When Should You Shut Up?

When the world stops, and reverses it's axis. I was out at new hire training for work and there were plenty of people ready to suck the farts off any superior there. I shold have known the week would end well as it started on the tile just below the urinal. I used mapquest to get to the location and believe it or not, mapquest was wrong. Just slightly though. I was told to go East when I should have gone West. Easy mistake, I forgive you mapquest.

The place I went to was up in Deer Park. If you are unaware of the location it is where the highway ends/starts. There is a sign that says its over. I always thought highways were infinitely long and I never would see the end. It was as disappointing when I saw where the sidewalk ended too. Yes, that is a Shel Silverstein reference.

Upon my thirty minute late arrival, I had to knock on the door to enter. Just before the door was opening, I prayed. I prayed for another moron to walk up right behind me. Not quite. I entered to find all seats were taken so I got to stand for about 10 minutes before we started with the ever important ice breaking information.

There were some people there that I truly wish the best for. Others I expect it. When broken into groups for some challenges that are to make the higher ups go hard with joy, our group was interesting. Specifically we had to make a commercial for all to watch about the company. Hello, this is something teams take weeks or months to create. We were given 30 minutes. This was the one part of the week that I knew going into it that I would not lose to anyone.

I stood within the group listening to ideas on how to make this commercial. Never could I have expected the caliber of ideas. One girl, bless her heart, opened her mouth and purged her credibility. "I think we should start with something like a cartwheel and then say "Now that we've got your attention..." and then present the lines of business."

A cartwheel. She was serious about it. I stood there letting that soak in my mind while for some ungodly reason the rest of the team was on the cartwheel wagon. Then one of the teammates looked at me, as I for the first time there, was silent for three straight minutes. Nothing, not even a sigh was let out by myself.

Confronted with the situation of the cartwheel, I was honest and told them that I would prefer something that would make people laugh with not at us. Within moments I came up with a premise and we tweaked it. We won the competition and the went on to win the whole contest. Fortunately, our hardwork and drive was rewarded with a $15 gift card to Barnes and Noble.