There are roughly 3 billion layers of IndyCar bureaucracy, and I just slogged my way through them all. Every last one. The journey began innocently enough, when I was informed that a TOTALLY NEW IndyCar.com is almost complete.
“Just show me a screengrab!!!” I begged of the informant. “I won’t post it. I just want confirmation that the clutter & grizzly bear drawings are gone.”
That person didn’t have clearance for such reckless action, but he knew who did. So he sent me to a higher-up in Marketing who then directed me to someone in Internet Services who punted me to Dave Lewandowski’s office. He pulled a dagger on me and sent me to some nice gal in PR who sent me BACK to Marketing who this time sent me to the IndyCar Creative Department. “They’ll give it to you,” I was told. They did not.
From there, it was a maddening jaunt through a series of Departments I’m fairly certain were made up solely to confuse & irritate me, and nobody from “The IndyCar Missile Defense Command Unit” was of any use. They sent me right BACK to Marketing. Of course.
And on & on it went, like I was in some horrible M.C. Escher drawing — where every upward-leading staircase went down, and every doorway was actually an owl of some kind. Push had come to shove, and nobody would show me the goods. I was desperate.
So I did what any pretend-journalist would do: I bribed Jarrod Krisiloff with the promise of riches & hot dinner rolls from O’Charleys. His response came quickly & unmercifully. No dice.
We are working with PR this week to define what the roll out plan will be for IndyCar.com. We’ll certainly include the Silent Pagoda for this process, just not at this time. Perhaps a “New Media squad holds IndyCar.com designs Hostage from the Pagoda?” post is in order?
And that’s where it ended. That’s where it stands. I have no fight left in me, and it feels like I have vertigo. The new site is being guarded with the same ferocity as the Manhattan Project, and that is how it will remain. I fought the Machine, and the Machine won. Then it quickly sodomized my ambitions with a coffee table & laughed at me. Stupid, powerful Machine.
But it wasn’t a complete waste. My bumbling efforts DID reveal that yes, there is certainly a new IndyCar.com forthcoming. And better yet, it is awesomely “contemporary” in design. That opinion was confirmed repeatedly, and so too was the fact that the white text/black page format is gone. (YIPPIE!!! NO MORE EYE-HEMORRHOIDS!!!!) So that’s good.
I wish I could tell you more.
By The Speedgeek, January 6, 2010 @ 6:13 pm
Man, that is hardcore. Jarrod Krisiloff is a far stonger man than I, as there is basically nothing that would be out of bounds for me to do if there were O’Charley’s hot rolls and honey butter in the offing. B&E? Framing somebody for arson? Treason? Panda-napping? No problem. Basket of rolls, please.
Nice try, though, Hobbson.
By pressdog, January 6, 2010 @ 6:32 pm
IndyCar.COM? This is about the Web site? I read most of it thinking it was about the new CAR design. Judas. I guess with both the car and the site, the new design is ….. NONE OF YOUR EFFING BUSINESS. The Iron Hand of Justice says the new specs will be out in the fall of 2009, and he’s sticking to that.
By Bickelmom, January 6, 2010 @ 7:10 pm
I just sat through a day of “training” at the office solely designed to crush the soles of the working masses stupid enough to still have optimism and hope. I feel your pain, Roy.
Thanks for the post though. Even though I’m now wallowing in a hopeless void filled with phrases like “penalty-based in-network stop-loss threshold” the post made me laugh.
By Roy Hobbson, January 6, 2010 @ 7:34 pm
Whoa, Bickelmom, is that really you? Did you go Goth? Did Eeyore hack into your email account? Doesn’t matter, I suppose. The Pagoda is hereby sending you some e-cheer* regardless. You’ll be right in no time.
*e-cheer is actually a sheet of acid. Enjoy.
By Lance, January 6, 2010 @ 7:54 pm
So did you talk to the Tooth Fairy, the leprechaun on the pot of gold, or the unicorn in Internet Services?
By Bickelmom, January 6, 2010 @ 8:21 pm
I told you it was soul crushing! Not sure why I spelled it like the sole of your foot in the earlier post (further proof of the severity of mind-numbing that took place, I suppose).
Thanks for the “e-cheer”. I’ll take some and watch PBS children programming and be all better by lunch tomorrow.
By Aaron, January 6, 2010 @ 10:23 pm
Perhaps while Kanaan is in town for the mandatory league meeting next week you should have him interrogate the IndyCar web overlords (read: dispense merciless beatings) on behalf of the Pagoda until you get the information you need. Either that or you could A.J. threaten to waterboard some people with our new fan alcohol BFF – Maker’s Mark.
By Hamilton Fish, January 6, 2010 @ 10:43 pm
Just change the website without any fanfare and get this…if it’s good people will make note of it. If your bosses would have simply made like Nick Rivers, the American rock and roll star, and remained discrete you wouldn’t have taken a shot at them. And now when they inevitably change the website’s look and it blows people will just roll their eyes and get back to their Reader’s Digest abridged version of For Whom The Bell Tolls.
By Ryan Worden, January 6, 2010 @ 10:46 pm
Waterboarding is too soft of torture for AJ… he’s gonna go Dick Chaney all over your ass.
By cappy, January 6, 2010 @ 10:54 pm
You liar. You were going to post the screengrab, weren’t you? Yeah you were. They were right to distrust you.
By Dan Schrementi, January 6, 2010 @ 11:51 pm
Two words: Geo Cities. It’s sooooo web 3.0
By Jeff L., January 7, 2010 @ 10:43 am
You can tell it’s the off season when…
By BP, January 7, 2010 @ 10:47 am
Is this taking so long because Northern Lights is helping design the site?
Most importantly, though, if Indycar.com gets a full redesign, does this mean The Pagoda is getting one as well?
By Tom G., January 7, 2010 @ 3:33 pm
I’m sure the delay will be sorted out as soon as they announce their new Brazilian web design firm. Any day now. Any day now…
By BC, January 7, 2010 @ 6:15 pm
The Pagoda is like Patton to IndyCar.com’s Eisenhower. According to the WWII book I’m reading right now, at least. Except that instead of win-
Oh. Nope. Shouldn’t go there.
By P Daddy, January 8, 2010 @ 11:01 am
At no time did you mention where or if SP would be on indycar.com. Maybe there’s more to this story. Time for some more recognizance (sp?). (Putting on my black leotard and leggings while my 3-yr old is coloring my face with my wife’s black mascara) LET’s DO THIS!!!
By Coz, January 8, 2010 @ 5:02 pm
See what happens when the Old Lady and the sisters gang up on TG and toss him out? It didn’t take long for the Stooges to rule the roost. And it may take a heavy dose of BE to get it straightened out. Lord, I pray that you spare the Pagodians the wrath of this unmerciful enemy of humanity and racing, and protect us until his wrath against this disorder of thy house be done, Amen.
By mannbeast, January 9, 2010 @ 8:26 pm
I heard the Indycar website team is feverishly hammering away at the new site with help with the people from Northern Light!