compromise, the corporate world and fox news

The email was among several that arrived Tuesday morning. After I checked my financials and recounted my inventory I went back and read it. It explained that our regional Qdoba company has a great opportunity for some free exposure on a local morning news program. Friday morning, live on Milwaukee's Fox 6 Channel we get to promote our catering program as well as our new Waukesha location. Laura (surprise!) and Greg, you will have the chance to promote your stores and our company.

I laughed and read on to see if there was a question here or if I had been unwittingly volunteered to do this without consent. It was, indeed, this way. It was implied that if for some reason I couldn't go on Friday then Roxy - the other manager at my store - could do it. Clearly unless I was out of town or had some serious stage fright I would have to do this.

Several people said it sounded like fun. Well, fun isn't exactly how I would describe it. This is, indeed a small task, but for several reasons it was ironic that I was asked to go on TV to promote Qdoba Friday morning.

1) I have opened the past 8 days in a row without time off; Friday was my day to sleep in; unfortunately I have to get up at 5 am tomorrow to get to the store, get the food prepped for the show, and then go to the tv station.

2) I hate local television news. Really, I think it's pathetic and in college I learned all sorts of reasons why that was statistically true - like people who watch only television news actually know less about the world than people who don't watch any news at all. How is that possible. It's all soundbytes and cheesy human interest stories and excuses to frighten the American public into irresponsible consumer consumption.

3) I hate FOX news. I mean, local Fox news is not as evil as, say, the Fox news network, but they are still related.

Seriously, how can I go on a Fox News show and promote Qdoba? I mean, what is Fox news doing letting people like us come on their news show and promote our product? That's now news! Well, the way I am going to do this is just to do it. Like I said, I didn't have a choice, my boss' boss volunteered me for this, and it would look bad if I didn't do it.

So, wish me luck early in the morning tomorrow.