Friday, October 31

At my company Halloween is a BIG deal every year and even better that it falls on a Friday this year. In the morning there’s a costume contest (individual and group categories) and costume parade, at lunch most departments host a potluck and in the afternoon the company hosts trick or treating for the children and grandchildren of employees. I used to be in the Marketing department and we usually came up with a group costume – often travel destination related. Now I’m not in Marketing and I’m in a department that is very busy in the fall. So busy in fact that one third to one half of the team is on the road during October and we have a “skeleton” crew (Ba dum bum, kssshh) left to brainstorm and create our costume. This year I think our idea is rather clever and that’s mostly because we have someone in our department, Beth, who is obsessed by Halloween. I suspect she feels like she’s dragging the rest of us along, kicking and screaming.

The costume contest is very competitive – here’s an illustrative example. Two years ago Marketing decided to dress up as the members of “Guns N Roses” and their management team and roadies. It wasn’t good enough for them just to dress up – they created Ticketmaster tickets and gave a concert (lip synched) with instruments etc on the loading dock. They even convinced our COO to be their “manager” -- so he was dressed in a blazer and sunglasses with his backstage pass around his neck and a fake barbed wire tattoo on his neck. I realize you don’t know him but, trust me, he’s the LAST person you would expect to get into the spirit. OK, maybe the second to last person at GVI…Marketing had won the group costume contest for several years in a row so Product Development finally decided to give them a run for their money. The folks in Product Development decided to dress up as the characters from the Michael Jackson video “Thriller.” So we had a whole bunch of zombies with torn clothes, wild hair, zombie make up AND Michael Jackson. They somehow convinced the manager of their department to dress as Michael Jackson – face mask, red leather jacket, etc. AND they taught him the dance moves and recreated the music video. It was UNBELIEVABLE and they finally beat Marketing. Paul really was the LAST person you would expect to show up in costume demonstrating Michael Jackson’s dance moves. (I'm still sort of stunned when I think about it now.)

My department is having a potluck on Friday and I’m making some cute Halloween cupcakes (of course!). If they look as cute as I imagine they will, I will post some photos.