Wednesday Walk: Bob, Geoffrey, Alf, and Bob
Wednesday Walk: Bob, Geoffrey, Alf, and Bob
Welcome to the Quarantine Creatives newsletter, a companion to my podcast of the same name, which explores creativity, art, and big ideas as we continue to live through this pandemic.
Every Wednesday, I share random thoughts and tidbits with links to let you do some exploring. I call these Wednesday Walks, as it’s the type of conversation we might have walking down a path in the woods- the topics are free flowing, sometimes related, sometimes not.
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Happy Wednesday folks! Before we get going, a little housekeeping. I’m going to take a break from writing this Sunday’s issue so that I can enjoy the Thanksgiving break with my family. I’ll be back for another Wednesday Walk on November 30.
Have a happy and safe Thanksgiving!
Bob, then Bob, now Bob again…
A lot has been written about this weekend’s surprise news that Disney CEO Bob Chapek was effectively fired by the board of directors and his predecessor, Bob Iger, will take the helm at the media giant once again.
According to reports, Iger was approached about returning to his old role last Friday, with a deal finalized by Sunday. It happened fast.
There are really thorough takes on what’s been happening behind the scenes during this transition in everything from The New York Times to The Hollywood Reporter. But I wanted to take a moment to share some interesting insights from within the Disney fan community that you may not otherwise read.
Tom Bricker writes Disney Tourist Blog, which has been my go-to source for vacation planning advice and Disney news for years. He has two really good articles about the Iger-Chapek situation that are worth reading. One is immediate reaction to the news and another looks at some of the behind the scenes drama.
Tom has always offered smarter commentary than just “ride this ride” and his voice is especially fascinating at this time of transition. His perspective on what went wrong with Chapek is instructive in any business, but especially in entertainment and storytelling. Here’s a few highlights:
“Our position has been that Bob Chapek was a placeholder CEO–the one who would do the dirty work and help Disney emerge from a time of crisis as a stronger and leaner company. That it was likely even Chapek knew the score, and what he’d have to overcome in order to have a legacy and tenure on par with Bob Iger or even Michael Eisner.”
“It should go without saying, but how the CEO is viewed from within the company is a big deal. Imagineers, animators, artists, filmmakers, etc. are the heart and soul of the Walt Disney Company. To lose them is to lose the thread, so to speak, and the damage is done even if not immediately apparent in the near-term creative output. Inertia is most definitely a thing that can keep certain things going in the right direction…until it doesn’t.”
“Corporate culture and tone gets set from the top down. Iger ran a tight ship, was zealously on message, made Cast Members feel like they were part of something special, and didn’t relish insulting fans. There are a bunch of little (and large) fumbles and missteps that occurred under Chapek that never would’ve been tolerated under Iger (who will presumably be bringing back his c-suite team that was likewise great at this type of thing). All of this matters in the long run.”
“In the day-plus since Chapek’s firing, we’ve observed a fairly noteworthy change already take place: improvements in Cast Member morale. A huge number of frontline Cast Members and other employees have expressed their joy that Chapek is gone and Iger is back. In yesterday’s post, we mentioned corporate culture and the top-down tone of Chapek v. Iger, but honestly, I didn’t think it would be this significant–and sudden.”
Explore Tom’s columns (one here and one here) if you’re interested in reading more commentary on this news out of Burbank. I always appreciate his perspective and I hope you’ll find something interesting in it!
Oh, and if you’re interested in listening to a story about Bob Iger, check out my interview with Ample Hills Ice Cream founders Brian Smith and Jackie Cuscuna (who now run The Social ice cream shop in Brooklyn). Brian and Jackie befriended Iger and, with his help, even brought their New York ice cream to Walt Disney World. We chatted about Bob’s fandom of their brand and the advice he gave the pair when we spoke in 2020.
A Black Friday Story
I hope you enjoyed reading Sunday’s issue about how Toys R Us and other toy store brands seem to never quite die, even if the original stores all close.
Writing about Toys R Us had me feeling nostalgic, so I wanted to share a little story about working my first Black Friday. Back then, the day after Thanksgiving was the busiest shopping day of the year and it’s when retailers offered their best discounts. Strangely, the day didn’t even have an agreed upon nomenclature twenty years ago (we referred to it as “Green Friday” because Toys R Us would rake in a lot of cash that day, but I remember hearing the Black Friday moniker become popular another year or two later).
I’ve previously shared this story on Twitter, and if you’d like to read the whole thread, you can expand the below tweet. I reprinted the thread below if you’re interested in hearing the story:
Since it’s Black Friday, I wanted to share a story from my very first Black Friday working retail. It was at Toys R Us back in 2001…
This was back when Black Friday was THE shopping day. Stores didn’t offer sales until that morning, and you didn’t know what the sales were until you received your newspaper with the ad inserts on Thanksgiving Day.
