The Many Hats I Wear At Work

I do everything at Baldwin Colour, from pressing buttons and twiddling knobs to issuing invoices and taking out the trash. No office task is too overwhelmingly large, too inconsequentially small, or too confusingly dodecahedron-shaped for me not to tackle. Consequently, I’m forced to wear many different hats throughout the working day.

There’s my cigar-chomping CEO’s silk top hat. My number-crunching CFO’s professional black bowler hat. My nerdy CTO’s grubby baseball cap with faded Avid logo, swiped at a NAB trade show many years ago. My chief salesman’s Danial Boone coonskin trapper’s hat for venturing forth into the uncharted wilderness of new business. And my Nutty Professor’s tasseled mortarboard, worn when explaining the color grading process to yawning Zoom call faces who don’t really care about that sort of thing.

I’ve also been known to wear some pretty niche hats when a situation demands specialty headgear. For example, my buccaneering Pirate’s blood-stained bandana with matching eyepatch for downloading bootleg software from dubious websites. Then there’s my gleaming Prima Donna’s tiara for when someone has the temerity to question the quality of my labors. And last but not least, my Kamikaze Pilot’s headband for accepting huge and already over-budget projects that might kill me. This one slips down over my eyes so I can’t see where I’m going, but I somehow manage to hit the targets nonetheless.

My ambition is to eventually exchange all these industrious hats for the permanent vacation Panama hat of retirement, while avoiding the flea-bitten ‘Buddy can you spare a dime’ Gatsby cap left upturned on depression-era sidewalks by unemployed hoboes, which isn’t as easy as you might think.

Recently, I’ve been wearing a ‘Summer Fridays’ sombrero with my ergonomic Herman Miller office chair locked into loungy poolside recliner mode. The sombrero’s broad brim provides ample shade for snoozing when business is slow, but can be swiftly pushed back on my head like Speedy Gonzales when a client calls.

But now we’re already in September, I’m preparing to swap out the ‘Summer Fridays’ sombrero for a hipster’s woolen beanie. Not only will the beanie keep my bald head warm, I’m also convinced it makes me look a few years younger. No bad thing, since many of the creatives I encounter nowadays seem practically pre-pubescent to this Methuselah.

Some of the hats I wear fit me better than others. Some of them look pretty cool and some of them are obviously rather goofy. But I always try to pick the best hat for a particular job, even if that hat turns out to be glow-in-the-dark Mickey Mouse ears, because I’ve unwisely downloaded a new plug-in and my desktop has briefly become the Sorcerer’s Apprentice sequence from Fantasia. That’s when I might sheepishly tell my clients ‘This is where the magic happens.’ Always a good sleight-of-hand excuse when things go wrong.

Just over a year ago, when I started this business, I was often observed in my electric blue Dunce cap with a flashing D on the front. I had absolutely no clue about all the boring legal humbug. LLC? Who DBA What? Estimated taxes? I was constantly wearing floppy bucket hats to disguise the fact that my brain was melting. But I’ve more or less got a handle on the red tape now. At least, the IRS didn’t say anything when I filed my tax return last year. Perhaps they were dazzled by the traditional dark green accountant’s visor I was sporting at the time?

So hopefully I’ve been able to pack away the logistical hats in storage for the foreseeable future, and can concentrate on my French berets worn at a very jaunty angle. Imagine me applying the ooh-la-la finishing touches to your project as I stand beside the Seine, waving my brushes and palette in the air, with an expensive color monitor propped up on a sturdy carbon fiber easel. I can paint Cubist masterpieces, Old Master portraits in ornate golden frames, or just slap that cute ‘Big Eyes’ filter on your lead actors and call it a day. Whatever you want. I’m an artist. I’m very broad-minded.

And don’t forget my no-nonsense John Wayne style ten-gallon stetson, suitable for driving herds of pixels across difficult technical specs; my one-man Barbershop Quartet straw boater for when I need to be cheerful and optimistic about getting the deliverables uploaded before noon; and my faceless monk’s ceremonial black hood, reserved for discussing obscure and occult rituals to brighten underexposed and very dark scenes.

But, alas, these halcyon days of wearing many hats could be coming to a close. According to the tech oligarchs, I’ll soon be sitting at my computer bare-headed, since their AI agents can generate whatever hats are required to perform my daily tasks in half the time. There will be nothing left for me to do except turn out the lights. And apparently there’s a Google Smart Home installation that can do that too.

For the record, my hat size is 22.5 inches, roughly a medium. So if anyone has a few spare hats laying around that they think might suit me, send an email or text to the contact information listed elsewhere on this site. I’m especially interested in fedoras, homburgs, and perhaps a red fez. No propellor caps or Easter bonnets. Thanks in advance.