M O N D A Y ,   M A Y   1 7 t h ,   2 0 1 0

All work suspended so the advertisement team could spend the morning designing their hats. Gill Gazpacho won Best in Show for his calfskin sombrero. (I thought it looked ridiculous.)

After lunch it was back to work, and Duck outlined the next six months of objectives for the team. I noticed the word “hat” coming up a lot. Like in all the objectives, for instance. And a couple of times, it looked like he got distracted and just wrote “hat”.

“Question in the back?” said Duck, pointing to my outstretched arm.

“Yeah,” I said. “What the hell is wrong with you people?” Twenty-odd faces turned to me. “You could be creating anything you want! You could be coming up with new advertisement campaigns and media and slogans and–and–and all you do is sit around making hats!!”

A hushed silence. I started to think I might have gotten through to some of them. Gill Gazpacho, especially, looked at me with a newfound sense of wonder.

“You know, guys,” said Gill, “the new guy would make a great hat if we hollowed him out.”

Nods of agreement. Then, as one, they leapt up and advanced on me.

I woke up in a janitorial closet. I guess this is some hazing ritual on the new guy. I want to believe that, anyway. But now I’m starting to wonder if Gill’s sombrero was calfskin after all.