Doing My Part To Undermine Corporate America

On Wednesday, my two co-workers and I went to the "President's Picnic," A free lunch, which served a dual purpose of welcoming students and staff back to school and launching the new caterers contracted by the university. It was a lovely afternoon for a picnic. The caterers had done a nice job setting up tents and buffets overflowing with hamburgers (beef and veggie), hot dogs and grilled chicken.

As we filled our plates, I noticed that all of the catering staff were wearing tee shirts emblazoned with the caterer's logo on the back and the slogan "Never Compromise" on the front.

"That's strange," I noted to my co-worker, the event planner, "I would think catering is a business full of compromises. In fact, I don't want to work with a caterer that doesn't compromise. Does that mean, if we don't want gravy on our food, they won't compromise and leave that glop off?"

We spent our lunch out in the sun, debating the possibilities of the corporate slogon. Maybe they meant they never compromise quality or service. We were stumped.

When we were done eating, we threw out our trash, took advantage of the free popsicle offer, and had a seat on a park bench. We soaked up the the late summer sun as we scoped out the crowd. We watched the caterers busily move back and forth between the tents and the university buildings, which were staging areas for the food delivery, we presumed. We saw our populist president make his way through the throngs in his university-green blazer, which he eventually thought better of wearing and removed.

About a third of the way into our popsicles and we saw three "suits", two guys and a girl who were obviously from the corporate office of the catering company. They were too snappily dressed to be with the university and not nearly down-trodden enough. The absence of "Never Compromise" tees indicated they were not catering lackeys. They were snapping photos of people enjoying their food, sometimes posing jokily with their "customers". They definately had that "Friends" vibe about them: too cool for school and the funniest fucking people in the place.

As they walked past our bench, I tried to flag one of them down and question him with regard to their motto. Sadly, I was too ordinary or not enough in the midst of my lunch to warrant being seen. Perhaps he sensed me as a preditor; that is certainly how I was feeling. I was going to corner this corporate drone, make him explain his ambiguous motto, and set him free if it made any sense at all. If it didn't make sense, I'd deliver a withering glance that would melt his Calvin Klein undies.

Undeterred, I began scanning for a worker bee who might be both high enough in the heirarchy that he/she would have gotten the memo with regard to never compromising and close enough to the front line to have to talk to me. I spotted Rob, who was feverishly working the soda tent. I pegged him as a mid-level manager by his authoritatvie use of a two-way radio and by the fact that, under his Never Compromise tee, he was wearing a short sleeved shirt and tie. Only management would do that, thought I. Sadly, he was too busy and too far away from our bench to notice us and I didn't really care enough to move away from my prime people-watching location.

And then came Bruce. He was chugging down our little chunk of sidewalk, carrying a pitcher of water. He was a white guy, maybe in his early forties. He was working hard, we could tell. So, I stopped him.

"Hi Bruce," I said, smiling.

He stopped, surprised. "Oh, Hi," he replied.

"I was wondering if you could answer a question for me and my colleagues here," I offered sweetly.

"Sure, go ahead."

"We hold a lot of events at the university and we will be employing your catering company. We were concerned to see you all wearing tee shirts with "never compromise" on them; I was wondering: what does that mean exactly? What won't you compromise on? In our opinion, a lot of compromising goes on in the catering business. Could you explain it to us?"

"Well," he said, deliberating in his mind and, finally, opting to be frank, "They make us wear these; I don't really know or care what it means."

"I see," I said, "Thanks."

And he scampered off to deliver his water to the tent. The girls and I had a laugh about the catering company's obvious failure to endoctrinate the front line into their corporate philosophy. We speculated that it was developed by a bunch of smart-ass "suits" at the annual company retreat in Branson. To us, it sounded more like a slogan for a football team or the Bush Administration than a catering company.

Incidentally, as I was looking for pictures for this post, I searched Yahoo's images for "never compromise". Know what I discovered? It's the name of a line of golf clubs. Cha-ching. That's enough evidence for me to prove that these assholes were on a golf outing when they decided to cheekily steal the golf club's name and adopt it as their corporate motto.

Bruce passed us again on his way back to the building and we waved at him. After about five minutes he retuned with another pitcher of water (maybe I should start calling him Gunga Din?). We waved and said, "Hi, Bruce!" He stopped, looked at us thoughtfully with his brows furrowed.

"You know what?" he asked us, "I've been thinking about your question, and it's really starting to make piss me off."

"Oh," I said. "I'm sorry to have upset you."

"No," he said, "I mean really, what the hell does it mean?" His eyes searched the horizon for answers.

"Well," I said, "Maybe you would feel better if you found out what it means."

"I think I will," he vowed and took off to deliver his water.

The girls and I sat back on the bench and finished our popsicles, satisfied that we had set loose a small tempest of truth-finding on this fledgling vendor of the university. Afterall, we, the customers, should never compromise, not them. And they'd darn well better get used to that idea.