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in character
Tuesday, December 14 1999
I was just trying to watch the Jim Lehrer News Hour tonight and, since it happened to be the 200th anniversary of the death of George Washington, Lehrer had a live satellite feed going to Mount Vernon, Virginia, the former residence of our nation's first president. To shine some light on the life and times of the father of our country, Lehrer was interviewing one of the costumed actors who works at the place. The actor was in character, that is, pretending to be a historical figure, and Lehrer was playing along without a hint of bemusement. There's very little I hate more than legitimate journalists seriously interviewing actors as though they're genuine dead celebrities, so of course I changed the channel.
At work some of my colleagues have been decorating their cubicles with stark printouts of motivational slogans lettered in huge plain fonts. The slogans consist of numb aphorisms like "Business is War, Time is the Enemy." Their superficial hokeyness has been giving me the creeps. I can't imagine that I've actually reached the point in my life where I'm working with people who actually surround themselves with such trite garbage. Who are these people? Will I ever see the purpose of the crates in which they've packed their minds?
Of course, an alternative explanation is that these slogans aren't put up to motivate at all, but are simply to demonstrate allegiance to the company's core values. But that kind of fascism is just as disturbing.
In the face of these things, my slogan is "don't be in character, be a character."
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