New Office Chairs and Waiting for a Carrot

A wave of familiar despondency washed over Phil as he resolved himself to the “mandatory attendance” line of the email reminding him of today’s apres-5 pm staff meeting. “Darn it” he said aloud, adding only half-jokingly to his cubicle neighbor, “Why don’t they make a video tape entitled “staff meeting” and circulate it among each staff member 12 times a year?” Half-jokingly might have been cutting it a little short; to call these corporate goat-herdings tedious and redundant would be an understatement. “If I stay here even five more years I swear I’ll be able to recite one verbatim” Phil thought to himself.

As the day, like any other, went by with enough of the same routine to make the forthcoming subject matter seem almost repulsive, Phil couldn’t help but brood about what lay ahead. At least an hour, likely more, of being sat obligatorily in cheap molded polypropylene stack chairs in a poorly ventilated room while being submerged in sales figures, projections, market trends, morale issues etc. etc. The fact that he had mastered the ability to feign attentiveness while football, fast women and faster cars crossed his mind was all he had going for him as five o’clock neared.

As he made his way down the hall with the rest of the keyboard peons, Phil mused to himself how much more open to these meetings he might be if there was something of a proverbial carrot on a string to look forward to. Who knows? A corporate retreat to a sun-drenched destination would be wonderful, but beyond unlikely. He would have been sufficiently satisfied with an arrangement along the lines of a $100 gift voucher to Hooters and tickets to a Chargers game for every man and woman who attends each one of these monotonous time-holes over the course of the year. As if that would ever ...

As the door to the glorified lunch room swung open, Phil was taken aback. Fully expecting to look upon a table lined with those aforementioned stacking chairs, Phil was stunned to see a row of executive office chairs awaiting him and the other peons. It seemed even the bosses were looking out for themselves, as each end of the table featured an executive conference chair that looked exceptionally comfortable. As the lot of them murmured their token “oohs” and “ahhs” mixed with a few “wow, look at these,” Phil took a seat. Within a moment of sinking into the ergonomic office chair before him, he had to admit the hour and some that lay ahead of him no longer seemed quite so burdensome.

Phil had never enjoyed any staff meeting like he did that one and he further found he’d never been so attentive. Not to say that football, women and cars didn’t cross his mind, but they did so with far less frequently than usual. On top of it all, the same contingency surplus that had reached into online shopping at Cymax Stores to bring them these chairs was the same that would see each cubicle (or pen depending on your perspective) with a new office posture chair on Monday morning. Phil was so awash in the moment he even had the gumption to suggest the topless bar / football game incentive idea but was rejected in short order.

No matter, he thought, maybe things are looking up after all.