‘It came crashing down Monday morning. Lewis was immediately fired’: “Influencer” colleague at marketing company impresses the boss with celebrity selfies and wild stories, gets fired and flees the state when his web of lies falls apart

Author image for Etai Eshet
Etai Eshet • Editor
Jun 16, 2025 10:00 AM EDT

Every office has that one coworker whose work history sounds suspiciously like the plot summary for a reality show that got canceled halfway through its first season. In this marketing firm's office, it's Lewis, the company's resident "influencer," a man so allergic to actual marketing work, he made Houdini look lazy. Hired for his alleged social media clout and for somehow being photographed next to B-list celebrities without ever being noticed in the actual industry, Lewis proved to be a master of both self-promotion and not being present for anything resembling a deliverable. Any time he was supposed to be on a call, there was a mystical social media contractor in his seat, quietly picking up the slack and wondering if invisibility was part of the job description.

Lewis charmed the office with tales of celebrity parties, shadowy business deals, and influencer investments, displaying an endless carousel slideshow of questionable selfies that were the digital equivalent of photobombing someone else's LinkedIn. His manager ate it up with a spoon, eager for the next glamorous anecdote and oblivious to the reality that Lewis's actual business acumen amounted to getting past velvet ropes before being escorted out.

The unraveling, when it came, was as dramatic as any staged Instagram reveal. Lewis tried to wow a potential partner with stories so wild they required GPS coordinates and an alibi, which triggered the first sign of consciousness in management. 

A little due diligence exposed Lewis as a professional party crasher with a local event ban and a spotless, work-free company laptop.

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  • "Lewis bragged about being an Influencer, partying with celebs, doing business"
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    The image does not depict the actual subjects of the story. Subjects are models.

  • Oh boy oh boy, I didn't know this sub existed till just now and do I have a GREAT coworker story for y'all.
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  • Years ago, I was hired to a marketing team for a medium- sized company (1,000+ employees, national footprint). I
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  • was about 29 years old, having been in corporate marketing for 4 or so years. I was still "newish" but I knew enough from my experience in marketing.
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    The image does not depict the actual subjects of the story. Subjects are models.

  • I was quickly introduced to the social media manager of the company, we'll call him Lewis. Lewis and I would be working
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  • VERY closely together. Now, Lewis was an interesting case. He had never worked in marketing before, but was apparently a fairly
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  • Cheezburger Image 10517505792
    via Jacob lund

    The image does not depict the actual subjects of the story. Subjects are models.

  • popular social media influencer which landed him the job, or so I was told. It quickly became apparent that not only did Lewis
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  • not really know sh about marketing, but he also didn't seem to be doing anything ever. I was very often on the same
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  • calls/meetings that Lewis was supposed to be on, but he never was. Instead, the social media contracting company we had hired were. Which seemed odd.
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  • Throughout our time together, Lewis very often bragged about his out-of-work business dealings as a social media influencer.
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  • Partying with celebs, making business dealings, etc, and he often had pictures to back it up. Our manager seemed enthralled
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  • with Lewis, always asking for his latest stories and even asking to get in on some of his investments.
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  • It came crashing down one Monday morning. Our manager entered the office and told us to tell Lewis to come see him the moment he was in. Lewis, as usual
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  • was a few hours late and was immediately fired. Our manager called us in to tell us and we all sighed in relief. He started asking
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  • why we never said anything, and we explained that he always seemed so impressed with Lewis that we were afraid to.
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  • Apparently, that previous weekend, Lewis and our manager met with a potential business partner, and Lewis started spouting some VERY unusual stories, like how our corporation bought out his social media influencing company (they didnt).
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  • Our manager was very confused and not happy with the situation, he was actually downright embarrassed and apologized to the other person attending. So, he started digging. And it wasnt hard to figure out that Lewis has
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  • been lying the ENTIRE time as he was very well known amongst business people in the area. He wasn't an influencer. He didn't have any business contracts. Those pictures with celebs? Lewis
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  • crashed parties and would snap a selfie before being escorted out. He was BANNED from many offices because he kept trying to sneak into executives offices. One local executive even had a restraining order against Lewis.
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  • Lewis also stole his work- provided laptop, and returned it weeks later (after being threatened with legal action) TOTALLY wiped clean. He had not done a drop of work in this roughly 6 months at the company, instead he had pawned
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  • his entire workload off on the aforementioned contractor who just assumed that was what was supposed to be happening. Lewis got on a plane the afternoon after he was fired and never returned to the state.
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management boss workplace-stories hr manager marketing bosses work influencer PTO managers supervisor workplace work-life balance
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