With Christmas fast approaching and CommuniCreations turning 18 years old this year, I couldn’t help but think about my fairly brief career in Corporate.
I worked just eight years in Corporate, five at Associated Grocers, two at Pacific First Bank and one at Egghead Software.
Looking back, I can’t help but laugh at the thought of me working for a bank. But, during my stint there I managed to have a lot of fun. I turned the bank into an airline at the annual meeting at the Museum of Flight – Pacific First Air – and even got to design and produce a board game. So much for banks being stuffy.
The fun continued at Egghead Software, my next stop. My boss was Meagan McKenzie. Meagan was the only boss I’ve ever had who was younger than I. I think she was intimidated by that fact, so she never really pressed me much and wouldn’t really question my nonsense.
This included my 1993 holiday party idea. The goal of the event was to energize the troops to get them ready for the hectic holiday retail season. Before my arrival these were somewhat sedate events — the usual cocktails and hors d’oeuvres type of event that everyone seemed to do back then.
As usual, I had a different idea. In our planning meeting, I suggested we should do a play… a send up of Charles Dicken’s “A Christmas Carol.” We would call it (get a hint from the title of this column), “A Dickens of a Christmas.”
Now, I’m not sure if anyone has ever done a full, three-act play before at a large corporation. But I figured, how hard could it be?
That always seems to be my ticket to adventure – “How hard could it be?” As I’ve learned since, I’m delusionally optimistic. It’s not until I’m in the midst of a mess that I’ve created that I realize it wasn’t as easy as I thought it would be.
It didn’t take too long to write the script. The plot mirrored the original. Ebenezer was an employee at corporate headquarters. His job was to support the stores. But he was too self important and focused on himself to bother. So the respective ghosts of Egghead Past, Present and Future would show him the error of his ways.
The company mascot was Professor Egghead, a large egg-shaped professor with wire rimmed glasses and a bow tie. I cast him as Tiny Tim, an obvious choice.
That was the easiest part of the production — and it was a real production. I can never do anything half-assed. I had to have complete decorated sets, costumes for a cast of 10 and props.
This was in the days before the Internet. I had no idea finding Victorian era costumes would be so hard. I finally found Great Costumes in Renton who had everything we needed.
One of the wonderful things about coming up with these ideas is that it got me out of doing real work. I could spend weeks working on a project that was a blast to do, all in the guise of doing some important job for the company that would: save money, boost morale, increase productivity, get positive press coverage… all the basic things a public relations team is supposed to do.
It took a while to convince employees to be in the play. But I finally cast my last role. Everything was finally falling into place. All that was left was rehearsal. And that’s when it all almost went to hell.
Senior management didn’t really want to be in the play. They were too busy they said. I finally convinced them to do a very small part in the Egghead Present scene. A simple planning session that debuted the main marketing theme for the season.
Well, they ended up enjoying “acting.” A day later I was asked to recast the play, putting the president and all the vice presidents into the key roles. The only guy I didn’t swap out was Ebenezer. He just had too many lines to do and everything revolved around him.
After a late night rewrite, I recast the entire play. But getting all their schedules coordinated was a nightmare, so we only rehearsed once of twice. I didn’t think we were going to pull it off.
But as the lights dimmed in the ballroom (which ironically, had a real stage), I called the show to life over the headset. It was really good, I have to say. All the senior managers really did their homework and played their parts perfectly.
Of particular note was Jim Ritch, the VP of Human Resources. He was really tall so I cast him as the Ghost of Egghead Future. I had even gotten him a dark robe and a sickle. He was very foreboding.
He was the one who showed Ebenezer the future of Egghead if he failed to support retail. There was poor Professor Egghead, homeless, fake snow falling on his head, hawking software underneath a streetlamp.
It turned out to be the perfect piece of casting. Eight months later I was asked into the boardroom. There was Jim Ritch. Egghead had fallen on hard times and the entire public relations team was laid off that day. As they finished my “outplacement session”, I looked at Jim and said, “Never thought that casting decision would be so spot on, eh Jim.”
His eyes rolled up into the back of his head and he looked away. He was no longer the Ghost of Egghead Future, but the Ghost of Egghead Present. He might as well have brought the sickle with him into the room, so many heads rolled that week.
Unknown to him, he helped spawn CommuniCreations that very day. I jumped off the Corporate Carousel and decided to be the master of my own future. And the whacky ideas continue to spill out of my head with alarming regularity 18 years later.
Out on the Treasure Coast, wondering why I never won a Tony for that show,
– Robb
Want to know what happened to Egghead? Click here to see where the Ghost of Egghead Future took the company.