It's almost inexplicable how at Aqua the excitement has been
building since the red meeting room mysteriously plastered itself
with blackout paper and colleagues started disappearing for days,
coming out looking weary but confident.
As talent at Aqua flew in and out of the elusive red meeting
room, everyone knew something was up, and they understood it was
big. After a few weeks, everyone noticed when Dane (art director)
and Marc (HTML developer) arrived at work one day wearing the exact
same clothes.
Aquanauts knew that this had gone on long enough and demanded to
know what all the mystery was about. Experiencing the throwing of
tantrums and offers of ridiculous bribes to those in the know, we
thanked the gods for timing when a mysterious SMS was sent out to
all employees with only the cryptic short script text adding to our
anticipation:
Evolution has strtd. D-day is coming. 2mrrw u R in the
spotlight! Luk u'r best. U'll find out the rest. Instrctns will be
dlvrd 2 u'r desk.
Creepy txt language aside, it was on. With anticipation and
suspicion, Aquanauts began arriving at work on Thursday morning to
stickers stuck to every surface possible with Aqua-isms and
motivational lines. Shortly thereafter, the infamous Miss Cathy
Specific arrived, airline kit and all, with her trolley of cookies,
drinks and liquor. Within minutes, she had the individual
departments clapping hands, shouting war-cries and laughing
uncontrollably.
One by one we were called into what used to be the orange
meeting room, now transformed into a temporary photo studio, where
mug shots were taken of every staff member. A makeup artist was on
standby, the assistant photographer offering shots of 'Dutch
courage' for those who were camera shy, and a line was formed
comprising many curious and intrigued bodies. The vibe was pulsing;
productivity came to a standstill.
D-day was less than 48 hours away; countdown timers displayed on
every LCD screen across the agency, and although many still didn't
know exactly what was going down, every single one of us was
excited.
To be continued...