why i love my job

Some of you who know me know that my job is a little non-traditional. Sometimes when talking to people about things that happen at the office, that I have come to think of as normal, I get these strange looks that remind me that I do not work in a normal office, as many people would think. No, no. I work with “creatives”. And it has some incredible perks: beer and pizza Fridays once a month, parking lot picnics in the summer, an annual golf tournament with unlimited access to the beer cart, and “retreats” that actually include fun events like touring local breweries and watching movies during office hours. Nope – not kidding. One such retreat took place last Friday.

Let me explain something else that’s important about my office. We’re in advertising, ok, so we like to do things with a lot of flair. One reason for this is just because we can. There are a lot of talented, creative, off-the-wall people at my office. People who write funny and clever taglines for a living. People who crank out animated videos like it’s no big deal. So when we put together an event, it’s not just a separate meeting that’s different from the day to day stuff we work on. It’s an extension of those things – so we have themes and we go all out and people make videos for it “just for fun”. So yeah, it’s a little a lot over the top. But that’s kinda just the way it is.

17 of the 24 people in my department have read The Hunger Games. So we planned our department retreat around the release of the movie. We got a little excited about it. I was on the party planning committee (or Interactive Retreat Task Force…whatever you want to call it) so I combined the Hunger Games mockingjay graphic with one of our client’s logos and made emblems for each District from the book, that also corresponded with our clients’ industries.
And we totally dressed up. We staged a “reaping” a week before the event, during which each person was placed in a district as a tribute, and then we made everyone wear a costume that signified the industry of the district you were from. Confused yet? If you haven’t read the book, then yeah, we sound like a bunch of crazies. Which is only partly true.

Here you can see the transportation, fishing, livestock and power districts.

District 7: Lumber

District 9: Grain

And this is Landy. He’s a coal miner from District 12, dancing to his walkout song “Hi Ho” from Snow White.

I was District 3: Technology, along with my boss who someone pointed out looks like he’s ready to lead Jazzercise. Not sure what kind of Jazzercise class involves a keyboard and a headlamp, but I don’t think I want to go.

We held the event at a community rec center and had a mock Hunger Games, which consisted of grabbing 3 beanbags from the “cornucopia”, then tossing them into your district’s box to earn the right to throw them at cutout targets of your coworkers/fellow tributes. Once your target was hit three times, you were eliminated from the game. It was sweaty and awesome.

And to finish things off we celebrated Tyler’s birthday with a Hunger Games themed cake from Butterfly Bakery that his girlfriend had sent over.

Afterwards we went to the movie in costume, and it was glorious. The middle school class that was there on some spring break field trip thought we were awesome. And that, friends, is why I love my job, or at least a big part of the reason.

***Clarification: Today I do NOT love my work because someone (whose name starts with two “A”s and ends with -ron Harms) taped the evergreen air freshener you see pictured above to the bottom of my desk while I was at lunch and my throat is burning from the lemon lysol smell. Not cool. I will be sure to return the favor soon.***

JR