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Ugh, another agency status meeting.
“Hey, everybody. Stop what you’re doing and cram into the main conference room so us big heads can feel like we’re boosting morale and creating a sense of community amongst the staff.”
Oh well… might as well check it out. Maybe this new place does it differently.
. . .
Nope. Here we go again. A few bad jokes by the top guy – note to self, learn the boss’s name – he’s handing it of to some other guy . . . some awkward motivational speech and now the girl from human resources is going over the company policies that keep getting ignored. Time sheets, parking spaces and blah blah blah…
--brain atrophy: waves slow to unreadable levels--
Whoa… gotta snap out of this. This is my first big meeting at this place. What’s everybody else doing? Hmm, the guy from finance is slumped into his chair with one eye twitching. Man, if the guy from finance is bored, then this must be a bad meeting.
Let’s see, several girls are twirling their hair, and most of the guys kept shifting their feet back and forth. That’s all normal enough. Ugh, that other new guy keeps nodding and smiling. God, I hate him.
Maybe if I start humming in my head, just to keep my brain cells active.
Bum da bum mmm hummm… wait, what is that? Oh yeah, I landed on that Top 40 station on the way to work this morning. That’s the new Britney Spears song. Bum mmm hmmm… wait, no, that’s Beethoven. I’m sure of it. Do I have the two mixed up?
Maybe the Britney riff is the same as the Beethoven melody. She’s ripping off the classics now. Well, not her, but her songwriters. She has handlers who pick these things out for her, right? Maybe this is all part of some grand scheme they have to get her eulogized as a sampling savant who transformed the music industry by incorporating the greatest composers of all time with the drum machines of modern pop.
But, it’s not her! It’s her people. They do everything. She’s just a puppet! But, history forgets these things. I must get to the future. I must tell them! She’s just a puppet!
Wow. I can see it all. Me, in the future, screaming at the top of my lungs about the constructs that led to Britney being considered the single greatest musician of the 21st century; everybody staring at me in this strange way as I plead my case in front of the Britney statue outside the Smithsonian. They’ll all—
“So, let’s start with Heath.”
--ALERT: waves scramble, levels high--
The big boss guy is talking again. He’s looking right at me. Uh oh. Looks like I’ve been racing a little too far ahead of the Bell Curve here. Everybody’s looking at me expectantly.
“I, ah…” this is bad. Come on, man. Say something.
“I’m sorry, I’m having a brain freeze.” Great. Try to joke your way out of it. Best not to tell them that the discussion about invoice management failed to capture your imagination in a meaningful way.
“That’s okay,” the big boss guy says. “I was just saying we make all of the new people sing a song at the agency meeting.”
Hmm. Seems easy enough. Wait, is he joking? Nobody’s laughing. What do I sing? The new Britney? I can’t sing. I guess I’ll have to give her that one. I’d better go for high comedy here.
“Ahem… I’m a little teacup, short and stout…”
Where in the hell did I come up with that?
MEMORY FILE: Thespian Society initiation, high school.
I can hear one of the girls from media whisper to her friend, “Oh, my God, he really is singing.”
Well, at least this has to be one of the more entertaining agency meetings in a while.
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