Archive for the ‘LinkedIn’ Tag

Event Planning with Eugeniuscorp®©™   Leave a comment

penEugeniuscorp®©™ was recently officially endorsed (for the 12th time!) on LinkedIn in the area of Event Planning. This was taken as remarkably good news in a year that otherwise has been off to a regrettable beginning. To say the administration of ECorp was surprised at the nod it received in this particular area would be an understatement, given that generally speaking we are unable to plan with any exactitude when we will get out of bed in the morning, let alone what we will do with ourselves once we are, as they say, up and at ‘em.

In fact, we note with some alarm our increasing inability even to attend events skillfully planned by others. The thought of actually planning an event is daunting, if not out and out terrifying.

Still, with a recession looming on the horizon and lean times ahead (as well as behind), we at Eugeniuscorp®©™ do not turn down any reasonable opportunity to skin an unsuspecting client for a few bucks. With that in mind, we have prepared the following screed to be included in the list of services we offer to the general public.

Planning an event? Why not let the capable staff at Eugeniuscorp®©™ help out?! Our team of friendly and professional event planners will ease your mind and ensure that things run seamlessly on your big day. From weddings to international anti-terrorism symposia, no event is too big or too small for the competent staff at Eugeniuscorp®©™.

Our pledge to you:

When you retain us to plan your event, we will show up on time for our first exploratory meeting. Well, say within twenty minutes or so, depending on traffic. And assuming that we remembered to enter our meeting into our iCalendar or our Day-Timer and it didn’t just get lost in the jumble of crumpled scraps of paper we keep on our kitchen table which is also our work area.

In the likelihood that we actually make it to the meeting, freshly showered and shampooed and with our teeth recently and vigorously brushed, we will have with us an impressive looking notebook and an equally impressive fountain pen containing the finest of inks to keep an official record of the details of our meeting.

Generally, depending on information gleaned in the early part of our meeting, things can go in one of two directions. If the client is a woman, and is reasonably attractive, and appears to be single, or if not out and out single, giving signs of being in a less than stellar relationship, then your Eugeniuscorp®©™ agent will be extremely engaged and attentive to each and every word you utter.

Should you not meet these requirements, you may notice your agent checking his phone for emails, looking at Facebook, responding to texts, hopefully (if not a little desperately) looking for matches on Tinder, playing Trivia Crack etc. etc. but you can hardly blame us for what you’re not bringing to the table.

In terms of payment, please be aware that Eugeniuscorp®©™ requires a hefty deposit to ensure the smooth runnings of your event. We’re not a charity. Cash payments slid in unmarked envelopes across dirty table tops in late night greasy spoon restaurants are our preferred method of payment, but other less conventional methods can be arranged at your convenience.

Once the nature of the event has been ascertained, we will ask pertinent questions that will soon increase your comfort level and make you relax in the certain knowledge that you are in the capable hands of a LinkedIn-endorsed event planner.

Things like the date. Sometimes people forget to mention the date. You’d be surprised how often that happens. You will note how our agent deftly first writes the date in his notebook with a very expensive fountain pen, utilizing only the finest Japanese ink, and then marvel at the “double-binding safeguard”®© your agent will employ as he enters the date into the calendar on his iPhone®©, with a full 24 hour alert to ensure that your event will enter his consciousness at least one full day before it is scheduled.

All of this at no extra cost to the consumer.

Our operators are standing by to consult with you on your event. Calls received before 8:00 PM are more likely to be remembered than those received after.

Remember our spiffy motto: Got an event? Get Eugeniuscorp®©™!

Thanks for reading!

Posted January 23, 2015 by Eugene Stickland in Uncategorized

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What the hell is LinkedIn and why the hell am I on it?   3 comments

 

A photo that has absolutely nothing to do with anything.

A photo that has absolutely nothing to do with anything.

I was minding my own business this morning exploring lofty intellectual trains of thought and fascinating artistic paths leading my imagination to the most verdant pastures, mitigating against the April snow and sub-zero temperatures of the bovine city, when the little alarm (well-named) on my computer rang, informing me that I had mail and I had better attend to it right away, this being the age of frantic impatience after all.

It was from the thing – I really don’t know what to call it so let’s go with thing – called LinkedIn which I seem to participate in although I have no clear idea of why I do or what it even is.

The thing was asking me to “recommend” an acquaintance of mine whom I have never actually met but who is a theatre director and producer, who was charitable enough to produce a play of mine in a non-bovine city far away from here about a decade ago. To recommend him for what, exactly, is still a mystery, to me, at least.

Well, OK. Fair enough. He directed and produced my play, he is obviously a visionary, a genius, probably, and a decent fellow to put meat on my table once upon a time. (Note to self: send him another play!) So I had no trouble recommending or endorsing  him, but of course you can’t just do that, you have to jump through the hoops of the thing and these hoops were not intended to accommodate the recommendation of a playwright for a director.

In fact, responding to the drop-down menuized categories with insane questions like “Did you answer to this person?” or conversely “Did this person answer to you?” made me realize just how far outside of the mainstream we are, my director friend and I, and so what the hell was I doing wasting my time going through this process anyway?

The simple answer to that is that I didn’t want to hurt his feelings by not recommending him. How terrible and bleak would that be if the thing sent him a message saying “Eugene Stickland has declined your recommendation request.”  I don’t want to cause him that kind of anguish.

So I muddled through, and now I’m sure when he sees my ringing recommendation, which I managed to convey in spite of the thing’s bland categories, not because of them, he will be filled with a rush of pure joy and contentment and may even ask me for another one of my plays.

“Good old Eugene,” he may well think to himself, “I really ought to do another one of his plays!”

Well, never mind that the categories and questions of the thing make it seem like we were stock boys at Wal-Mart together in our awkward teen years. Or intermediate clerks in an insurance company, glue-sticking riders into policies in a windowless office – which you can probably tell I actually did once in my life, until I developed a case of shingles and was advised by my doctor to get out of the insurance game, to get out of the basement, to put down the glue stick, which I did, and the rest as they say is history . . .

Well, whatever. I’m sure many of my readers, especially those in the arts, can relate to that feeling of outsiderness  as you search for some kind of connection from your own life to the categories and experiences that appear in these drop down menus. It’s probably not overstating the case to say that at such times, we realize we don’t really belong anywhere, there is no category for us, there is no experience the thing can drop down on us that even vaguely resembles our own experience on this planet.

Once more, out of step, out of rhythm, marching to the beat of your own damned drum.

But lest we forget, this is a good thing.

When you find they have a category for you, it’s probably time to change it up and move on.

Thanks for reading!

 

 

 

Posted April 21, 2013 by Eugene Stickland in Uncategorized

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