TOM: So, that’s the proposed marketing plan for next year. I want to give everyone a chance to chime in with feedback before we move on to next steps. Amy, do you want to kick things off?
AMY: Sure, Tom. First of all, thanks for sharing this with us. I know how much work has gone into this deck, and I found it incredibly helpful.
ERIC: Very helpful.
MARIA: Such a great deck.
AMY: The diagram toward the end really crystallized the breadth of our strategic opportunities.
MARIA: For me, too.
ERIC: Agreed.
TOM: Excellent. That’s great to hear, everyone. I’ve made terrible career decisions.
AMY: What?
TOM: What?
AMY: What did you just say?
TOM: Um, just that’s it’s great to hear that you guys like the marketing plan.
AMY: It sounded like you said something else, too.
TOM: Nope.
AMY: Okay. Well, in terms of feedback, my main concern would be making sure that all of our objectives are actionable from a budgetary standpoint. I really dread seeing each of you every day.
MARIA: It’s funny, Amy, I was going to say the same thing, and also add that we want to avoid a situation where we’re allocating valuable resources to the wrong brand pillars. I can’t feel my face when I say things like that.
TOM: Really good points, you guys. I’m going to add those to the deck.
ERIC: But isn’t it also about aligning with our product team to better define our brand pillars first? I’ve snorted OxyContin twice during this meeting.
AMY: We should absolutely set up a meeting with the product team to loop them into this. Great idea.
ERIC: I’m so high right now.
TOM: Agreed, the brand pillars have been a bit of a moving target. We can’t expect consumers to know who we are if we don’t even know. I urinate in my fern a lot.
MARIA: I licked the bagels before I brought them in.
AMY: Let’s not forget the important role that the competitive landscape plays in that discussion. If we aren’t careful, the marketplace will define us instead of the other way around. My pantsuit’s on backwards.
MARIA: And the cream-cheese knife.
ERIC: I haven’t understood a single thing that anyone’s said to me in more than three years.
TOM: Have you guys ever heard me crying in the bathroom?
ERIC: I have.
MARIA: Yep.
AMY: It’s really loud.
TOM: I wasn’t sure how thick the walls are.
AMY: I don’t know what our company does.
MARIA: We make software.
ERIC: I knew it!
MARIA: When I was a little girl, I used to ride horses.
AMY: That sounds nice. I haven’t menstruated since I started working here.
ERIC: Sometimes I think I’m smiling, but I’m actually frowning.
MARIA: You’re smiling now.
ERIC: Am I?
MARIA: Not really, actually.
TOM: I have nightmares where I live here. Like, right here, in this conference room. My bed’s right over there.
ERIC: In my nightmares, it’s late, I’m at my desk, and the cleaning lady is coming through with her vacuum, but when I get a look at her face I see that she’s actually me.
TOM: Cool.
ERIC: Then she stabs me with her mop.
MARIA: Can you stab someone with a mop?
ERIC: Sure can.
AMY: I keep having this dream where I’m giving birth to our C.E.O. Fully grown, suit, beard, the whole shebang. Then he tries to get up, but his legs buckle like a gooey newborn foal’s.
TOM: Cool.
AMY: So gooey …
MARIA: It takes me two hours to get here every day. And two hours to get home. HAHAHAHA!! That’s four hours a day!! HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!
ERIC: I flipped over the vending machine last week. Now the Three Musketeers don’t get stuck anymore.
TOM: I spend quite a bit of time in the supply closet making sticky-note people. There are hundreds of them now. Soon they will rise and take back what is rightfully theirs.
ERIC: That’s so weird. I masturbate in the supply closet.
TOM: I know.
MARIA: I’m riding a horse right now. WHOA, BOY!
TOM: Are you guys hot? I’m SO HOT right now.
MARIA: So hot.
ERIC: Crazy hot.
TOM: I’m going to take my clothes off.
MARIA: We all should.
TOM: I’m going to put a bagel under each armpit to see if it feels funny.
AMY: I bet it will.
TOM: Wow, yeah, it does. Hey Eric, you know what? I don’t like the way you’re looking at me.
ERIC: Me?
TOM: You see another Eric in here?
ERIC: I thought this day would never come!
Tom and Eric, both naked, hop onto the table. They begin hurling laptops and lunging at one another.
AMY/MARIA: FIGHT! FIGHT! FIGHT!
Amy and Maria wrap their clothes into makeshift torches and light them on fire, waving them in the air. Eric smashes one end of his coffee mug and swipes the jagged remains at Tom, cutting his arm. Tom slips and falls.
AMY: FINISH HIM!!!
The sprinklers go off.
MARIA: Wait! STOP!!!
ERIC: What is it?
MARIA: Do you feel that? The rains of Albaron are upon us, just as it was written!! AS IT WAS DESTINED!! Quickly, everyone on my horse! There isn’t much time!
TOM: Where are we going?
MARIA: To the castle! HEE-YA!!!
ALL: TO THE CASTLE!!!
MARIA: To kill the queen!!!
ALL: KILL HER!!!!!!
TOM: How far will our journey take us?
MARIA: A fortnight perhaps, but I must warn you, we will pass through the forest of Ranouk. Many have died there.
AMY: Surely there’s another way.
MARIA: I am leery of speaking of it, but there is one. We may summon Zorne, the Dark Prince of the North, but black magic comes with a price. A costly one.
ERIC: These both sound like terrible options!!
MARIA: GET DOWN!!! It’s too late! I hear the footsteps of the Queen’s Guard approaching!
AMY: Quickly, build cover!!!
TOM: That’s it!! Keep building!! There’s still hope for us!!!
ERIC: IT’S TOO LATE FOR ME!!!!!
Eric leaps through the closed window, shattering the glass.
AMY: ERIC!! Noooooooooooooo!!!!
The conference-room door opens, and a woman leans in.
WOMAN: Hey, sorry, but this room is booked at 3. Are you guys just about … finished?
Pause.
WOMAN: Why are the sprinklers going off?
Pause.
WOMAN: What happened to the table? And the chairs? And your clothes?
Pause.
WOMAN: And the window? Are those drugs? Why are you bleeding?
Pause.
WOMAN: Did someone urinate in here?
TOM: Do you mean the 3 P.M. sales-force meeting?
WOMAN: Um. Yeah.
MARIA: I’m actually in that one.
AMY: Me, too.
TOM: Should be good. I heard the Q4 projections are finally in.
AMY: About time, right?
MARIA: That’ll really help inform a lot of the things that we talked about in here.
AMY: Absolutely.
MARIA: Good meeting, everyone.
TOM: Really good meeting.
Photograph by Johnny Greig/Getty.
