Some things you just can't make up.
Friday, December 11, 2009 at 12:38PM Perhaps the funniest professional experience I ever had came during my stint in Internal Communications at Enron.
One day, we received a letter. Actually, our CEO received a letter (no; not that one--the one before and then again after him). Fan mail. Borderline stalker mail, in fact. A gentleman in the Pacific Northwest (I believe) had taken the name Enron and made an acronym out of it. More than this, he had written a song to explain the acronym. I can't remember his entire letter, but I think it's important to share that it was written on lined, puffy-cloud stationery.
The acronym: Establishing Neighbors, Right on Need.
I swear to God.
The song? For the tune, you'll have to imagine an insurance jingle from 1978. The musical accompaniment is a gently-strummed guitar. As for the lyrics, well, they went a little something like this:
En-ron
E-en-ro-oh-on.
Establishing neighbors;
Right on need.*
The "Right on need" part is accented by somewhat livelier strumming. You know what I mean.
After Enron, I worked at Dynegy. Nobody ever sent us letters like that, but if I had to come up with an acronym for the company, I think it would be: Don't yearn negligently Enron's goods. Yikes.
* Many thanks to Rebecca and Samantha for reminding me of this ditty.
Reader Comments (3)
ROFLMAO... especially the "Yikes." How apt. Oh those were the days, weren't they? The funniest thing that happened by Dynegy was when you dropped that camera and it went off ... it still makes me laugh so many years later.
And then we got the film developed (back when that was still necessary). The photo it snapped was a lovely shot of the trash can. Why did I even have a camera in my possession--a disposable one, at that? I don't think I used it to take shots of Steve Largent when he visited. That day is in a dead heat with the Digital Tommy/Bunky Bunny employee meeting for the title of "Strangest Day in My Career as a Communicator." Or is that "communciator"?
"Communciator" -- I love it!! I had forgotten about that. The Corporate Communications Department official values... and there was a typo. That was SO PERFECT.