Midjourney Generated My Profile Pic and Now My Coworkers Think I'm a Supermodel with Seven Fingers

The Corporate Headshot Crisis

It all started with a company-wide email: "All employees must update their profile pictures in the company directory by Friday." Simple enough request, except for one small problem—I hate having my photo taken. The thought of scheduling a professional headshot or awkwardly posing for a colleague filled me with dread.

The AI Solution (Or So I Thought)

That evening, scrolling through social media, I noticed friends posting incredibly polished, almost too-perfect images of themselves, all tagged with #MidjourneyMagic. The lightbulb went off—why not use AI to generate my professional headshot? No awkward posing, no bad hair day, just prompt engineering my way to the perfect corporate image.

I crafted what I thought was a foolproof prompt:

professional headshot of a regular-looking person, business attire, 
neutral background, natural lighting, high resolution, photorealistic, 
corporate environment, LinkedIn style photo, normal human features

I specifically included "normal human features" because I'd heard about AI's occasional creative interpretations of hands and fingers. Better safe than sorry!

The Result: Too Good (And Too Wrong)

When the images arrived, I was stunned. Midjourney had created someone who looked vaguely like me, if I had:

1. Perfect symmetrical features
2. Impeccably styled hair
3. Flawless skin with a subtle, professional-grade makeup look
4. The confident gaze of someone who definitely knows what EBITDA stands for
5. And bizarrely, seven elegantly posed fingers on the hand resting under my chin

Can you spot all seven fingers?

In my defense, the hand issue was subtle enough that I didn't notice it while quickly reviewing the images. The fingers were neatly arranged in an elegant pose that obscured their actual quantity. It looked professional, it vaguely resembled me, and most importantly, the deadline was tomorrow.

I uploaded it to the company directory and went to bed, task completed.

The Workplace Fallout

The first hint something was amiss came the next morning, when the receptionist did a double-take as I badged into the building.

"Wow, great photo! Did you use a professional photographer?"

"Something like that," I mumbled, hurrying to the elevator.

By 10 AM, I had received three compliments on my "incredible new headshot." By noon, a colleague from accounting stopped by my desk.

"Hey, I hope this isn't weird, but my cousin is a modeling agent, and I showed him your new profile picture, and he wants to know if you've ever considered commercial work?"

The Seven-Finger Discovery

It was the IT director who finally spotted it. During an all-hands meeting, he was displaying how to navigate the new company directory on the projection screen, and my profile came up as an example.

"And here you can see employee profiles with their departments and contact information," he explained, as my AI-enhanced face smiled back at the entire company.

A voice from the back called out: "Wait, zoom in on that hand. Is that... seven fingers?"

The room went silent. The IT director, confused, zoomed in. Indeed, elegantly draped beneath my airbrushed chin was a hand with seven slender, perfectly manicured fingers.

"It's a... medical condition," I blurted out, immediately regretting my panicked lie.

The Bizarre New Normal

Now I'm trapped in a strange professional paradox. Half my coworkers think I'm significantly more attractive than I actually am and seem disappointed when they meet the real me in person. The other half are fascinated by my supposed "rare hand condition" and keep trying to catch glimpses of my actual hands during meetings.

HR has asked me three times for the contact information of my "photographer." The company newsletter wants to do a feature on "our in-house model." And the IT director now uses my profile as an example in digital security trainings about "spotting AI-generated images."

Lessons Learned

If you're considering using AI to generate your professional headshot, here are some hard-earned tips:

1. Count the fingers in your AI-generated image. Count them again. Then have someone else count them.
2. Check the ears - sometimes AI gives people partial or duplicate ears.
3. Look carefully at eyeglasses - they often have asymmetrical or physically impossible frames.
4. Be wary of jewelry that seems to be floating or merging with skin.
5. Don't lie about medical conditions when caught - it only makes things more complicated.

"The problem with using AI to enhance your professional image is that eventually you have to show up in person as your regular, appropriately-fingered self."

The Resolution

After two weeks of increasingly awkward encounters, I finally came clean in a company-wide email, explaining my photo anxiety and the Midjourney experiment gone wrong. To my surprise, instead of mockery, I received an outpouring of similar stories. Apparently, I wasn't the only one who had turned to AI for help with the profile picture mandate.

The sales director had used an app that made him look 15 years younger. The CFO had accidentally selected a filter that gave her a subtle cat-ear effect. And our CEO, in a shocking twist, admitted his profile picture had been AI-generated for the past two years.

Our company has since updated its photo policy with a new line: "Profile pictures should feature the actual employee, with the standard human complement of facial features and digits."

Meanwhile, I've scheduled a proper headshot with the company photographer. I've been assured he'll capture my completely average looks and totally normal five-fingered hands just as they are.