Awayday - Friday afternoon

on Jun 24 in Advertising, Frivolity, Writing tagged by Peter Blackman

The first in a series. A record of the most memorable corporate awayday I ever went on. Names have been changed, but conversations and events are all one hundred percent genuine.

The hotel room in which I am lying on the bed is large and by any standards, luxurious. I have put the television on and noted with pleasure, the presence of Sky Sports. I am hopeful that the laundry service will be similarly impressive - this is important as I have brought a bin liner full of dirty clothes which I intend to get washed, dried and pressed on the agency bill. The mini bar is not locked – the hotel have mistaken me for a responsible professional again – and I am on my second gin and tonic. All of these things make my happy, yet I remain pinned to the bed by an overwhelming weariness, for I am not here by choice. I am here for a corporate awayday.

It is more than simply a day. It is two days, and two nights. It is an away weekend. In this yawning chasm of time, which should be our own, we will be exploring the brand strategy of a major automotive client of the advertising agency where I work. More than thirty ‘key stakeholders’ are now arriving from around the country. The quiet of the hotels riverside setting is routinely interrupted by a crunch from the gravel drive. Though the size and shape of each car may be different, they all bear the badge of the company which the drivers work for. The car park looks like a mechanical family reunion, where everyone is different, yet related.

We are gathered for pre dinner drinks. It is a hot summers night, and we are on the terrace overlooking the Thames. Temporary grandstands are still in place by the river, waiting to be removed now that the annual rowing regatta has finished for another year. The tiers of empty seats are a reminder of the crowds who would have been cheering on the public school eights only a few days before. The imagined memory of their carefree exuberance and confidence feels very different to our anxious corporate conversation. I accept the offer of a drink from Graham, a senior customer relationship manager. Nodding greetings to others as we go, Graham and I find a quiet table on the edge of the group. Graham appears pensive and nervous. His thick dark hair has furrowed nervously downward on his forehead. His eyes furtively glance from me to his work colleagues.

“Looking forward to the weekend?” I attempt a delicate balance in my tone. I am going for positive with a hint of knowing subversion.

“No.” replies Graham, before taking another long drink from his pint of strong lager. There is a pause, as I wonder if I can ask why, and Graham decides whether or not to share the reasons for an attitude which in the corporate world, would at the very least be described as ‘unhelpful’. Graham sighs and sits back.

“You know that this weekend is all about discovering more about our brand? About uncovering and unlocking potentially hidden truths about it?”

“Yes” I am aware that Graham is reciting, word for word, the introduction in the briefing notes we were all sent two weeks before. He has it commited to memory. I think that this cannot be a good thing.

“and that it says that through a programme of creative and intellectual exercises, we will learn more about our brand, our business, and ourselves?”

“Yes”

“that we will get to know it, our business, better. And that along the way we will get to know ourselves better as well?”

“It’s an ambitious claim I grant you.” I have now cast aside any pretence of positivity. Graham is moving toward a cynical denunciation of modern business practise. Or so I think.

“It’s bollocks - that’s what it is. I mean, everyone knows what we do. We sell cars. Then we sell leather. Air conditioning. Sports exhausts. Servicing. What is there to uncover? Will we learn that they can fly? Go underwater? Make the tea? No. Fucking bollocks.” Graham is angry. He finishes his pint. I lean forward to pick up the two glasses on the table between us, and am about to offer him another, when he too leans forward and suddenly grips my forearm. His fingers are long and powerful. I notice for the first time that he has large hands. dockers hands I think, though I have no idea if he or any of this family have worked in a shipyard. I can see the bones move within his arm, muscles tanned from long journeys draped out of a car window, exposed to the sun by the short sleeved, logo embroidered shirt he is compelled to wear.

“The truth is Pete – I don’t want to know anymore about me. I don’t want to know myself better. I don’t like myself much.”

I do not know what to say. I am employed, in the main, for a capacity to be quick witted and to always have something to say. Now I do not. I was expecting professional cynicism and instead I got sudden psychological insight. Graham has not relaxed his grip. He is awaiting a response. His dark, thick eyebrows are heavy over his brown eyes. His hair, slick with gel, is glistening in the evening sun.

“Why ever not mate?” the mate is my attempt to escape. It says cheer up, snap out of it, lets paddle back to the shallows. Talk about football, or cars, or sex we haven’t had. I have to ask the why, but I can add in the mate to show how much I didn’t want to.

“I’ve come a long way. Glasgow. From the bottom, and now I’m near the top. It’s taken twenty years. A lot of hard work. I’ve made some friends but also, well. Some of the things I’ve done. I don’t know. I just don’t want to have to look back there. Not interested.” Graham lets go of my arm. I am pleased at his inability to talk about what he might have done. Who he might have hurt. I am not really interested in where he has come from, unless it is in the banal context of satellite navigation.

“Another?” I stand up with an empty glass in both hands.

“Yes. Why not?” replies Graham. All sorts of reasons I think to myself before heading back to the bar.

Andy, the agency strategy director walks into the bar as I am buying the drinks. I buy him one as well. He is short and crumpled in linen shirt and shorts, his greying shoulder length hair kept out of his eyes by a pair of large sunglasses pushed up onto his head. It is a male Alice band. An Andy band I think, but again, as on the terrace with Graham, I do not say. This is another aspect of my job - never saying what you are thinking. I tell Andy about my exchange with Graham. As agency colleagues we will take any opportunity to denigrate and moan about anyone from the client team, even if they have, like Graham, shared a personal confidence. Andy takes a sip from his drink, his long finger nails, fashioned to help him play his collection of guitars, tapping against the side of the cold glass.

“He doesn’t like himself because he’s fucking Natasha.” Andy’s rich Liverpudlian accent is for once flat and matter of fact.

“Who?”

“The PR girl. Over there – with Ben and Larry. Ben told me when we went out in Soho. Graham’s got a wife and kids and he’s knobbing Natasha. So don’t give me any crap about tough upbringings. He’s just terrified that it will come out. Everyone knows of course. But he doesn’t know that. Thanks for the drink. This is going to be shit isn’t it? A whole fucking weekend. Jesus.” Andy wanders away, and I follow him out through the doors to the terrace. A large motorboat chugs past. When I bring the drinks back to Graham he is able to tell me what make and model it is, and something else about the engine size which I forget even as he says it. We are called into dinner.