National Herding Cats Day
Ever since the famous Super Bowl commercial of 2000, in which a handful of rugged-looking cowboys comically herded a thousand or so cats out on the range, the phrase “herding cats” has embedded itself in popular culture as a metaphor for the job of wrangling the unwrangleable in a wide array of professions and walks of life.
Some liken managing schoolchildren to herding cats. (Laughable idea.)
Some say getting their families all together for a meal is like herding cats. (Only if you happen to be a cat.)
Some claim getting politicians to do anything is like herding cats. (They wish.)
Cats are no longer offended by these invidious comparisons. There are too many, and cats have more important things on their minds.
As so often happens, it is up to WMG to cut to the heart of the matter and wrangle a loose metaphor into something practical, down to earth, and real. Because, in actual fact, nothing is really like herding cats.
We know, because at WMG we really herd cats.
No, we don’t mean the many writers who we publish in our anthologies.
We mean the cats who run WMG’s Promotion Central: in Las Vegas they are Cheeps, Gavin, and Angel; their colleagues at our satellite offices in Oregon are Arthur and Malcolm, Bug and Morph, and new recruits Shoes and Buddy.
You can follow Cheeps, Gavin, and Angel on WMG’s Facebook page as they run Promotion Central. Or snooze and lounge their way through Promotion Central. Or, if you follow Angel, she will be chewing her way through Santa hats.
But we at WMG do not stress about our cat wrangling. Do we know what we’re doing? Heck no! But that is part of the job. We are philosophical about it, and that is the essence of everything having to do with cats: a philosophical attitude. And humility.