Retreat rhymes with defeat the way bore rhymes with snore. So why is the ''management retreat'' the hottest fad in business since ''casual Fridays''?
Maybe it's because ''retreat'' sounds so exclusive you can almost picture yourself lounging by a sparkling pool, in your cool and casual Ray Bans and Dockers, as your boss begs you to please, pleeeease, with extra zeros in your paycheck, hop on the Concorde and straighten out the Paris division so you will have time to overhaul the Maui branch next January.
Or maybe corporations announce ''retreats'' because a memo announcing two days of ordinary ''meetings'' would trigger a crippling corporate-wide epidemic of 48-hour white-collar flu.
Or maybe it's because the average American middle-management salary slave is exposed to a dangerously toxic level of jaw-aerobics and needs relief. In other words, corporations go on retreats to get away from meetings.
At least, that's my theory.
As they say in the dentist's office, you know the drill. The memo goes out in code, something like this: ''As part of our long-range strategic prioritization orientation (translation: corporate HQ is slashing our budget again), division directors are invited to gather (be there or be unemployed) for a two-day retreat (the Bataan death march of meetings) to generate creative new initiatives (ways to slash your budget and/or staff) and opportunities for potential efficiencies (downsize you or some other unlucky slob).''
Then they lock 14 people in a room with 27 jugs of industrial-strength java, drag out those scary Godzilla-sized note pads and make someone stand up there to flip pages and write down everything anyone says, no matter how chin-slobber stupid it is. ('''Need key to men's room fast' - that's very good, Stan, but can you flush out how that impacts third-quarter widget quota? ... 'Will trade sprinkle donut for glazed.' Hmmm. Good teamwork to exploit underutilized resources, Nancy ... '')
After about 2 hours of that, everyone is so stoned from sniffing Magic Marker fumes, their eyes glaze like frosted glass, and it hits you like a 40-ounce Starbucks espresso: This is what corporations do because they can't have crack parties.
Suddenly, the word ''retreat'' makes abundant sense, as every cell in your body goes code-red for survival. Like characters in some old black-and-white Hitchcock movie, outwardly calm middle-managers exhibit sinister symptoms of repressed psychotic anxiety.
The marketing director is intensely tying a peppermint wrapper into a tiny noose.
Susan from systems is slowly dismembering a Styrofoam cup - with her fingernails.
The accounting director is playing hangman, starring a hangee who has a striking resemblance to today's ''facilitator.''
Others gnaw pencils, doing their best to look thoughtful as they sneak a peek at their watches to make sure the Mighty Engine of Time has not thrown a rod and stopped dead.
Everyone shuffles through handouts like prisoners in a paperwork chain-gang, as business plans multiply faster than bacteria in a landfill.
Some get reckless and make whispered wisecracks, violating the First Commandment of Management: Anything you say can and will be used against you in your next performance review.
Others get desperate and bob their heads on spring necks, nodding at every comment, hoping to set aside a 401-K of peer support for their own bankrupt presentations.
Nobody pays attention.
That explains some of the famous products of marathon retreats. Such as:
Every fall season of NEW! TV shows: ''I got it! Friends meets X-files! With a Seinfeld plot!''
The Edsel, AMC Pacer and that automotive Timex in a Rolex box, the Cadillac Cimarron. ''Hey, let's put a Cadillac emblem on a Chevrolet Cavalier and triple the price. Boneheads will buy it!''
Cincinnati elections. ''Just let everyone mud-wrestle in the same pit and the last one standing is mayor. What fun.''
House Speaker Newt Gingrich's reaction to President Clinton's first use of the line-item veto. ''Let's see - Republican presidents begged for it for 12 years, we promised it in the GOP Contract with America, and finally passed something that was enormously popular with voters. I'll say I was 'blindsided.' Yeah.''
Hillary's health-care, Whitewater, Travelgate, Janet Reno, the Chinese take-out Clinton-Gore campaign and ... come to think of it, the entire Clinton presidency has been one continuous retreat, a non-stop White House coffee, floating from stupid idea to lame excuse.
Other products that could only come from retreats: New Coke, Clear Pepsi, Dilbert, baseball ''realignment,'' the UPS strike, Mideast ''peace,'' airbags, the EPA, the ''wedge'' site for a Reds stadium, the Reds and Al Gore (see airbags).
Every day, America's best and brightest corporate managers are proving that ''retreat'' also rhymes with ''duhhhh?'' - if you inhale enough Whiteout.
Peter Bronson is editorial page editor of The Enquirer. Call 768-8301, or write to 312 Elm Street, Cincinnati, Ohio 45202.
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