I sit, knees aching, in a large white tent—the Sheraton calls it the Executive Pavilion.
It’s a corporate Big Top today, and the armada has sailed into town. All of us cubicle monkeys, bussed in from all over the southland, clap our hands silly as an incessant cadre of anonymous senior executives give us the state of the union, all rosy and pink, a balance sheet of infant faces. But we all know the truth—we would fuck up a free lunch, and we usually do, corporately speaking. But here we sit, nonetheless, enduring this year’s theme—Pirates of CAREibbean, because we are, after all, a health care company.
I now hate the brand team even more.
To kick things off, we suffer through two hours of public, self-congratulatory masturbation. Leading the spectacle are two vice presidents, and I couldn’t make this up if I tried, decked out in Salvation Army pirate garb, projected as wide as the Pacific ocean, on two jumbotrons, earrings glinting, swords flashing and yards and yards of purple polyester cascading over gelatinous expense account stomachs. One swashbuckler has a fake parrot perched on his shoulder.
More than a thousand of us fidget, squirm, text, and daydream, trying to just hang in until the drinking lamp is lit five hours from now. We give throaty and hearty pirate cheers, ARRRGH, again and again, letting VP Salty Dog and VP Gray Beard know we are on board with whatever the fuck it is they are selling us, and we know we can do better this year, even with a shitty portfolio of products, lousy pricing, and a reputation of questionable competence—and, without a doubt, we can expect merit increases that may even exceed inflation, but first we have a lot of difficult work to do…ARRRRRRRRGH!
This stuff is not going to market and sell itself!
The funniest thing is watching VP Salty Dog read the teleprompter. He obviously didn’t rehearse with the eye patch covering his dominant eye. He keeps flipping the patch up and then back down. We all know VP Salty Dog (his name is Wade) is not a pirate—it would be OK to break character. I’d respect him more if he did. Regardless, the event planner should be made to walk the plank for this oversight—Wade is one of us, even in leggings. If nothing, we are loyal.
The wenches, rum punch, and bacon-wrapped dates still seem a long way off as Senior VP, Captain Mike makes his way to the stage. He has a peg leg and a hook for a hand.
This could get interesting.
ARRRGH!