Department Of Creative Spending

"Frank, we need more creative ideas," the spokesman for the Company said to his DCS director.

The decision took less than 2 seconds. "Fine. We need to hire more people."

"Brilliant! Hire ten!" The spokesman walked happily out of the department, hooking his thumbs in his vest and condescendingly telling the janitor that the floor looked nice and shiny.

Frank brought it up at the next meeting of the Department of Creative Spending. The Department had been in existence for 20 years now, and was the biggest kept secret in the business. It was a special privilege to be asked to join, although nobody knew about it until they actually did join.

The people initiated into the intracompany committee had no public contact, a creative attitude and had to take a vow of silence as to the existence of the Department. Their only job was to think of ways to spend money, anyway they could, just so long as it was inside the law. They made no attempt to save money (no recycling), in fact squandering it as often as they could, and burned brain cells thinking of ways to need money.

They could add as many people as they needed to come up with new ideas in a crisis, (the people never left the department), employed a cleaning staff equal to the size of their members, whose special job was to clean up after their particular member, then clean up the conference room and office, which was always a mess.

Remember, the members did nothing but think, and as you know, creative thinkers always make a mess because they can't think in an organized room. Buried under papers and assorted junk (that accumulated everyday and was cleared away by the cleaning staff, who clocked in early and played cards on the nights the department worked late (which was every night)) was the very latest sophisticated coffeemaker (that would absolutely curl up and die without the best coffee and that could do anything except stand up and dance on the table), computers that lived on each member's desk (but were never used, and had more software per unit than any Super Computer Store, except for the Battle For the Planet program, which talked about saving the environment and was tossed out because it encouraged saving something and that was bad for morale), chairs for the conference room designed by Franklin Wright, the famous architect, and a padded conference table big enough to seat every Knight of the Round Table including their families, with a big projection TV that was never used because it stifled creativity, a VCR (never used) and tapes that were bought to stimulate creativity but were still unopened because the members were afraid of them so much that it had brought about the present crisis.

Frank walked into the conference room and looked around. Someone had used Ketchup and Mustard to paint a Picasso original on the TV screen (about five people were staring at it in rapture). One half liter bottle of Pepsi (bought individually because they cost more that way, his own idea) were set at every place in case someone was thirsty. (The bottles were stored in a warehouse and sacrificed to the Hammer God annually at the BottleFest, a pagan ceremony he had dreamed up, a departmental holiday that put everyone in a creative mood.)

Thirty people sat around the conference table deep in the heart of the company. Some were tall, short, fat, round but not fat, pompous, arrogant, all kinds, and all, both men and women, were lounging around brainstorming the type of additions they wanted.

"At least 30 years of age!" one man shouted, his tie hanging to one side, shirt open at the throat, and his suit rumpled. Premature grey hair flew in every direction, his right arm raised to the ceiling, index finger outstretched.

"Great!"

"Cool!"

"Genius. Pure Genius."

"Shouldn't somebody write this down?" a young man spoke up while tipping his chair back onto it's hind legs. He was dressed in stone washed jeans and a black muscle t-shirt, his hair in a ponytail, his legs crossed on the table.

"Yeah. Do it." Frank said, throwing the man a pad of paper and a pen.

The young man banged his chair on the floor, stood up, and announced pompously, "I am paid to think. Hire somebody to take notes."

"Yes! Yes!" An older lady with bottle blue hair jumped up and danced next to her chair, her face a vision of ecstasy.

"Absolutely Terrific!" a man said softly, tears running down his cheeks. Using his tie as a handkerchief, he dried his eyes and instantly started banging his head on the table, saying, "Why? Why? Why? Why couldn't it have been my idea? " After a pause, his face lit up and he blurted, "Must have at least one creative idea within ten years!"

"Beautiful," a young woman said, red lipstick stuck to her teeth. A dreamy expression shone in her eyes, and her fingers unbuttoned the third button on her blouse.

"Gorgeous," her twin said, an exact duplicate even down to the lipstick on the teeth. She reached out and undid the next button on her twin's blouse.

A middle-aged man hopped out of a corner, barefooted, a baby blue dress shirt wide open (showing off a slight potbelly), tails streaming behind, fatigue pants rolled up to his knees, and screamed, his piggy eyes unfocused, "Complete physical and psychological tests that don't mean anything!"

A middle-aged woman with bleach blonde hair, and a skin tight sweater tucked into skin tight jeans said, "Where do you get these ideas?" Her eyes stared at him and her jaw dropped in admiration.

