This time of year, as the leaves shift into individual self-expression and the cool air reminds us of woolen socks, I think about my former supervisor and one very strange experience on the banks of Walden Pond.
Now, before you start thinking anything untoward-- let me head ya off and explain: this absolutely isn't going to be any office romance story. (Aw, quit yer whining, I promise, you'll still get a laugh.)
In fact, this would be whatever the opposite is of an office romance story-- if the opposite stood somewhere on the border of Resigned Tolerance and Bewilderment.
A Polite, Detatched Coexistence with the Occasional Wincing, Longing-to-Run-for-the-Hills story? Wordy. But probably something along those lines.
You see, my job at the time was Marketing Manager-- a vague title made vaguer still, so that within it, no matter how the company grew (and it did) the Powers That Be could also include odd tasks like shrink-wrapping and shipping product boxes...
Occasionally answering the main telephone...
And a mysterious need to measure and note the dimensions of all the printers, servers, and fax machines in the office. (To this day, I have no idea what that was all about.)
You'd be surprised at the wide array of tasks that can be tossed under the umbrella of "Marketing" when no one else wants to do them.
Picking up sandwiches for the office, for instance, can be "Internal Marketing" because it offers morale boosting properties. Organizing the heavy boxes in the storage room can be "Corporate Marketing" because the sales literature lives there.
You get the gist.
My boss at the time was a very work-driven man, who was extremely bright and had a great passion for what he did. So passionate was he about the company, that he would get brainstorms at 2 o'clock in the morning... And then come in bright-and-early with a familiar grim expression, and say all our sales literature we'd just printed needed to be rewritten to include this brand new positioning.
This happened about every three to six months, like crops of locusts springing from the ground.
During one of these locust-springing times, it was decided that what we really needed to do to get our shiny new positioning out into the world was to have a Press Tour. Meaning, instead of the press releases we'd usually issue, we would go in person to speak with the reporters in our niche.
This meant traveling to the Boston area.
Because I was Marketing Manager and wrote the press releases-- in addition to walking to the post office to get postage, and assembling the press kits, and mailing them-- (that Marketing Umbrella again)-- I would be going with my supervisor to meet the press.
The thing about business trips with my supervisor was that he absolutely adored them... and I was usually one step from leaping from the moving plane without a parachute. See, for him, having me there meant he pretty much had a captive audience for several days of intense 24-hour brainstorming, rebrainstorming and re-re-brainstorming sessions. He was in his glory!
The car ride to the airport, we could noodle around with the positioning we'd just developed...
Waiting for the plane, we could have six urgent conference calls back to the office we'd just left a ten minute drive away...
A minor travel delay would rouse a need for 12 uber-critical documents the office should overnight us in Boston...
And two hours on the plane meant rediscussing the discussion of the re-positioning and changing a few more things back to what they were four hours before.
This didn't even include the calling my room at the hotel two hours before we were scheduled to meet up, to talk about meeting up.
It was the sheer wheel-spinning relentlessness that made me question the meaning of my life.
Well, my supervisor, as you can imagine, didn't really enjoy things like downtime. He wasn't what you'd call a sit-down-and-read-a-magazine sort of person. So while we had a few hours between press meetings, he decided we would take a small side trip while we were in the Boston area.
And because I'm a writer, he felt it would be nice if I got to see Walden Pond.
Walden Pond. The idea was thoughtful and it did appeal to me. Getting to see the inspiration of Henry David Thoreau?-- The place which exemplifies solitude, living off the grid, meditation, and tranquil natural beauty?
Excellent!
Only once we got there, the peaceful non-conformist life contrasted starkly with...
The dude in the business suit, his trouser legs rolled up, ankle deep in cold water and socks balled up on the bank-- while talking loudly on his cell phone about express packages than never made it to our hotel.
I recall noticing how the yellow autumn light caused the waters to look like liquid gold. Squirrels chased each other around tree trunks. The occasional maple leaf would call it quits and glide to my dress-shoes and briefcase as I waited.
I recall him rehashing our positioning once more, and wanting to take another look at the freshly-printed sales literature, thinking it might need another tweak here or there.
I remember juggling it in my arms on the bank of Walden Pond. But I don't really know what he said about it.
In fact, I never heard a single word. I couldn't. Henry David Thoreau was really yukking it up in my head-- the joker.
