Tennis Shoes and Bongos

Today I had to go downtown for an all day HR forum. This was your classic corporate get together highlighted by a couple of ridiculous moments.

As part of the day we had to attend a couple of seminars one of which was entitled “Organization Diagnostics”. Sounds riveting huh? As an example of diagnostics the instructor used a story about taking her horse to the vet at Texas A&M. She told us that she had more horses than sense and by the end of her story I determined she also had more money than sense. She had “rescued” the horse from the slaughterhouse and the horse wasn’t doing well. Imagine that. So she carts the thing down to Texas A&M to get a full examination of x-rays, blood work, etc. and learned from the vet that the horse had arthritis and bad hooves. As a result, she had to get an anti-inflammatory for the horse’s arthritis and here’s the kicker—special tennis shoes for the horse. Did I just hear that right? She’s got a horse that wears tennis shoes? At this point, I’m checked out because what can you learn from someone that keeps an old horse that wears tennis shoes? Rather than blowing a wad of cash on the vet, anti-inflammatories, and tennis shoes, I could have diagnosed and solved this problem much quicker and for a lot less.

The second ridiculous moment of the day happened after our classes were finished. Everyone was waiting outside the ballroom to go back in but the doors were shut and we weren’t allowed in. Suddenly the doors opened to a room full of bongo drums and a music group on stage beating away on their drums.

The following thoughts instantly flashed through my mind. WTH? This isn’t good. How can I get out of here without my boss knowing I skipped? What embarrassing things am I gonna be forced to do? Well, I realized there was no way to skip without getting caught so I was stuck.

The pony tailed twit leading this whole thing was the worst kind of obnoxious. He was like Tony Robbins on weed and was so into the whole thing it was making me sick. He was running around getting everyone to play their drums and then started talking all this new age mumbo jumbo about one beat, one rhythm, communicating through drumming, blah, blah, blah. I absolutely hate garbage like this.

There really is something to be said about having a respectable job--a job you’re proud to tell people about. Playing bongo drums with a bunch of corporate stiffs isn’t one of them. Picking up road kill, cleaning bathrooms, or flipping burgers, jobs generally ridiculed by society, are infinitely more respectable. At least you’re providing a necessary service.

Unfortunately the drumming activity, like the energizer bunny, just kept going, and going, and going. I was trying my hardest to not look totally disgusted with the whole thing but that’s a real stretch for me. I find stupidity insufferable, and for me, this was stupidity at the highest level. Finally it all came to an end and I avoided being duped into doing anything ridiculous. I can’t say the same for a lot of other people.