A PUBLIC SERVICE

Sherry Does Corporate!

Part 3: The Town Hall Meeting (urp)

That was me throwing up in my mouth.

Why? Because I just Zoomed into a meeting that I was “invited” to attend at my freelance gig, called, as the title of this story infers, a “Town Hall Meeting.”

Now, I’m not sure if other workers in other industries are subject to this embarrassing display of corporate hubris, but in the advertising and marketing industries, such meetings are legendary. For their God-awfulness.

Throughout the years, I’ve had to attend more of these inane gabfests than I can count and each one has proven to be worse than the last. In that regard, they never disappoint!

When I was a full-time employee of this marketing agency that I’m currently freelancing for, one of the big muckety-mucks used to stage these “roadshows,” where he’d travel to our various offices throughout the country and bloviate for two hours.

In the Chicago suburb where my office was located, we’d all have to trundle over to a movie theater to watch this guy do his thing. This was first thing in the morning, mind you, and rather than have breakfast food available for us hungry urchins, the company placed bags of stale popcorn on our seats.

Sitting there for what felt like an endless stretch, watching this dude pretend he was Steve Martin was akin to having a Taser shoved up one’s ass.

(This has never happened to me but I’m sure it’s unpleasant.)

For some reason, he always rattled on about his daughter. Like we gave a damn. We didn’t.

Too, there were the embarrassing “skits” featuring co-workers, some of whom appeared as if they'd rather be dangling off a cliff rather than standing on a stage looking like schmucks to the rest of us.

And here’s the thing. These skits were about as funny as Mike Pence. The fly on his freakin’ head was funnier than my poor coworkers' attempts at standup comedy.

But, that’s what you have to do when you’re part of the life. You gotta fake it ’til you break it.

After all the hilarity would come the serious stuff. The NUMBERS. An endless stream of numbers up on the big screen for all of us dupes to piss ourselves over.

And the acronyms accompanying the numbers! It was challenging just to figure out what the fuck these numbers represented. But hey, as long as they were big, that’s all we needed to know.

Of course, our raises never reflected that. Nor our $200 “discretionary” holiday bonus.

As bad as these roadshows were, they were Emmy-worthy stuff compared to the dreck I viewed yesterday.

The opening shot of the Town Hall Meeting was of the famed Chicago Theater, on State Street. The accompanying “rock” music was beyond horrible, an assault to any eardrums within hearing distance. I don’t know who the band was, but it was bad, folks. It was clear that the lead singer thought he was the next best thing to Robert Plant.

A travesty. There’s only one Robert Plant.

After that auspicious beginning, then came the schtick. As I’m recounting this, keep in mind that this is supposed to be a group of creatives putting this presentation together. From an alleged creative agency.

Since the Chicago office slapped this poop together, guess what that schtick was comprised of? Come on, you can do it.

Oh, shit, I’ll just tell you. Two of the head “creatives” did a Blues Brothers routine! Yes! It’s 2021 and that’s all the team could come up with!

There was a portly creative and a thinner one. The portly guy was doing his sweaty best to emulate “Joliet” Jake Blues and all I can say about his performance is that John Belushi was probably spinning in his grave. Or his ashes took off for parts unknown.

The other dude, who was “being” Elwood, was so underwhelming as to be almost invisible.

I didn’t like The Blues Brothers when it first stunk up the cinematic landscape and I like it even less, now. I know a shit-ton of people will disagree with me, but, personally, that stuff gets old real quick.

Aside from this stultifying display of “creativity,” there was also a nod to…wait for it…Ferris Buehller’s Day Off!

And after that, John Cusack’s character from High Fidelity made an appearance for about twelve seconds. I’m still not sure what that was about.

I guess they were trying real hard to make a Chicago connection. And that’s the best they came up with.

Damn. Who’s “old,” here, anyway?

Finally, the Town Hall Meeting came to an end and I nearly crapped myself, I was so happy. It brought back a lot of memories that I’d rather not revisit.

Take the fact that corporate America sure loves its meetings. What the hell is that all about, anyway? Do people WANT to work overtime? And weekends? And holidays? I’m mystified.

Every other email I get from this place references “mandatory workshops” for its employees. I noticed that one was scheduled for 8pm. What the ever-loving fuck?

Meet, meet and meet some more. Let the work fall by the wayside while we kiss each other’s ass.

By the way, if you ever say, “ping me,” I’ll hunt you down.

Perhaps if more people didn’t put up with this crap, it wouldn’t be so prevalent. But, what do I know? I’ve been out of the game for over three and a half years. Folks need to make a living and I get it. Hell, I need to make a living. Or some reasonable facsimile.

But, dammit, it shouldn’t be this hard. This taxing. My buddy, the one who put me up for this gig works seventy hours a week, at least. Honestly, I think she thrives on it. Many people do and I salute her for her amazing stamina. But, I’m no longer one of this group and I’m grappling with my options, right now. As in, what are they?

Whatever that turns out to be, “Joliet” Jake will not be involved.

Sherry McGuinn is a slightly-twisted, longtime Chicago-area writer and award-winning screenwriter. Her short films have screened at The Pan African Film Festival in Cannes (awarded “best short”), the Nashville Film Festival, the Honolulu Film Festival, the Los Angeles Film School, New Filmmakers New York, and New Filmmakers Los Angeles. Her work has appeared in The Chicago Tribune, Chicago Sun-Times, and numerous other publications. Sherry’s manager is currently pitching her newest screenplay, “The Month We Fell Apart,” a drama with dark, comedic overtones and inspired by a true story.

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