Relatively recently, Legal Eagle wrote an excellent piece on the horrors of management ordained ‘work retreats’ and ‘team-building’ activities. Like most lawyers, I’ve encountered a few of the things too - and the apparent enthusiasm with which work colleagues treated them always worried me. Dubious ‘trust exercises’ and loopy attempts at group psychological therapy… not to mention the whole self-help phenomenon, complete with gurus in shiny suits dodgier than Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh.
It turns out I’m not alone. Recovering lawyer Jeremy Boutsakis has turned his experience of same to good effect in an odd piece of theatre-cum-standup, Thought Leader: A Conference for Sole Traders. With powerpoint, of course. That’s very important. Actually, if he’s a real-life guru of anything, it’s pisstaky powerpoints revealing the hollowness of the medium when in unskilled hands.
Oh, and Jeremy Boutsakis isn’t his real name. His real name is Mark Swivel. No, I’m not kidding. There’s something amusing about having a stage name more believable than one’s real name, and when he reveals the subterfuge at the end of his set, the effect is almost off-putting: ‘yes, my name really is Swivel. Spelt like the office chair’.
Like all the best humour, his hour-long journey into the world of management-speak and pointless executive toys works because it hovers between slapstick and cringe, occupying an excruciating middle ground that is very funny but also - at times - makes you want to bolt. Far away. Or alternatively find the people running university MBA courses and then disable them with a cricket bat.
For me, the best moment in Boutsakis’ routine came when he advised his putative conference attendees (the audience, complete with naff conference pack ™ and cheesy corporate t-shirts) to ’stop blogging and do something!’ (this got a powerpoint slide to itself, too). I learned after the show that he wrote that bit with popular ex-LP blogger Naomi Parry in mind, and it did serve to highlight a joke that worked well on a couple of different levels.
Technically, Boutsakis showed great comic timing and an ability to adapt to the unexpected. I’ve been attending various Edinburgh Festival events with Catallaxy commenter Deus Ex Macintosh, who is disabled and has an assistance dog. When she volunteered her (admittedly superbly trained and handsome) black labrador for one of Boutsakis’ ‘exercises’, he made the obligatory joke about ‘never working with children or animals’ and then proceeded to do so with great skill.
Devotees of The Office and David Brent’s earnest belief in his own rightness will thoroughly enjoy this show (in fact, I suspect Brent would hire Jeremy in real life ™ in order to improve ‘productivity’ around the place). Libertarians will also appreciate his politics, particularly the beautiful bit of ASIC/ACCC satire, which alas I can’t reproduce, as it involved a powerpoint slide.
Thought Leader: A Conference for Sole Traders, Edinburgh Fringe Festival, daily at 1.40pm at the Edinburgh Pleasance Dome, 1-27 August.
Disclosure: The reviewer received no benefit for this review
12 Comments
You reckon lawyers ones are bad, try a bankers retreat where they discuss things like the “client experience” like its some sort of sexual thing.
I always hated the t’shirts and games. That was truly disgusting.
We did have great venues though one being on lake Cuomo’s villa D’este. Pretty spot.
Again I blame governments.
In order to get a marginal $10k work out of someone in Australia I need find an additional $9.7k to pay the government their slice via the PAYE income tax system.
Obviously some companies think its cheaper to take staff to the gold coast and get them to scribble like school children on butchers paper.
I love that there can be things like Powerpoint comedies.
It’s something that had to happen - just like the development of the piano, originally an experiment by a series of eccentric European inventors - eventually led to the piano concerto.
What next? Microsoft Office: The Musical?
See also Norvig’s take on the Gettysburg Address.
Even better are the google ads this post is throwing up - very specific corporate targeting of the type JC refers to. There’s obviously quite a few people out there who think this is a good way to shift their tax liability, as Rod says.
I’m seeing an ad at the front page for ‘Free Richard Marx ringtones’
WTF? Are members of the Tonedeaf society reading this blog?
The funniest one we had was the one I organized for the sales and trading staff one year.
I talked the global head to allow us to go down to Florida at the height of summer. They were reluctant to do that, as they wanted it to be closer to the office. The Florida deal meant we had to close down trading and the London office would take care of things during NY day with the help of the assistants. The juniors were really pissed we were leaving them behind, so I felt sorry for them and arranged they would fly out on the Friday afternoon as we left Thursday.
I had all talk prepared and off we went to the Boca Raton beach club. We get there in the afternoon and it turns into a drinking orgy of grand proportions that night. The following morning I get up go to the banquet room and absolutely no one is there. So I start to panic call people, they’re not in their rooms or still sound drunk and refuse to get up.
So I go to have breakfast and there’s bunch of guys talking about the days planned activities. Nothing related to the meeting. So I couldn’t be angrier and I start cursing them, threatening them that if they didn’t turn up to the meeting room I would put it in their performance review.
Then one guy turned to me and said with a straight face. Hey J, just have it here, talk to us while we’re finishing up breakfast as we’ve arranged several jet skis and we need to get going. 15-20 people began to laugh their heads off and it was over.
The rest of the long weekend was spent bar hopping, sailing, lying on the beach staring at great bodies.
It was the best conference I have ever had.
We all lied when we got back saying how fruitful the conference was.
It couldn’t have been better. Too funny for words.
So how’s Edinburgh SL (my Catallaxy’s very Scots today)??
A paragraph from Gene Callahan’s refutation of the case against fractional reserve banking.
Seems apt considering some of the stoushes:
Whoops that belongs on the open thread sorry.
Fabulous of course, although very crowded with the Festival. DEM lives right beside the Castle, so I’m getting the Tattoo in stereo every night and twice on Saturdays. By the time we go, we’ll know most of it off by heart!
Now Jason’s pointed out the Scottish Progressives I’ll be wandering down to their offices to have a look at some point this week.
I’m pretty sure there’s a couple on the local council, and I suspect they’ll form a coalition with the SNP - a lot of their policies can’t be implemented without independence from England. The Brits really don’t grasp the concept of federalism, let alone competitive federalism.
I reckon once the Scots get liberated from their malaise (a la it’s shte being Scottish) they’ll probably go their own way. They could do very well considering their not inconsiderable resources.
Sorry about the bagpipes. They’re supposed to be for winding up the enemy y’know.