The Corporation as Destination
By Bruce Weir
Aug 21, 2008
If you could all move in a little bit, that way I won’t have
to yell. I have a little bit of a dilemma to share with you. Goodness, sir,
please keep your pants on! I said
dilemma
; that’s why you all need
to come just a little closer.
Okay,
that’s better. Here’s my problem. Every writing class I’ve ever taken has
stressed this mantra: Show, don’t tell. And yet this article is about office
tours—an activity that is all about show
and
tell.
And
so let me tell you that we currently find ourselves in the lede—or lead—of the
article. Here is where you get a sense of what the piece is about and where I
hopefully grab your attention. To do that, I need a catchy line, perhaps
something along the lines of, “Welcome to the World’s Greatest Sales Centre.”
Okay, if you’re still with me, please turn the page to a
quick little paragraph that will give you a sense of the article to come. Alright, here we are in what is known as the nut graph
—aren’t you starting to
feel like
insiders
?
Many
corporations—IBM, Hydro-Québec, the Arizona State Credit Union—offer tours to
industry groups or visiting dignitaries, but an increasing number of companies
are opening their doors to the general public. These corporate tourists are
generally interested in how businesses create cultures, motivate employees, or
are looking for a little mentoring.
These
are perfectly legitimate reasons, according to Donna McFadden, president of
Toward Excellence Inc. Her company offers training to budding entrepreneurs and
routinely sends them on tours at Vancouver-based 1-800-GOT-JUNK? to get a sense
of how that business functions and how it treats its employees. Then
there’s good old-fashioned voyeurism. I mean, who hasn’t felt the urge to walk
through the “Employees Only” door? I thought so. Now,
just a few housekeeping items and we’ll be on our way.
You
shouldn’t really hold out hopes of finding a job on one of these tours.
Businesses have much more sophisticated means of recruiting employees. In fact,
Brian Scudamore, the founder of 1-800-GOT-JUNK?, says he would “have some
misgivings about a person on a tour with his company who said he wanted to work
for us.”
Nor should you be looking at these tours as a means of
dealing with your own workplace stress. That is simply too complicated an
issue. There can be myriad causes—some personal, and we’re all on vacation here
so let’s keep things light—of that stress. If you don’t believe me, take it
from a clinical psychologist who deals with workplace mental health.
Here’s
Dr. Joti Samra, and she is pretty adamant about this: “It would definitely be a
stretch to say that people on the tour would derive a psychological benefit,”
she says. So,
if those pieces of news haven’t discouraged you, let’s head into the body of
the article.
Remember
that greeting about the world’s greatest sales centre—part exuberance, part
braggadocio? It’s one of the first things you see after stepping out of the
elevator at 1-800-GOT-JUNK?. The 19-year-old company has more than 300
franchises operating in Canada, the United States and Australia, and generated
$125 million in revenue last year. (Tours, like magazine editors, are crazy for
numbers—this article has 1,243 words carefully arranged into 26 paragraphs.) So
there is ample reason for it to open its head office, known as The Junktion,
every second Friday for tours (as of May they were already booking into
September).
The
tour is led by Tania Hall, senior public relations manager, who is sufficiently
open to inform us that “the media loves to hear about our weird junk.” Call me
impressionable, but without further ado: a couch full of bees, sex dolls made
from chicken wire, 400 wedding dresses and a World War II-era bomb (defused).
Since
founding the company in 1989 as The Rubbish Boys—compare
that
to the current name for a quick lesson in branding—Brian
Scudamore has gotten his share of press, too. Here he comes now—please note the
untucked gingham shirt, blue jeans and brown suede shoes worn without socks.
Scudamore takes a similarly casual approach toward opening his offices.
“If
the competition wants to take a tour, we’ll run them through,” Scudamore says.
“We wouldn’t give them our financial statements.”
In
fact, the idea for the 1-800-GOT-JUNK? tour came out of Scudamore’s speaking
engagements at which he would reply to questions about how franchisees or the
call centre are managed by inviting people to stop by The Junktion.
If you want to discover dark (and perhaps rotten)
secrets, then Honolulu’s Tour de Trash is for you. I’m told Mayor Mufi
Hannemann is extremely proud of these six annual tours that give an inside look
into recycling and waste management.
But
he is a busy man, so let’s drop in on Suzanne Jones, recycling coordinator for
the City and County of Honolulu. Jones started the tours 10 years ago and has
since learned there “are hundreds and hundreds of people who want to get up
close and personal with trash.”
To
date, those people have all been residents, but Jones is happy to accommodate
tourists if there is space. You might want to check out the Workplace Recycling
tour, a behind-the-scenes trip to the Sheraton Waikiki, Hilton Hawaiian Village
and the Hawaii Convention Center.
