Classic Content: Corporate Follies

“What time is the meeting again?”

I wrote this piece as part of my Brain Farts series on Oct. 14, 2006, back when I did in fact work in dreaded Corporate America. I hope you’ll enjoy it.

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I work for a very small company that fancies itself a large one, sometimes to comical effect. I do often feel as if I’m living in a Dilbert comic – but I suppose that’s what I get for going into marketing, right?

Luckily, I’m able to see the humor in my situation. It’s true, I find myself sitting in meetings that seem so pointless as to be maddening, and I end up fantasizing about kicking people in the stomach and screaming, “Make it STOP!!!!” But for the most part, I try to remain an observer. Hey, they’re actually great people. I just don’t like meetings and corporate politics.

Nevertheless, I’ve recently been thinking of ways to introduce humor into what is an almost ridiculously stoic and humor-free corporate environment.

For instance, a friend has suggested that, instead of sitting through a hellishly long meeting, I should simply take an action figure to work, walk into the meeting room just before it starts, and place the action figure on the chair. I would then announce, “Aquaman will be taking notes for me today as I have other obligations, so feel free to proceed with the meeting as normal,” then walk out.

Should I use Spider-Man instead?

An idea I came up with would actually involve entertaining. Once a month I have to make a short presentation to the company fathers to update them on what I’ve been doing in terms of marketing – I call it the “justify my existence” meeting. Next month I thought it would be fun to just abandon my boring presentation altogether in favor of something lighter. As in:

Company Bigwig: “Kevin, what do you have to report this month?”

Me: “Thanks, Mr. Bigwig. I didn’t do a PowerPoint presentation this time around about our marketing initiatives, but I do have something of interest to you all.” Then I’d play “Camptown Races” on kazoo.

I wonder how many verses I’d get through before someone stopped me?

Strange things happen in our office, though. I was in the bathroom one day, having some, er, alone time in the big stall, and a guy comes in and sits down in the stall next to me.

Now, if you’re a guy, you know the unwritten law that you do NOT make small talk in the men’s room unless a) You know the guy; b) You’ve finished your business and are washing your hands or walking out; or c) You want to get punched in the face.

So what’s this guy do? He sits down and asks me, “So, who’s your favorite?”

I paused, my mind unable to comprehend this absurd breach of code, and finally said, “Uh, favorite what?”

“I dunno,” he said. “Quarterback?”

So I told him of my affinity for Brett Favre and we discussed at length our agreement that he should have retired after last season. I finished my business, said goodbye, and left, and to this day I don’t know who it was. I didn’t recognize the voice (or the shoes), so I don’t think it was a co-worker.

I keep finding myself thinking about that strange conversation, however, and wishing I’d had my kazoo with me. I bet he would have finished his business first if I’d launched into “Camptown Races.”