We opened the doors at 6am, and as a cashier, my start time was 5:30am. There was already a line outside the store of eager parents ready to get some deals when I arrived to clock in.
As I got to my register to take my position around 5:45am, we all heard a loud THUD. The lights suddenly went out, the music stopped playing. The whole store was dark.
It took a few seconds, but the store had a standby generator that kicked on, although it was only for emergency circuits. Only half of the lighting came on (which at that time of day, still felt really dark inside). The registers started to reboot.
We learned that a delivery truck at the back loading dock had backed into a utility pole and broke it, severing our power, just a few minutes before our busiest hours of the year!
As the registers finished rebooting, we realized that the internet lines that connected our registers to the Toys R Us central computers were down.
Toys R Us was ahead of its time with an all electronic inventory system. When you scanned a UPC at the register, it would pull the price and item name from the internet and update the inventory. This way, nobody at the store level had to place orders for stock.
With that connection severed, when you scanned a UPC, it would not pull up any data on the item sold, nor would it update inventory. The calculator function of the registers still worked, just not the inventory side.
Minutes before opening and still on standby power, our managers opted to open the store. BUT, we would still need to make sure that each item sold was properly documented to update the inventory system later or else it could throw off our stock for the whole Christmas season.
Parents loaded up their carts as one does on Black Friday. These were the BEST deals of the year and they had woken up early the day after Thanksgiving- they weren’t going to let these go!
Every available associate on the floor had to come up to the line with a pad of paper, write down all of the items in each cart, and then run around the store to grab the SKU number and price from off the shelf so the cashiers could properly price them and update inventory.
This was a tedious and manual process, and as you can imagine, the lines quickly backed up. People were waiting 30-45 minutes in a line that should’ve been gone in 10 minutes.
And remember, Black Friday back then was a BIG deal, so Toys R Us wasn’t the only stop for most shoppers. They came to us on their way to Circuit City, K-Mart, or Sears (remember, this was 2001), so any delay with us meant they might miss out on other deals.
Oh, and without internet, we also couldn’t process any electronic funds including checks and credit cards. We still had those old fashioned credit card imprint machines with carbon paper as a backup, and boy did we use them that day!
In the end, power and internet was fully restored by around 10am after the initial rush began to die down. The rest of the day was pretty uneventful, although busy.
I ended up working at 6 different Toys R Us stores across 5 years. It makes me sad that it no longer exists. I also miss the madness that came with Black Friday shopping. Especially that very first one back in 2001.
#NoNewClothes- Week 5
I’m now more than a month into the yearlong challenge of not buying any new clothes, inspired by a conversation I had with Amory Sivertson. Each week in these Wednesday Walks, I’ve been sharing some thoughts on how to cut down on textile purchases. Today, I wanted to talk briefly about fashion waste.
Many years ago when I was just a Production Assistant with This Old House, I remember filming inside of a factory that made wall paint. It was interesting to see all the giant vats of chemicals combining to make a simple, everyday product. But what really caught my eye was the giant bin of T-shirt scraps sitting on the shop floor that was available for workers to clean up as needed.
This bin was both amazing and a little heartbreaking, especially if you liked thrift stores like I do. All of the T-shirts had been shredded into strips maybe 3-4” wide, but some still had recognizable logos or artwork on them. I’ll admit, the vast majority were from youth sports leagues or corporate gatherings and weren’t worth much. But I also distinctly remember seeing a shirt with Alf on it, although it was shredded into pieces and was no longer wearable.
It’s odd how the memory of that bin of ripped T-shirts has stuck with me for years, and how it will occasionally reenter my thoughts. I was reminded of that bin when I was shopping at Home Depot one time and came across a package in the paint aisle called “Painters Rags.”
While the rags that I saw at the factory were recycled from post-consumer content, the ones for sale at Home Depot were all new textile by-products and sell for $15 a package.
About two years ago, inspired by these packages of rags, I decided to stop throwing away my old T-shirts, underwear, and undershirts that were damaged beyond being able to be worn. I started to cut these clothes up and made them into rags, which I keep in a bin in my basement. (If the items are still in good enough shape for somebody else to wear, I will donate them).
These homemade rags are very handy for cleaning up messes or for applying stain and finish on projects, and they’re reusing my own waste.
The impact of this small action is pretty minimal, but the larger point is that there are countless areas in our lives where we can make little improvements that just make sense. Rather than donating or discarding my old clothes and then buying back scraps from other’s waste to use as a rag, I’ve eliminated the intermediaries and have given my old clothes another life.
Other Wednesday Walks
If you’d like to catch up on past episodes of the Quarantine Creatives podcast, they can be found on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen.
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Stay Safe!
Heath