To Die for Tie-Dye

The past few days at work I've been doing a lot with the Animations department. They've designed a series of educational games that are meant to engage third to fifth graders on a gamut of topics ranging from prefixes to suffixes, and everything in between. Today I sat in on a meeting where the Digital department (my department) was meeting with the Editorial department to go over the newest tweaks and details of the video games.

Now, what my manager has belabored time and time again is that the different departments have different ways of looking at things. For example, Digital is concerned with computing functionality while Editorial is worried about content; Design is interested in visual attractiveness and Marketing is obsessed with commercial appeal. I'd been warned that since everyone has different interests, these meetings can get... well... heated.

She was right.

At 2:00 we went in and took our seats around the conference table. The online animation videos started, and almost immediately someone from Editorial piped up "Why is that farmer so ugly?".

Indeed, the video that was playing featured a cartoon farmer who was teaching his livestock about grammar (don't ask why). He was dressed in a plain yellow T-shirt with blue pants and a pitchfork. And apparently he was too ugly to handle.

So Design scribbled down some notes, grinding their teeth in silence. The video kept playing. Fifteen seconds later, someone hollered "there's a Playboy bunny on that cow's thigh!"

Everyone in the room squinted at the animation, turning their heads and, eventually, agreed that one of the cow's spots resembled the Playboy bunny logo. Since that would obviously brainwash children into becoming pornstars, it had to be changed.

When we got to a part where the cartoon characters were explaining compound words, all hell broke loose. There was a fifteen minute diatribe over the correct spelling and history of the word "T-shirt". And after concluding that T-shirt was an inappropriate compound word for the exercise, we were scrambling to come up with a suitable replacement.

One woman loved "blast-off", but it didn't fit with the food and clothing theme. "Milkshake" was shot down because it might encourage obesity. "Popcorn", "done-up", and "hairpiece" were actually scowled at.

Gathering up some courage, I managed to throw out "bow-tie", "shoelace", and "T-Rex". They were all zapped dead in the thundering brainstorm.

Then something made me spit out "tie-dye".

Instantly, two women threw up their hands and cheered "That's it!"

The smiles spread across the room, half a dozen pens rapidly scribbling down "tie-dye" in their little notebooks. People leaned back in their chairs, relaxing, and took a few easy swigs from their coffee cups, smiles returning to their faces.

Suddenly, from the back of the room, there was a faint "Now hold on..."

Everyone turned to see the oldest woman in the room crossing her arms. She was squinting, pursing her lips.

The whole room fell totally silent.

"I'm not a fan," she finally said.

The NEXT ten minutes were spent arguing the appropriateness of tie-dye shirts -- dictionaries, news articles, and tie-dye market research was even brought up! The argument kept going back and forth; we eventually concluded that Editorial would speak to their higher managers about the issue, and that this topic would be tabled until a future meeting.

As we all left the conference room, tensions high, I whispered to my manager, "I never thought I'd be fighting so hard for tie-dye."

She whispered back, "The battle's not over yet."