For all Jeff Skilling's public bravado about how great everything was at Enron, he spent most of his time dealing with a host of serious problems the part of the job he had always despised. Part of him was caught up in maintaining the illusion that Enron was indeed the "World's Leading Company," but it seems likely another part of him was forced to confront the darker reality of Enron's situation in 2001. Holding those two conflicting ideas in his head at the same time had to be exhausting.

Enron's stock price began dropping. The bull market had ended. The dotcoms went bust. Analysts, too, were starting to notice contradictions in Enron's numbers. Enron had posted fantastic earnings numbers for the first quarter of 2001.

Skilling was leading a conference call following the earnings announcement and was in an upbeat mood. "Just an outstanding quarter, another outstanding quarter," he enthused. We are "very optimistic about each of our businesses and confident that our record of growth is sustainable for many years to come."

In the middle of the question-and-answer period, a hedge fund manager named Richard Grubman was given the floor. Grubman was a short-seller. He didn't care about Enron's earnings. He wanted to see a balance sheet, which would have far more detailed information than the income statement Enron put out the day before.

Skilling: "We do not have the balance sheet completed. We will have that done shortly when we file the Q. But until we put all of that together, we just cannot give you that."

Grubman: "I'm trying to understand why that would appear to be an unreasonable request, in light of your comments about daily control of all your credits?"

Skilling: "I'm not saying we can't tell you what the balances are. We clearly have all those positions on a daily basis, but at this point, we will wait to disclose those until all... the right accounting is put together."

Grubman: "You're the only financial institution that cannot produce a balance sheet or cash flow statement with their earnings."

Skilling: "Well, you're -- you -- well, uh, thank you very much. We appreciated it."

Grubman: "Appreciate it?"

Skilling: "a**hole."