Freaky Team Building

Posted by Cindy on January 20, 2010

Old time freak shows are a popular pastime of my friend, Antonio. He works at an old movie theatre that shows the classics and other forgotten films on Thursdays and Fridays at a special midnight showing. He named it the hour of good and evil films. Recently, the theatre had a showing of the film ‘Freaks.’ He has the movie Freaks and several documentaries detailing the circus and carnival way in general. He actually has one about the film. In it an old roustabout in a denim shirt and face lined like a road from the many roads he no doubt has rode about, spoke about the freaks he would meet along his travels from circus to circus, city to city, each one waiting to be delighted with the laughs and frights a circus could alternatively provide. A lot of them he claimed were quite the prima donnas. Each entertainer thought their show and deformity was the most interesting and brought about the largest crowds. There was not a lot of room for solidarity or any team building programs to be sure. But then again, the corporate world and its offerings were not available to them. Most of them he said preferred being freaks because it was about the only job they could get. No one else would hire them for what others might call normal jobs: a cashier with no legs would not do the old days before discrimination laws, for instance. It could be quite lucrative for those with deformities and good managers too.

There was one freak my friend was in particular enthralled with. Her name was Frances O’Connor . She was an armless woman who could shoot a gun with deadly accuracy, and drink a glass of wine like an elegant movie star. She was quite beautiful, which is why my friend adores her. He is still young enough to get away with hanging a homemade poster of her at home above his bed just like the hundreds of boys throughout the years to idolize beautiful women, from Marilyn Monroe to Pam Grier.

Within a couple of weeks, their theatre is undergoing leadership training . He plans to stay out of the way of the managers and hole up in the projector room: some of them believe their leadership is just fine, thank you very much, but Antonio knows better. Either way, he and a picture of Frances will be up in the projector room this Friday: he put a picture of her in one of those homemade keychain charms for his collection of keys, watching ‘The Women’.