The Top 5 Rules to Being an Evil Henchman by Shane Isnor

My name is Caddy Conwell, and I’m an evil henchman.

Well… I wouldn’t exactly say I’m evil myself, just a henchman. The “evil” part comes from the people I work for. You see, I’ve accidentally gotten myself involved with this large group of powerful people collectively called The Villain Council. Ridiculous name, I know.

Each person in this council refers to themselves and each other as villains. Just a fancy title in replacement for criminals, I suppose.

You might have even heard of some villains. They have powerful jobs often involved in the government, or blackmailing people in the government, and use this as an excuse to get all the money they could want, and live in giant, fancy houses with an exaggerated statue of themselves in the front yard because their ego wasn’t big enough already.

I began my work as a henchman in a factory run by the leader of the villain council, Madam Saw. If you ever see a factory, chances are it’s run by a villain.

I’ve been passed through a total of thirteen villains, including Madam Saw, and am now working for the fourteenth, whose name is Naveen.

I am not a henchman that’s in high demand, if you couldn’t tell.

There are five main rules I’ve made for myself to follow in order to act properly as an evil henchman, and perhaps for you to follow too if you ever end up in this position.

1. This isn’t Actually a Job.

When I say I work as an evil henchman, I use the word “work” very loosely. The reason for this? I don’t get paid.

I was recruited (kidnapped) by the head of the villain council to work in one of her many factories. She called me Kenny, or sometimes occasionally Henry. She didn’t pay much attention to her workers.

Henchmen do everything and more to be considered workers, but I would call this more along the lines of forced labour than a job.

My current boss, who might be the only villain in the entire council to have a mostly normal name, has me mainly cleaning things. When I’m not cleaning, my job entails other smaller things, like tending to the roses he grows outside, or helping him come up with ideas for death machines.

Normal evil henchman duties.

2. Don’t Ask Questions?

Sometimes, it’s not always clear what you’re asked to do, or maybe other questions pop up in your head, but that doesn’t mean you should start asking.

I have worked as a henchman for twenty-one years now, and it took five of those years for me to think of this rule. I wish I followed this rule after the first time I asked a question and then proceeded to get thrown into a damp, dark, spider-infested room for three days straight.

I asked what the factory that I was working in made, but Madam Saw didn’t like that I dared speak to her at all. In her eyes, I was this fat little mouse in glasses trying to make conversation with a sabre-toothed tiger.

Talk about dehumanization.

However, after working for my current boss, Naveen, for about a month… I think I might redact this rule again. At least for him.

Unlike any of the other villains I’ve worked for in the past, he sets his values at brutal honesty (especially if that honesty is painful to hear) and not being stupid. The not being stupid part refers to asking something when it’s confusing, because how else are you supposed to know?

Naveen would even encourage me to ask questions I didn’t know I had. He’ll say something like “it’s enlightening to know and think,” or “stupid people annoy me, so ask.”

I think I might be starting to like it here.

3. Learn to Operate Machines.

Sometimes in the factory I used to work in, parts of the machinery would break down. There were a few other henchmen who were able to fix it again before Madam Saw noticed and exterminated the lot of us, because she would obviously blame us for the damage caused by old, rusting machine parts.

Some of those henchmen were women, though, so I’m not really sure if I should call them that. Maybe henchpeople? Henchfolk? I’ll just stick with underlings.

I never knew a single thing about operating any kind of machine until I began working with Naveen. As I mentioned before, he sometimes gets me to help him come up with ideas for death machines.

You may be wondering what the hell a death machine is, and if I were to respond with complete honesty, I would say I don’t know how to answer that in a way the name already hasn’t.

Naveen’s death machines all look extremely different and act in various ways. He calls them death machines because their purpose is to terrorize and capture people, but terrorizing capture machines didn’t sound as cool. Besides, it isn’t like he’s never killed someone with his machines before.

The first one he had me help create took the shape of a teddy bear. Super scary.

I was supposed to help control the bear. Needless to say, we crashed. We were both fine, minus a rather large chunk of metal sticking out of Naveen’s leg.

As we sat there on the dusty ground in a burning pile of metal and machinery, I wondered if Naveen was about to murder me for crashing the bear. It was my fault, after all, since I had no idea how the controls worked. He had stared blankly at me for about ten slow seconds…

Then he burst out laughing.

In that moment, the last twenty-one years of my life made no sense. We had just crashed, and he was injured, yet all he could do was laugh so hard he keeled over to the side, clutching his arms around himself.

After managing to calm down, Naveen explained that he was laughing because that was more fun than anything he’d done in a long while. He then went on to complain about how all the other villains in the council were so focused on threatening people for their money and power that they had lost all sense of real villainy. Real havoc and chaos.

I think he’s just a little bit crazy.

Next time we built any sort of machine, he educated me on the controls beforehand. I’m not religious, but thank God for that.

4. Know Your Villains.

You should know everything you possibly can about the people you work for; it might come in handy.

As a henchman, it wasn’t hard for me to hear all sorts of things about other villains since every boss I’ve ever had acts like I’m a decoration they don’t really like, so they’ll talk to one another about the other villains in the most insulting way possible as if I’m not there.

Something to note about the Villain Council: it’s not a supportive community of villains working together to make the world a worse place; it’s more like everyone in it is trying to one-up each other.

Naveen says this makes them inefficient, that they could actually be more dangerous if they worked together. At first, I wondered why he didn’t point this out to the council.

Eventually, hoping I wouldn’t be tossed into a mouldy pit of spiders, I asked him. Turns out, he hates every single other villain, and they feel a similar way about him.

It makes me wonder why he’s even in the Villain Council, but I’m still too scared to ask something like that and push my luck.

5. It’s Better Than It Seems!

Yes, I was unwillingly forced into the world of a henchman, but there is a bright side. It’s dim, but it’s there.

Working in a factory at the start wasn’t all bad. There were many other underlings there, so at least I wasn’t alone. But being moved around from villain to villain as much as I did, I was never able to get to know anybody, and it left me feeling very alone.

Now, being a henchman for Naveen, there are no others. Just us in this huge hollow house. As days went by with my fourteenth new boss, that tiny pinprick of light grew. It felt less like forced labour, and more like volunteer work. I was encouraged to ask any and every question, and I’ve learned so much about machines and operating them. One of the best parts? I get to listen while Naveen rants about how much he hates Madam Saw after she occasionally sends him an obnoxious email to brag about herself and call him a loser.

These are the five rules I like to follow in order to properly act as an evil henchman. Doesn’t sound very evil at all, does it? Well… except for the death machines.

Either way, I hope I’m not passed along to another villain any time soon. This place, with this strange and slightly insane man, is kind of starting to feel like home.