Hands off my cheese

I used to work for this great, big bank, and I won’t give its name, but I will tell you that it was in America.

I was not really a great match there, personality-wise. I fit in about like Jeremiah Wright at a John Birch Society meeting.

I remember one day, we were on a conference call. They love conference calls in corporate America. The secret to surviving them is to make sure you’re sitting in your own office or cubicle, have a mute button on your phone, and play computer Solitaire until it’s your turn to speak. Then just say some nonsense, throwing in words like “synergies” and “leveraging” and “benchmarking”, and you’re cool.

So on this day, my boss told us we would all be getting something special in the mail in a day or two, and we would have another conference call the next week to discuss it. She was very excited and said we were all going to like it. Great, I thought. Maybe it’s a bonus check, or a nice golf shirt with the new logo on it, or at least a coozie.

The package arrived, and I eagerly tore it open (I was not that far removed from my newspaper days, so the thought of getting anything free still sent me into an orgasmic frenzy.)

It was a book. The name of this book was Who Moved My Cheese? I turned it over a couple of times in my hand and wondered why she had sent us a children’s book. There were little mice on the cover. Well, at least I can take it home and read it to the kids, I thought.

But it was no children’s book. It was some sort of stupid motivational book and the cheese was supposed to represent happiness or success, and it helped you deal with “change.” By the way, in the corporate world, “change” is a code word for massive layoffs.

I walked around the office with the book in my hands doing my best Nigel Tufnel impression – “Is this a joke? Excuse me, is this a joke?” The next week, when we had the follow-up conference call, EVERYBODY ELSE HAD READ THE BOOK. Then they discussed it. They found it really helpful. Apparently, it was the best mouse-related book since “Of Mice and Men.” I never made it past page three, when the mice started talking. Rodents creep me out anyway.

The most eager fan of the book was this guy named Brad. Brad and I weren’t really that close. I worked with him for two years and never bothered to learn his last name. For a while I just referred to him as that “pasty-faced fella.” Brad was the kind of guy who would go antiquing with his wife on a Sunday and not only not complain that he was missing the last round of The Masters, but not even care! I have no use for a guy like that.

Once, on an interminable conference call, Brad was going on and on about some program to “incent” employees. My boss, who suspected I was playing Solitaire (I was) and not listening (I wasn’t) tried to trip me up by saying into the phone “Mark, what do you think about what Brad had to say?”

I scrambled to un-mute the phone and I said, “Well, first of all, Brad, I’m not really sure that ‘incent’ is actually a word.” Dead silence. You’d have thought I’d told a dead baby joke or something.

Not long after that, they had a big corporate re-organization, and they moved me and my cheese right out of there. I wonder what old Brad is up to these days? Probably out there somewhere incenting people.