In 1969, there was a movie called If It's Tuesday, This Must Be Belgium, about touring around Europe at such a whirlwind pace that the only way to identify your location is by which day it is. We at Richmond magazine subscribe to that same philosophy, except ours is related to eating.
Richmond magazine puts out close to 30 publications a year, which takes a toll on our staff of editors, professional artists, designers and writers. How can these people put out an award-winning magazine each and every month without ever growing tired of the process? Carbs and sugar are the answer.
Whenever we near a deadline, we have food brought in to the office because the staff deserves the best, and sometimes they can't afford the time it takes to leave the office to eat out. Hence the carbs and sugar. This day we are putting the finishing touches on our June issue. Let's review what the staff has done lately: They put the Chamber of Commerce Who's Who to bed and began work on both Richmond magazine and Richmond Bride. They had four weeks to finish both issues before going on to the next three magazines for July. My job is making them as comfortable as possible: toner in the printer, plenty of air conditioning and food.
On the Friday before we signed off on the June magazines, 24 people came in to the office only to find out that we are bringing in breakfast — eggs, grits, scones and chocolate chip cookies. I am sure some of us had breakfast before coming to work, but troopers that we are, we forced ourselves to eat another meal. Just one hour after completing a hardy breakfast, a voice came over the loudspeaker saying that we had also ordered 10 pizzas and salad for lunch. You could hear the proverbial belts loosening.
Then, just when you thought it was safe to go back to work, another announcement was made that there would be an ice-cream social in the lobby, on top of a cake for a departing intern that same afternoon.
The good news? All that sugar made my staff work faster. The sugar high even made art director Jimmy Dickinson climb to the top of his cubicle, while others made arrangements with various trainers to shed the unwanted pounds that would surely result. Our new slogan should be, "If it's Friday, it must be 10-pizza day, because Thursday was pastrami-and-turkey-sandwich day."
