The day started with a couple of phonecalls from some B-grade celebrities to the small organisation that I do the PR for.
‘Hi, we’d love it if you could help us out with a project, there’ll be lots in it for you including great publicity,’ so said a female TV celebrity on the other end of the phone.
‘Hey babe, can you help us out with this thing, we’ll send a limo,” went the voice of a male TV celebrity also over the phone, looking for help for the same project as the above female caller.
It’s important to note that they weren’t asking me as a person but me as a representative of the organisation for which I happen to work.
But of course I fell for it all
Funny thing is that because of the sheer fact that the callers were both celebrities and both talking to me like I was all of a sudden their best friend (me quickly forgetting that our receptionist had put the calls through, i.e. they didn’t know me from a bar of soap) I seemed to lose sight of this and let flattery get in the way of decision making, which on reflection I can see is a classic case of egocentricity.
Mind you the egocentricity was a bit tit for tat as the celebrities yabbered on about who they were and what they did and how they would be able to help us. But first we had to help them and now. They wanted us to drop what we were doing, move heaven and earth, and obey all their egocentric driven demands. They way they described it though, it seemed that if we were to agree to what they wanted we somehow would strangely help to save the world – absurd I know, but such was the spell of egocentricity.
We did everything they asked for nothing
We agreed to help and our office undertook a transformation, with all hands on deck to try and pull off the seemingly impossible for our adored celebrities. They’d made us feel special, as though they were relying on us for their project to work. How different things were in reality.
Our team took the task very seriously and arranged all the necessary details that had been asked of us. We arrived at our destination, where it became very apparent that we’d fallen hook, line and sinker for the celebrities’ now seemingly evil ploy. Don’t get me wrong, they were pleasant enough, it’s just that their description of what we were needed for was very different to what we encountered.
For starters our organisation was not the only one helping them, so they weren’t reliant on our help like we thought they were. So when we introduced ourselves to the organisers of the project there were a few blank looks and awkward silent moments. But finally we found our so-called new best friend celebrities who were completely pre-occupied with being celebrities.
We quickly realised that all our efforts had been done in vain; such is the spell of egocentricity.
The upside of the downside is that we learnt that we could all work well as a team under pressure, so at least that was something to come out of our egocentric fuelled day in the office.
Carol is a PR consultant but so often finds in her line of work, like in all facets of life, egocentricity can get in the way of things running smoothly.
