Hey, folks.
Have you ever witnessed a corporate theme day? They usually happen when your company's HR department gets tired of fielding complaints from staff that they're being driven like Camptown racehorses so they put a bit of heat on the management department to do something special for the serfs.
The powers that be usually views this as the best idea since sloped theater floors but are often waaaaaay too cheap to see it though properly. Given only a few shekels to work with (and often subsidized by money out of their own moth-eaten wallets) your immediate managers gamely take a run out to "Costco" and pick up an industrial-sized brick pack of beef-flavored wi-i-i-i-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-ners ("Now with 20% less badger knuckles!") and a flat of "hamburgers" made from pure Canadian meef (a synthetic beef-like substance).
With the remaining scratch they usually rent a BBQ, set up a dunk tank, invite you to wear jeans and a cowboy hat in lieu of the usual monkey suit and graciously give you the last half-hour of your shift to revel in the wild, bacchanalian, "Carnival'-esque festivities.
The first of many of such event I attended was a bit of a system shock for me. It left me so damaged that I was compelled to write a poem at the time to try and help me process what I'd witnessed. Here it is...
Requiem for a Theme Day by T.S. Representative
The promise of early liberation provided.
Swiftly crushed by swipe sentries intent on sharing their misery.
You run, but the guilt of others left behind cannot be waylaid.
Creep. Sneak. Crawl. Sit.
Force yourself to witness the dark spectacle.
The vicious cabaret.
The sights of the blind.
Drink the liquid, the flavor of your own mortality.
Feast on flesh that tastes of sponge soaked in vinegar.
Our collective Passion Play is truly at hand.
"Why, oh, why has all hope forsaken us?"
The pool of wonder offers sights both kind and horrid.
The harpy invites the gathered to a danse macabre but there are no takers.
And when the elements fly, there comes an unspoken alibi.
But long after time should heal and miles should give distance.
I still wake up to the choir of screams.
July 12, 1996.
EPIC: Here's the best "Company" theme there is..."The Electric Company"! (Bonus points if you can spot a ridiculously young, self-conscious lip-syncing Morgan Freeman!)
100% BONUS IN THE EPIC DEPARTMENT: Here's a company theme day we can all really get "behind" (cue chorus of groans). It is slyly subversive, however...
http://listicles.thelmagazine.com/wp-content/upload/p_332_300_8c44bfc5-49f7-40b9-8280-a2d4aac0edfe.jpg
FAIL: Seriously, this kinda s#!% gives me nightmares...http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3154/2984527303_14c9f37e6c.jpg
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