I was tooling around Amazon trying to decide what socks to buy when my CEO appeared in the doorway of the office. Stevens’ presence startled me. He was a stealth CEO, that was for sure. I was going to need to put one of those little concentric mirrors in the doorway so I could see him approaching.
“Catch you in the middle of something?” he asked, walking in and sitting down.
“No, no, nothing important,” I said, lying. I needed socks badly, but Stevens didn’t need to know that.
“Good. I’ve got an exciting new initiative I want you to handle,” he said.
It was amazing, there was a point when executives actually started to sound like the quotes I made up for them in their press releases. An exciting new initiative. I might try that one out at home some time. It sounded so, well exciting.
Stevens had a foot up on the front of my desk and was tilting back in the chair as he spoke.
“I remember you telling me some funny story about when you were in college,” he said.
“Whatever it was, I was young and used poor judgement,” I said, hoping a blanket explanation would be sufficient.
“Aw, relax,” he said. “You were on the newspaper, right?”
“Editor. But don’t hold it against me. Like I said, I was young.”
“This is perfect,” he said. “I want you to oversee our podcasting operation.”
“I didn’t know we had one.”
“We don’t, until now. And you’re just the man for it. I need someone who can make these episodes sing. You’re going to do that. I want you to host the episodes, we start with one a week”
I wasn’t sure where he was going with this, but what the heck, it sounded interesting. Maybe a way for me to spread my wings, explore some long neglected areas of interest. I immediately started brainstorming ideas.
“This sounds like fun,” I said. “Maybe we can talk to some employees, see what they do on the side. Maybe there’s a rock musician, a magician, who knows what we may turn up. We can call it, The Other Me. T-O-M, Tom for short. I like it.”
Stevens nodded as I spoke, then said, “I want you to interview our executives and upper management in each department. From corporate to each and every business unit. Have them describe their exciting new initiatives. HR can talk about diversity efforts. The guys in manufacturing, what’s left of it at least, would be good on how best to purchase heavy machinery.”
I thought maybe I had blacked out momentarily after I described my vision for the show and awoke to find Stevens telling me his ideas. It was like I had never spoken, but the man had to have heard me. Heck, he was sitting two feet away from me.
“So, no Tom?” I asked.
“Who’s Tom? Is he that guy in aviation?”
“No, The Other Me,” I said. “You know talking to employees about what they do outside of work.”
“Why would we want to do that?” Stevens asked.
“It could be interesting,” I said.
“We’re not after interesting,” Stevens said.
“We’re not?”
“No. We’re after corporate podcasts. Everyone is doing it. If people want interesting, they can get that on their own time. I need them to know about our exciting initiatives first,” he said. “We’ll call it, The Pulse. That’s short for, “Finger on the Pulse,” which sounds too awkward. Okay, go get ‘em,” he said.
Stevens got up and left, gone just like that.
I sat at my desk staring at the doorway and wondering how long this little endeavor was going to last. Stevens usually seized on an idea, took action of some sort, then quickly lost interest. It was management by shiny object. I was lost in that thought and hoping for a quick end to the corporate podcast project when Wilson popped in.
“You busy?” he asked.
“Yes, I’m buying socks.”
“Huh?”
“Never mind,” I said, explaining my new project.
“That’s great,” he said, clapping. “I suggested podcasts to the Big Guy last Tuesday. Wow, he does move fast.”
“This was your idea?”
“Yup. I pitched it during “Talk to Me Tuesdays.” You know the lunch session Stevens does with different corporate functions.”
“Yes, “Talk to Me Tuesdays” was my idea,” I said.
“So, you have yourself to thank,” Wilson said. “Or blame.”
“I guess I do.”
I explained my vision for the episodes. Employees talking about their outside lives. Then I explained that wasn’t going to happen. What was going to happen was management talking about all the exciting and great things going on internally.
“I’m assuming you’ll listen,” I said.
Wilson shook his head and said, “I think I’m going to be too busy to find the time. Between work, voluntary dental surgery and my outside interests.”
“Thank you for your support,” I said.
“Of course. Maybe you can start with the folks in Culture, Wellness and Workplace Life,” he said. “They always seem to have exciting new initiatives they’re announcing. Remember the time they replaced the chairs with exercise balls?”
“Yes. Lasted two days. Abruptly ended when the old gal in accounting fell off it and cracked her skull on her desk.”
Wilson shook his head. “Poor woman was never the same. I could get anything past her on my expense reports after that. I thought about buying a boat and seeing if she’d catch it.”
“You do have a boat,” I said.
Wilson winked as he got up. “Gotta go.”
“Before you do,” I said. “You mentioned you worked in radio right after college.”
“Playing all the hits, all the time,” he said.
“Good. You’re my audio man for the podcasts,” I said.
“Whoa…wait…”
“See you tomorrow at ten when I interview the brains behind the bouncy exercise ball fiasco.”