Fred and I do most of our writing and blogging in a quiet, removed part of our corporate offices affectionately named ‘The Loft’.
Imagine a 1200 square foot singular creative space with admittedly too much Lovesac and not quite enough pendant lighting. The overlapping throw rugs and light jazz gently oozes a calm vibe from below and above. An old sleepy cat or two absorbs sun rays from the south wall windows, shades cracked open for their pleasure.
Here at The Loft, we spend countless hours toiling and wrestling over topics, assignment, research, content, and word selection in order to efficiently deliver our combined (drum roll please)…100 years of businessery wisdom to you – our invisible partner, the reader.
A hundred years is quite an accomplishment. One hundred years this month. Doing the math, 48 for me, I promised not to reveal the remaining balance belonging to the other Fred. It is hard to believe persistence, luck, hard work, and a few disappointments along the way can all add up to an even hundred. Yup – this month one hundred, right on the nose.
But hold the confetti and cake for now. Brushing aside the celebration, a more timely subject weighs on my somewhat heavy heart.
Why so glum?
Our first retracted story. Ever. It occurred a few weeks ago. While we knew it would eventually happen it was still a surprise.
Removed with haste. Buried in an unmarked grave for a story which died before it ever really lived. The saying is true – the good do die young. A blank headstone standing sentinel behind a fresh lump in the grass. A soldier readied for battle never being able to lift his rifle and true his aim against the enemy.
The original post was titled “Getting the monkey off your back” and it was one of our best posts ever. Maybe THE best. (quite a claim – huh?) Feedback was overwhelmingly positive and it demonstrated how an architected yet positional hierarchy of intentional habit feedback loop structures can offset the measured cognitive averseness we all see in our models of subordinate corporate morale deterioration over time. A mix of well-crafted prose and purpose. Equal parts graceful words detailing how we all became deeply mired in the desperation and a prescriptive path foreword mapping our safe wriggle out of the quicksand. Or so we thought.
If you still want to find it, Reddit and the WayBackMachine have copies. Legally, we can not provide the links.
Despite the brilliant topic, the article got into the wrong hands and was posted in the underground periodical Fetish Zoology Monthly. By the way, that is not the real name – as we don’t want to again rekindle a fire which was difficult to extinguish. Believe me, the phrase “getting the monkey off your back” has now taken a whole new meaning after that cat got out of the bag. Um…well…you know what I mean.
As we now look at the initial content we admit the spirit of the article could reflect quite a different meaning under the glow of a much darker light source. Myself, Fred, and the editorial staff never recognized how the language dripped with disturbing and perverse undertones and like jazz, the music of the piece reflected a darkness existing in the shadows between the upbeat melodic notes. I suppose blindness to the dark is the price of eternal optimism.
Years ago, a similar and difficult lesson was learned by our sister Fredrika whose habit of watching late night television tugged at her heart strings one night after watching an ASPCA commercial.
You know the ones with the filthy, emaciated and feces-ridden one legged kitten who can’t quite corner a lone kibble from the cage bottom and bring it to his mouth while Sarah McLachlan gently croons in the background. The cameraman, rather than help pick up the nugget of nourishment, toggled the camera into slow-motion frame capture to maximize the moment’s impact. Captivating. I longed for that cat to seize its morsel but at the same time, flip off the slow-motion and I’ll probably lose interest altogether. I don’t know about you but that gets the water-works going every time.
Anyway, Fredrika subscribed and sponsored one of those kittens who subsequently ended up scratching the Emperor-of-Kenya’s daughter. This caused her face to droop during the annual Kenyan Christmas photo lending credence to yet another Q-anon prophesy (You know the one.) Yadda. Yadda. Yadda. Now sister Fredrika has to pay for the royal daughter’s face lift, anti-scar cream, glass eye, and a lifetime supply of Windex.
At ICBM, we learned the same painful lesson a few weeks ago.
The lesson is simply this: ideas, people, and products are all born, but need to be nurtured by their maker. None should ever be raised by the proverbial village. Ideas, people, and products are NOT inherently good or bad. Instead, they are clay to be molded in the hands of an artist – usually the first artist who holds them and brings them in from the cold. Aka, the first villager. And, unfortunately, only one type of villager is searching, seeking, lurking, and trolling for wayward ideas and people. The evil ones.
That was our mistake. Allowing a good idea to wander into the village and turn bad. Setting that idea adrift in a turbulent sea while turning our backs and hoping for safe passage to a friendly shore was our great failure. We should have ferried that burgeoning delicate soul of an article safely to its destination. But alas, we didn’t. Against our better judgement, our hope, our wishes, our pleas with the dark web extortionists, “Getting the monkey off your back” was lured deep into the darkness. Like an unsuspecting young actress into Harvey Weinstein’s office.
For that mistake, we must pay the price.
Fines? yes A public apology? Certainly (why else would I write a post like this?)
So – as prescribed by the courts, here is is your public service announcement:
Getting a monkey off your back is a metaphor. Look it up. Seriously. It doesn’t mean the monkey wants to be removed from your back and placed on its back for your pleasure. That is seriously sick. Monkeys don’t like to be pinned down either. Nor do they like being shaved. The cost of enough shaving cream alone should have given you a clue and a prohibitive warning-track to this monkey-business. High heels are a big no-no. Also, lipstick will make them go literally crazy. That goes double for romantic gondola rides. Heed these warnings because if you don’t, you’ll be sorry. Get these thoughts out of your head. If you have these thoughts, any of them, seek immediate help. It turns out monkeys can see these thoughts inside of you and will quite literally gnaw at them, in an unfettered attempt to bite them free from your head.
Oh, and one other thing. By court order, we are also required to pay for facial reconstructive surgery for those readers who failed to secure the soft rubber caps meant for the most pointed of monkey teeth. Claim submission forms can be found on our website’s main page.
It is wise man who leans quickly from his own mistakes, but it is the wisest among us who are able to learn from the mistakes of others. Tasting the delicious carrot without feeling the sting of the stick.
To be certain, the hardest lessons are often the most expensive. The PSA, the apology, the facial surgeries were a very costly lesson.
We aren’t allowed to disclose the amount – but it would have purchased a lot of confetti and cake.