"It only took me seven years!" he shouted at the ceiling, his arms upraised. The admission earned him a standing ovation. He grinned foolishly around at everyone.

A small woman with a beehive hairdo and horn-rimmed glasses, dressed in schoolmarmish clothing, announced in a mousy little voice, "Lunchtime!"

"Marvelous!"

"Fantastic!"

"Quick, someone, write it down before we forget!"

"Naw, turn on the tape recorder and call the caterer!"

"Anybody want coffee?"

"Yeah!"

"Great! Where's the coffeemaker?"

"Isn't that it?"

"Yeah!"

"Yippee!"

"Is that what that is?"

"Turn it on!"

"Hire somebody to do it!"

"O-o-o-o-h!! We're on a roll now!"

"Let's brainstorm through lunch!"

Frank called out the door of the conference room to his secretary, "Call the caterer and order chinese food for 30 people!" He slammed the door. "That way we can order a snack later in the afternoon."

Spontaneous applause.

"The Great Spirit Krishna," one young woman shouted, laying on the conference table wearing a fluffy pink bathrobe over her street clothes and clutching a homemade Mickey Mouse pillow to her bosom, red hair streaming uncontrolled on her shoulders, "suggests we convert the nuclear power plant we were building to a hydrogen power plant, and sign a top secret plan to utilize the plant for NASA."

"Unparalleled!"

"Stupendous!"

"Did someone record that?"

"No."

"Why not?"

"I forgot to turn it on!" Crocodile tears fell down a young woman's face, wetting the front of her silk blouse, which immediately turned see through, which caused a blankly staring, balding middle-aged man to bang his fist on the table and exclaim, "A-ha!"

"What?"

Every eye turned to him, for he seldom spoke. "We'll hire somebody to remind her!"

A spontaneous cheer went up around the room.

"I know!" a man spoke up. He was dressed in a business suit in infallible shape, a red tie that was on straight, neatly combed blond hair, compelling blue eyes and a top of the line briefcase that the company had paid for. If anyone had cared to look inside, they actually would have found business papers. "Let's save the environment with a recycling campaign!"

"Boo!"

"Hiss!"

"Throw the bum out!"

"Are you trying to stagnate our creativity?"

Various paper wads and even unopened software came flying at him. He hid behind his briefcase. Frank intervened.

"Look, kid. This is the Department of Creative Spending. Our motto is 'Creative Thinking Invokes Creative Spending.'" Frank laid a fatherly arm across his shoulders. "This is your last warning. Think squandering money, not saving it!"

"Ok." The young man rumpled his suit, undid his tie, messed up his hair and threw away his briefcase. "I got it!" he shouted with a maniacal gleam in his eyes, "let's build a race car and enter it in the Indy 500, then advertise for public support!"

"Now ya got it!"

"Breathtaking!"

"Cowabunga!" The woman in the bathrobe stood up, dropped Mickey Mouse and turned a backflip on the table. "Krishna approves!" she choked out between gasps for breath.

One of the Picasso freaks screamed, "We can print flyers too, and mail them separately!"

"Monstrous!"

"Well, shut my mouth!"

"Spell-binding!"

"Wait. Wait a minute....it's coming!" An elderly woman dressed in a red jogging suit with a pair of huge yellow framed sunglasses on her head like a headband breathed in disbelief, "we can convert to solar power! Build panels on the roof, we'll have to rewire the building, convert all electrical items to battery operated power sources! We'll spend millions!"

The room applauded. Amidst the clapping, a young man with long red hair and a blue jogging suit with fire in his eyes jumped up and down to attract everyone's attention. "That system is designed to save money!" he screamed.

Instantly the clapping stopped and everyone, including Frank, stared at the old woman.

She drew herself up to her full 4'11" height, squared her shoulders and said defiantly, "Only if it's operational. All I said was we'd spend millions. I never said anything about it working!"

"Who would have thought?" an elderly woman murmured thoughtfully, her hair falling in her face, her eyes vainly trying to see through it.

"Outrageous!"

"Priceless!"

"Awesome!"

"How about..." a woman screamed, her hair standing up on edge with static cling, her wine colored dress plastered to her body showing off curves never to be seen outside a bedroom, jogging shoes tied together and hanging around her neck, "we advertise for Desk Decoration donations?"

"What for?" a young man asked, his eyes glaring at her. "How's that going to cost the company money?"

"Advertising, of course, stupid," she replied, throwing a heavy stapler at his head. (He ducked.) "As a campaign to support your local power company."

"Hear, Hear!" The twins spoke up in unison, nodding their heads up and down and looking for all the world like those nodding dogs in the back windows of Yuppie's cars.

