I'd Rather Remain Faceless

Corporate photographs. That’s what they want to put on our Financial Services Guide, our website and worst of all to provide to our licensee so that the lab rat’s faces can be emlazoned on the next Partner’s conference big screen to show what happy little campers we are to now be part of the ipac conglomerate.

So here I sit in my gladrags waiting for some amateur shutterbug to snap my mug so that I can be heralded as one of the backbones of the administration team. But they’re going to photograph us ‘in situ’ at our workstations, beavering away and looking like office staff. How fascinating that must be for the onlookers who have only gone to the conference for the junket.

I hate having my photo taken. I am not photogenic and always seem to be caught wincing or looking cranky and disapproving (a look I have mastered apparently) or my hair’s too frizzy or that zit on my chin is sticking out like a spare appendage. I hate looking in the mirror for that matter. Not because I’m ugly,.because I’m not, but I’m far from breathtaking and the reflection I see in the mirror these days is a mere shadow of my former self. I hate having to confront the creeping loss of youth unless the lights are dim and the flash is turned off.

I will take some photos when our camera is fixed. Hopefully this week but I’ll be very selective about what I post. I’ve decided that I have a good camera angle and that’s shots taken slightly from the left at about 2 metres. The distance blurs the wrinkles and hides the hair friz and sort of evens out the body shape a bit. How I’m going to achieve that sitting in my small corner, I don’t know. It’s weird, I don’t know why I’m so self-conscious. I think I prefer people to get to know the whole package, not just the image, yet I love looking at other people’s photos.

I think most of all, I hate having my photograph used as a sales pitch to make other financial planning businesses feel warm and fuzzy towards me. Especially without an extreme make-over (sorry Grandad) and a professional panel beater and spray painter I mean stylist). It’s not just me, we’re all going to be used as examples of blissful little supporters to a room full of Equity Partners who are really only swanning around on the Queensland coast in a luxury hotel for the afteroon golf and the evening booze up.

Fortunately, she who is taking the photos, is unwell today.
Fuck. That means I’ll have to wear a suit and battle the ‘do’ again tomorrow.