Trade Secrets

Mandy\'s avatar

At some point schoolyard bullies tried picking on me because my name starts with “man,” but it was never quite the insult they thought it was to intentionally misspell it as “manly” or something. It didn’t bother me, and just led to a lifetime of cracking my own dumb jokes about my name. Just last week at work I was called a “one-man shop” for web development, and I got to quip “one-Mandy shop” and make an entire conference room groan. It’s great!

In this case, I was proud of casually mentioning my superhero alter-ego with such a straight face that I think my coworker genuinely wondered for a bit, there.

Fox\'s avatar

I don’t have a secret identity. I went with more of the Tony Stark approach.
Only without the money.

Mandy\'s avatar

Late last year, after Into the Spider-Verse came out, a lot of artists started making their own “spider-sonas” — so of course I couldn’t help making Spider-Mand into a real character!

12 comments on “Trade Secrets

  1. Oh sweet jefferson davis that superhero is too precious to handle on a monday…. Coworkers are giving me funny looks as I snicker at lunch…

  2. Is the capybara still the official mascot of your workplace, or does this person just like capybaras?

  3. LOL! Love it! =D
    I have a similar issue with my name. At my current workplace, I share a name with the owner of the company, so, to avoid embarrassing confusion, I use a nickname that’s just a short version of my surname. It leads to all kinds of fish-based puns/jokes; e.g. the bull-pen room I work in has been named the Fish Bowl.

  4. Spider-Mand … cute! 🙂

    Fox: Regarding your superhero alter-ego, I could only imagine what your Iron Fox suit would look like – especially given your knowledge of technology, mechanics, construction, and your quite vivid imagination.

    1. Nonono he has to be the villain xD the flirty villain spidermand has a bit of on off thing going like batman and catwoman… Ooo fox is black cat to seley’s spidermand xD

  5. Must have been some pretty weak bullies…good on you for ignoring them and rolling with it, though!

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