The
folks at Boeing are somewhat more circumspect. Among the forbidden items at the
Future of Flight Aviation Center near Everett, Washington, are backpacks, fanny
packs (these are banned for security,
not
fashion, reasons; wearers
of fanny packs are allowed to keep their sparkling white shoes and socks),
cameras, cellphones, iPods, PDAs and pagers.
Our
tour of the facility begins with a short film that extols the miracles of jet
travel. After the six-minute flick, it’s time for a few more warnings—they are
dead serious about not bringing your cell; there will be 21 stairs on the
tour—then it’s out the back door and onto the bus (and one final cellphone
warning) for a tour of the production facility.
Okay,
let’s get into the freight elevator—don’t worry, there’s plenty of room for
everyone to stare at the floor and shuffle uncomfortably. It is while looking
down on the assembly of a 787 that this tour becomes an office tour. Beneath us
is a forest of cubicles and tables studded with computer monitors. We’re here
on a weekend, so the engineers at work down below are on “voluntary overtime.”
If you still doubt that this is a tour of a workplace, consider this actual
conversation overheard along the way:
Tour
guide: “How you doing, George?”
George:
“Can’t complain.”
Tour
guide: “Well, you could but who’d listen, right?”
The real star of the tour is the new 787 Dreamliner. The
first one is still under construction and will be tested later this year. That
means it will be a busy year for the Boeing tour guides as flight freaks come
from all over to get a look. If you look out the window of the bus as the tour
concludes you’ll see the flight line where those tests will be conducted.
Okay,
that’s it folks. Here we are at the gift shop; I hope you enjoyed the tour.
Even if you didn’t learn how the other half lives, you now have a sense of how
they work. (That line gets them every time.)
Because
beaches are for the weak
Choose your corporate adventure—from New York to Oahu
Seattle
| BOEING
Take
in the production process from the assembly line’s viewing balcony, overlooking
the factory floor where the largest jets in the world are manufactured at the
Boeing Everett plant, itself the largest building in the world at 472 million
cubic feet (
8415
Paine Field Blvd., Mukilteo, Washington, about 50 kms north of Seattle; tours
cost US$15 and run on the hour; 800-464-1476; futureofflight.org
).
New York | MADAME ALEXANDER DOLL COMPANY
Get a glimpse into how one of the
largest doll manufacturers in the U.S. has stayed on top for the past 85 years
(
6th Floor, 615 W. 131st St.; all
tours are free; basic tours run every 45 minutes, seven days a week from 9:30
a.m. until 4:15 p.m., and “Behind the Scenes” must be booked in advance;
212-283-5900; madamealexander.com
).
Winnipeg
| MOUNTAIN EQUIPMENT CO-OP
Constructed with 95-per cent recycled materials from the
three abandoned buildings it took over six years ago, Winnipeg’s MEC store
boasts composting toilets, environmentally friendly paints and adhesives, and
CO2 sensors to ensure an optimal balance of fresh air (
303 Portage Ave.;
204-943-4202; mec.ca;
priority for free tours is given to schools and corporate groups
).
Vancouver | 1-800-GOT-JUNK?
Get the inside scoop on how this trash-hauling business
picked up steam through its emphasis on open corporate culture (think
interactive staff meetings dubbed “the daily huddle”) and savvy “guerrilla”
marketing tactics. These popular 75-minute Friday tours fill up months in
advance (
6th
Floor, 1055 W. Hastings St.; 1800gotjunk.com. Tours are free and open to
everyone, but e-mail ahead to reserve a spot: tours@1800gotjunk.com
).
Oahu
| TOUR DE TRASH
An innovative effort to get Oahu
residents and businesses focused on green initiatives, this annual series of
six free bus tours explores island companies with successful recycling
operations. Tour No. 6 details how Pacific Biodiesel converts
cooking oil and grease from restaurants into fuel for diesel-engine vehicles
and equipment, now powering city trash trucks and select buses (
Tour
No. 6 runs Nov. 20 from 8:30 a.m. – 4 p.m.; tours are intended to
educate local residents and fill up fast; 808-768-3200; opala.org
).
Montréal
| HYDRO QUÉBEC
Make a quick stop at head office to see the Mousseau mural
and get some tour details. If you are pressed for time, take in
Rivière-des-Prairies Generating Station. Despite its bucolic name, this
run-of-river facility is just 12 kms north of downtown Montréal (
free tours run
Victoria Day to Labour Day; reservations are required; 800-365-5229; hydroquebec.com/visit
).
—
Suzanne
Goldman
