Tuesday, June 24, 2008

A business story

Today I am editing a 26-page fictional business fable that I wrote a year ago into a 7-10 page business fable. Here is an excerpt:

"Mary, even if you do reach someone and make the corrections to the lead article, Danita hasn't been able to figure out what's wrong with the template."

There was a piece of Mary that wanted to disagree, send the team home to their families, and plough ahead until the issue was completed--so what if she didn't know HTML? By sheer force of will, she would figure it out.

She hadn't missed a deadline since her early days as a junior marketer. They'd distributed this electronic publication on the first Friday of every month for the last three years. It's been a point of pride for Mary--and it's what Chris, the CMO, expects. But now...Miguel was right.

"Go home," Mary said, and her staff reluctantly packed up. Danita looked back at her as she crossed the threshold out of the conference room.

"You missed Debbie's play tonight, didn't you?" she said.

8 comments:

Alicia P. said...

this is exciting and relevant to my life.

Anonymous said...

Bwaaaa hahahahahahaha! That's the noise I just made.

Kathryn said...

oh miguel, danita and mary. the united colors of benetton are coming alive in your creative business fiction! way to be tuitive!

Kathryn said...

p.s. just so everyone is clear: sarah was told what to write. she does not write caricatures of racist stereotypes on her own dime. please no barack obama controversies.

flabby-abby1973 said...

when do we get to the SEX!?

potato said...

Wow, this story is tragic. I just hope the Kinko's people don't use the wrong paper stock for the marketing materials again tomorrow morning and Mary doesn't have a breakdown and sob quietly about her ruined life while calling around to get quotes from other printers (who never answer their phone).

Jefe said...

oh, that mary. she's single-handedly creating positive ROI through relationship-building e-newsletters AND fighting segregation! what DOESN'T she do?!

Megan said...

sarah that story is gross. it made my stomach turn more than the smoking fish.