Greetings from Corporate America...Having a great time, wish you were here....

So I survived my first Sales/Marketing meeting within the big ol’ corporate structure over the past two days. In the weeks leading up to this, my office has been a buzzin’ with activity as everyone scrambled to get his or her presentations up to par. Basically this meeting is a make or break for product managers as they let the sales force see what’s coming down the pipeline. The reactions they get to each product is the deciding factor as to whether that particular product will ever see the fluorescent light of day on some store’s shelf space.

This is pretty heavy stuff as far as corporate business goes but I was surprised how chill I actually felt going into the whole thing. Personally I only had to do one small presentation about a product I actually dig so I had that going for me. Plus, I don’t really get nervous in front of large groups of people – hell, I used to hop around on stage in a dress and hockey mask when I fronted a band – so the whole thing was a breeze for me. At the meeting itself it was also kind of cool to see just how far reaching my company is and how many wild and cool products we develop as other product managing teams did their own presentations. Interesting Fun Fact #2045: I also learned about this factory in China we use that is two and a half miles long.

Two and a half miles!

Whoa.

Anyway, the most interesting thing was the general vibe of people at the meeting. Maybe it’s because I haven’t really been processed through the corporate culture since I’ve sort of avoided the more regimented work force for the last decade or so but I noticed a weird thing about the way people act around their superiors. They seem to be afraid of them.

Since this was a big deal of a meeting all the head honchos of my company were there and I was pretty impressed. I tend to respect my superiors more than fear them. In this instance our CEO and the handful of other bigwigs that spoke genuinely impressed me with their intelligence, their insight and their general wit. It’s nice to run into upper management that actually seems to belong in upper management!

So I guess that’s why I couldn’t understand why people seemed wary or afraid of these folks. Sure they are our bosses and sure they have the power to hire and fire us but I think it’s more important to center on the fact that they actually seem to have knowledge that folks further down the corporate food chain could actually learn from and utilize to do our own jobs better.

Now I do realize I am pretty lucky. My job is actually pretty cool for a nine to five type thing. What’s more I realize that it’s pretty rare to run into CEOs and VPs and other corner-office-with-a-view types that actually seem to not only know what they’re talking about but are able to back up those words and theories with strong actions.

I mean, that’s pretty cool, huh?

Anyway, I just wanted to give an update on how I am surviving in the sea that is Corporate America and that the whole experience has not been nearly as dire as I feared it would be. In fact I am rather enjoying it.

Whoa again.