and she hadn't heard a thing about it.

"Fuck, fuck, fuck, and fuck," he said without preamble.

"No, no, don't hold back, Finny. Tell me how you really feel," Rey said.

A huge groan emanated from the phone. "I can't believe it."

"What happened? How's the job? No good?"

Rey waited for Finn to stop his deep breaths.

"Oh, it's fine," he said rather miserably. "It's just this man."

Rey knew "this man" referred to the founder of the nonprofit organization, Theater for Life--a theater performance group for military audiences. Finn had been hired to be the director. He must have walked into a mess.

"Spill it," she said.

"I'm not supposed to talk about it," he whispered.

"Then don't call me yelling 'fuck.'"

Silence.

"Finn?"

"All right, look, no one's around right now..."

"What are you even doing in the office? I thought you were working from home anyway," Rey interrupted.

"Yeah, but all their shit is here. This man..." Another groan of frustration.

"Are you ever going to call him by his name?" Rey laughed.

"No, otherwise I freak out because of his fame," Finn retorted. "This man doesn't believe in technology. He can barely work his phone. Everything is paper in this damn office. Working from home didn't fucking work because there's no server, no shared files, no nothing." He sighed. "There are file cabinets. With scribbled old receipts and bullshit in them."

"Is that the source of your dismay? That Ben Solo is a Luddite?" Rey was fascinated. The famous actor who had skyrocketed into becoming the hottest commodity in Hollywood was an intense, private, techno-phobe. Who knew?

"No, it's only one source of my dismay," Finn said. He heaved another sigh. "Get this, Peanut. This man..." Rey chuckled again at Finn's inability to say the name. "He had this brainstorm about a giant Zoom webinar thing for a military audience, right? A huge event with celebrity speakers and a big Q&A sesh, the whole business."

"Okay," Rey said.

"Ben Solo would introduce all the participants and say a piece about creativity, which is the theme of the thing. He's supposed to be on the panel to answer questions, alongside his guests. All good. Well, I made a nice poster and popped it up on the socials. And he now wants to fucking bail on it. After it's all been publicized. People have signed up for it based on his name."

"No," Rey said. That was bad. In her years working for nonprofits, she'd put together a few events with celebrities. She knew the damage that pulling out of an event could cause. "Shit, are you sure? Isn't this his thing?"

"Yes," Finn hissed. "It is. We said it was for a military audience only, but Ben thinks based on registration that fans are finding a way to get the code and flood the webinar."

Rey chewed on that for a minute. "And that's bad?" In her mind, any audience was a good audience for fundraising.

"Yes. Ben Solo doesn't want anything smacking of Galactic Wars involved and he's convinced that GW fans are clogging the webinar and making it impossible for military service people to attend. I told him it wasn't a problem because there's plenty of room on Zoom for everyone."