Hurray.

Any time I see pom-poms, I get pretty excited. It could be a lingering stigma from a crush I had on a cheerleader when I was in high school. Maybe it’s the enticing motion they create when waved enthusiastically in the air, or possibly the sensory stimulation of the SHH SHH SHH sound they make if shaken violently in a berserk frenzy of zealotry. A mere glimpse of them never fails to elicit a “Hey. Pom-poms!”

But let me tell you, never before have I been so aroused by pom-poms as on the day we had all been waiting for: the announcement of our new company logo. I will never forget that magic day as long as I live. I can only wish that I would have been fortunate enough to have been in attendance at or corporate headquarters that day. Since I dwell at one of our remote Denver area locations, I watched longingly from the solitude of my cube. How lucky the folks at headquarters were to be a part of it, to be in a room full of equally exuberant people drooling at the first official glimpse of the new moniker.

Right there on my computer monitor, it was almost as if I was there. Before my eager eyes, a split screen video emerged. Music that had no doubt been deemed “edgy” by the corporate crowd fueled my anticipation. There were dozens, maybe hundreds of people in each screen absolutely rabid for what we were about to see. Apparently, they had no concern that the unveiling would ultimately mean a sudden and untimely end to their livelihoods. Maybe they were just so pumped up that it didn’t matter. Nothing could cloud their unbridled jubilation, and the breeze created by their pom-poms proved it. Red ones and yellow ones flailed about with all the vigor of a pep rally for the Indiana state high school basketball championship.

The split screen combined into one and we see our excited host thrusting her microphone into the faces of eager audience members. This was her Oprah moment. She had always had aspirations of dabbling in TV news or talk shows, but somehow she just never got the right internship or something.

But if you’re pretending to be a reporter/talkshow host, what do you ask a prisoner in a captive audience? She points the microphone into this poor guy’s face: “And who are you?” Always a great way to begin a conversation. He answers with what I assume was his real name. “What’s your prediction?”, our host asked. What the hell kind of question is that? Prediction? Prediction for what? Do we assume she means a prediction for the new logo? Or could it be just some general prediction for small talk? His answer: “I think the Redskins are gonna beat the Chiefs!” Boy, did that get the audience riled up! It even elicited tandem thumbs-up responses from both CEOs! Nothing says “everything is going great” better than two new pals joined together by financial fate slapping each other on the back, smiling with dollar signs in their eyes, and shoving a big ruddy thumbs-up in our faces.

“Back to you in Kansas!!” our hostess bellowed. The feed jumped to an image of a vice president of something who quite obviously had other things he’d rather be doing than pretending unsuccessfully to be David Letterman. “We’re live with a rautious crowd…..”. Rautious? Did he say rautious? Either he meant obnoxious and started to say raucous, or he had a cue card that said riotous and he couldn’t read – another corporate success story of a boy who never read much, nor could he write, but somehow he stumbled into a six figure salary. His first interviewee was up. “And what do you do for the company?” he asked. “Whatever it takes to get it DONE!!” the interviewee proclaimed as if the rest of his career depended on how he answered that question. And he honest to god was completely serious about it. I swear he wasn’t being a smartass or anything. Who were these people in the audience?! What a bucket of crap! I hope he was fired.

So the pom pom shakers just went nuts with that one because they felt the spirit…..the go gettum spirit that makes this country great and the spirit that shall rocket this newly melded company into tomorrow. Hang on a sec – I gotta go vomit.

Ok, so anyway the camera slowly zooms in on the VP of Marketing. As he gives his bit about how we are better than the competition and that’s why we’re going to be #3, two disinterested, button-down, pocket protector types can be seen standing on the far left edge of the screen. If you looked closely, you could see the panic in their eyes as they realized they were on camera but had stopped jiggling their poms. As if simultaneously prodded -or threatened- they both became tremendously animated and jostled their poofy poms with so much corporate spirit and glee that I thought they might have wet their collective pants.

A full ten minutes into the video joy fest, the time had come to see what could have been simply sent to us all in an email message. A video screen appeared on the stage, and a graphic-rich, swirly vision began to take shape. And there it was. A very brief awkward silence, then applause and hooting, whistling and fist pumping. Oh wait – someone missed the cue. A few seconds late, banners and balloons fell from the sky like angels with the apocalypse. And yes, pom-poms. Lots and lots of pom-poms. My god, you couldn’t possibly shake pom-poms any harder than these people were. I was stricken with the morbid fascination that occurs when watching scenes of terrorism or an evangelical revival. Again, the two CEOs became Jerry Lewis and Dean Martin; Bing Crosby and Bob Hope; Beavis and Butthead – slapping each other on the back like two fraternity bothers about to score with the twin blondes from the dorms.

I can’t even fathom what this display must have cost our fine company. Probably at the very least, two employees’ salaries. Sorry – some of you may be confused by the term “employees”. It means the same as “headcount”.

All I needed was to see the logo so I’d know the name on my paycheck. I didn’t need a party. But the pom-poms were nice.