"Absolutely marvelous."

"Creative."

"Breezy!" an older man spoke up, his arms raised to the ceiling while he was kneeling at a prayer alter. His bermuda shorts and camouflage t-shirt gave no indication of his priestly occupation, and his intense brown eyes looked sympathetically at those who felt the need of confession. He stood up, flexed his legs, and spoke quietly, "Shouldn't the people we hire have at least 10 years of company service in?"

"Cosmic."

"Shocking!"

"Not bad for someone who's only supposed to obliterate our sins," a woman nodded, her hair fastened on her head with a bone, and her fake leopard sarong held on with a safety pin. She was officially in a neanderthal mode, trying to recapture her creativity by regressing to a previous existence.

"I want some pizza," a young woman moaned in ecstasy, her very pregnant stomach rumbling with hunger.

"Rad."

"What do you want on it?" Frank asked.

"Everything but anchovies, including triple cheese," she replied, licking her lips and rubbing her stomach, murmuring, "Hold on, baby, food is coming."

Someone yelled out the conference room door for the pizzas, the accidently slammed the door on his foot. Smiling apologetically, he muttered, "Comes from being a salesman for so long." One of the twins grabbed him and said something about kissing away his pain, which caused a coyote-roadrunner chase scene that plowed through the Picasso freaks and made everyone talk at once.

"Hey!" a young woman shouted. "Let's form a club!" Her eyes glazed over, her hair hung down her back in glossy strands, and her clothes were rumpled. She'd been lying under the table meditating and had been dragged out during the chase. "We could form two new departments, fully staff them, and hold meetings to discuss topics of interest over lunch every day!"

"Excellent!"

"Not bad, not bad!"

"Put it on the agenda!"

"Put it in the minutes!"

"What minutes?" a woman spoke up.

"Don't we have minutes?"

"No." she cackled.

"Why not?"

"We'd have to remember what we'd talked about, and couldn't call emergency meetings in the middle of the night, which pays triple time, I might add, to remember what we had decided!" The woman was about 30, and wore a wedding ring. Her clothes were neat and pressed and she was busily flirting with the young man in a muscle t-shirt. Her eyes shone in invitation. He ignored her, but cheered her answer, which he did very creatively.

"I say," a man with a British accent spoke up, "let's bop down to the 7-11, get slurpees, then go shopping!"

"What for?" the woman with the pizza asked.

"Computer software, and maybe a few laptops. We need the laptops so we can create anywhere, not at a tied-down, chained-to-the-wall desk. Righto?" the Britisher smiled.

"Yeah!"

"Holy Cow!"

"Remarkable!"

"Let's go!"

"Anybody want a ride?"

"What are you, nuts? This is a business trip. Let's drive our own cars and ask the company for gas reimbursement!"

"Perfect! Where do we go?"

"Canada. That way we'll have import tax to pay also!"

"Cowabunga! Let's ride!"

"I like it! I like it!" the company spokesman drooled. He was a fat man with even bigger clothes, and features that looked pushed together due to the roundness of his face. "Yuck! Whose idea was it for the desk decoration advertising campaign?"

"I don't remember, sir." Frank said sheepishly.

"Well, all the rest of these are cataclysmic, but that one is very bad. How come you didn't nip it in the bud?"

"It would stifle creativity, sir."

"Well, get rid of whoever came up with it."

"But, sir, that's the same one that suggested Canada for the computer software, and that wasted an enormous sum of money." Frank said, his eyes pleading for a second chance.

"Now that was a good one! Keep that person at all costs. Give it a raise! Give them all a raise!" the spokesman pounded his massive fist on the desk, making his lamp fall over and break.

"Oh, sir!" Frank's voice portrayed his awe and reverence.

"What, Frank?"

"What a perfectly beautiful way to waste money!" he said, his hands clasping one of his bosses' involuntarily.

"Thank you, son. Now, get back to your work, but only after you take a few days to pick out a new lamp for my desk."

"But what about my staff? What are they supposed to do while I'm gone?"

"Wait for your return. They can afford it."

"Genius. Pure genius." Frank said as he left.

Thus began a new revolution, one of the business and it's pawn-in-the-pocket government against the people. Sure, right now it's just a story, but think about it.

Where do companies get their hare-brained schemes anyway? Is there really a Department of Creative Spending within the heart of, and indigenous to, companies that go before a Public Service Commission?

That is a question best left to the company Gods, both those they create and those they worship.

This story is my way of coming to terms with Democracy, Sin and the Company behind it all.

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