Happy Halloween!

It seems true to me that a good job is as much about doing what you love as doing it with people you enjoy spending time with. Lucky for me, I work with a lot of terrific individuals (in this office but also the industry in general). Terrific individuals with good senses of humor—critical to any stressful job, I think.


















This hardly comes out any stronger than at the end of October, as our staff rushes to prepare to put on a major conference in the auto glass industry yet still finds time to let their creativity out in spooky (and sometimes just goofy) ways. The Key Communications Halloween Costumer Contest is an annual tradition, and one much anticipated here in the office. It takes the joy of “casual Friday” to a whole new level.

Not to mention, a couple of mini Snickers bars at 10 a.m. are the secret to my productivity, and Halloween provides a good excuse to bring out the sugar.

I was brainstorming with a friend in the industry yesterday about my costume idea(s) and he commented that his office doesn’t do anything quite as exciting at this time of year as we do. “Engineers just aren’t creative,” he sighed.

I could hardly suppress my grief at that thought. “Are you joking?” I asked. “Not creative? You have to be creative to come up with the wild things that we get to write about. Sure, maybe then you have to be a little rigid in your thinking to make it work—but where does that first idea come from? Or the inspiration to try this instead of that to improve a product’s performance?”

I know there is a great deal of creativity lurking out there in the glass industry. The innovative new products at glasstec, for example, had to start with an idea. Surely you engineers out there are taking that creativity and applying it to your own Halloween costumes … and you have the rigidity and follow-through to go all the way with your idea (unlike some of us artsy types—i.e., me—who spend weeks on grandiose ideas of costume genius before frantically hitting the thrift store the day before the contest to initiate the back-up plan).

So let’s see it. I’d love to post your costume photos on this blog on Monday, or any great ideas that you saw at your office party. And for anyone who manages to keep it industry-related, well, we may have to come up with a special prize for you.

Happy trick-or-treating everyone!