Favorite Fictional Character --- Tess McGill

I was going to end this month and this year with another Christmas FFC, but I realized 4 a month would be fine.  So instead I'm going back to one of my favorite movies of the 80s and a character that I love for a lot of the same reasons I love Brantley Foster from "The Secret of My Success".

Tess McGill, from "Working Girl", is a bright young woman who is tired of being stuck in the secretarial pool and when she realizes she is never going to get where she wants in her current job, it's off to the next one.  At first she thinks she found the dream job, she has an understanding boss (Sigourney Weaver) who is willing to listen to ideas and even share the glory if they come true.  So when Tess comes up with a terrific idea for an acquisition, she takes it to her boss and when she's told it didnt' pan out, she didnt' think much of it.

Tess didn't discover the truth until a skiing accident left the boss hospitalized in another state.  When Tess is set on a mission to her home in order to send a few things out to her, she discovers that in fact the idea did pan out and that the deal is already in the works.  Now I don't know about you, but that would have pissed me off.  Unlike Tess though, I probably would have spilled the beans right then and there, and then quit.  Luckily Tess didn't do that.  Instead she decides to get even and impersonates her boss in order to close the deal and maybe the her bosses old job.

Tess is a strong, independent woman who goes for what she wants and refuses to back down when others keep putting roadblocks in her way.  She goes for the job and the man, and ends up with both.  She is also that kind of person that is always underestimated and not normally taken very seriously.  She is a little ditsy, with over the top hair and a sense of style that only a child of the 80s could love.  But underneath all that is a keen intellect and a drive to succeed, a wonderful combination to have in a character.