Every year, we have the traditional Thanksgiving feast. We’ll munch on great food, talk a lot and probably sneak a beer or two. (Just don’t give any beer to Hollywood or the underage interns.) And while it’s cliché, it’s also the time to remember what we’re thankful for. Yup, we’re thankful for our awesome clients. And yes, we’re thankful for the many business partners in the area. We’re thankful for each other. Yada, yada, yada.

But we can also be thankful for these great thinkbank escapades over the past year:

1. The parking lot party (Yeah, we had a party. Why? Because we could.)

2. Ladies of Pavone events (From dinners to a book club, Amy plays hostess.)

3. Forced Fun (This is where chip and putt golf and the scavenger hunt come into play.)

4. Valentine’s goodie bags (Some were funny, others were cute.)

5.  Zombie games (Nice try for those who tried to fool the agency, but I’m not opening your email if it has a Z in the title.)

6. Jeanius contest (We donated over 100 pairs of jeans to make insulation for houses affected by Katrina.)

7. Weight loss challenge (Over 60 pounds lost. I shudder to think how much weight came back on after the challenge was over!)

8. Punking (Office pranks-a-plenty. For example, Paul read Josh’s internship diary to the agency. You really had to be there to know how funny this moment in time was.)

9. Hanging out after work (From the fantasy football draft to hanging out at a local watering hole, there was plenty of time for people to hang out even if it’s not work-related.)

10. Paul dressed up as a hangover and Al was the timesheet monster (OK, it could have been any day at the thinkbank, but this just so happened to be Halloween. Why didn’t we get pictures of this?!)

11. Amy’s birthday cupcakes (Who doesn’t love a treat from the PA Bakery?)

12. The thinkbank kickball team beating a rival agency to win the first ever Central PA Marketing Agency Kickball Cup (We’re working on a different name if there’s a second year.)

13. How to f@#k up a presentation (Paul’s enlightening discussion on what not to do in a presentation. Points #14 and 15 – Show up late and then address the client by the wrong name.)

Last year, on the Friday before Halloween, the thinkbank staff took part in a little internal e-mail game we called “The Zombie Game” (we save the truly creative naming ideas for our clients).

The rules were simple: If you opened an email with a “Z” anywhere in the subject line, you became a zombie and could therefore start sending infectious emails to other wary co-workers. The last person standing at the end of the day got $50 (and, it has recently been revealed, also cheated, but oh well).

The game is back this year with a new name — The Jeremy Steen Memorial Zombie Game (in honor of last year’s most ambitious and infectious zombie) — a bigger prize ($100 courtesy of our very own Paul Murray) and a larger audience (we’re taking it global and viral with some cool Facebook and Twitter usage, although the 100 bucks only applies to members of the thinkbank). Like last year, we’re recruiting clients to help send zombified emails to unsuspecting co-workers and we’ve expanded the infectious subject line to include a Z and a B.

The image above is our official zombie sticker, a mark all infected employees must wear on their forehead throughout the day tomorrow. That alone should be incentive enough to pay close attention to your emails.

Well, the tallies are in and we have a winner for the much anticipated 4th Annual Pavone Scavenger Hunt. This year’s contest came down to the wire…literally. A single wire binder clip ended up edging out this year’s runner up team. When asked to produce an item that best represents our beloved Director of First Impressions the winning team found the largest binder clip possible commemorating our lady bulldog’s brush with well, let’s say…a fatal impasse. As we are reminded daily here at the think bank, this is not so uncommon for Bulldogs.

In 2009’s version of the hunt, Pavonites found themselves scouring the SOMA district of Harrisburg gathering items and performing tasks that tie to internal Pavone themes. For instance, the teams were asked to find a perfect stranger to tag along on the hunt, create a mask out of something “upcycled” or throw a newspaper airplane at least 10 feet.

Judges saw all of the usual tactics this year (begging, bribery, strong-arming, gaslighting) and trust me, with 50+ marketers and PR experts in your ear as items are evaluated, reality can start to warp a little. This is my fourth year planning and executing the hunt and it seems with each year the teams hone their persuasion skills to an even finer point. That’s great if you’re one of our clients – when you’re a judge, not so much.

Today is the 77th Annual Thinkbank Scavenger Hunt, an hour-long team competition designed to test everyone’s ability to think, cheat and improvise in search of an elusive big-ticket item or photo op. Back in 1932, we ran around Harrisburg with the police chasing us Keystone Cops-style with the Benny Hill music playing. It was a hoot, or so I’m told. Today, we still run around, but the police pretty much leave us alone.

Having been on both the playing and organizing/judging sides of the festivities, I can honestly say that it’s much easier to play than it is to judge. (By far.) People get pretty pissed when you tell them you can’t give them credit for the photo of the team flipping off our crosstown rivals because not all the fingers were visible. Hey, I don’t make the rules, people. Actually, that year I did.

Stay tuned for an update on Monday.

I had just graduated from York College with a degree in public relations. Did I have a job? No. Did I think I was going to find one in the current state of the economy? That would be a BIG FAT NO. But, I was hopeful someplace would be looking for someone to do something.

So, finally, after weeks of sending resumes and following up (in true job search form) I received a call from an advertising agency in Harrisburg asking if I would like to interview. After taking about .0005 seconds to check my agenda, I simply and calmly replied, “YES! I would love to interview with your company. This is great! I’m so excited.” I got directions and hung up with a great big scream and a call to my mom.

So I put on a cute outfit (ironically the one I wore to graduation) and added nylons for a touch of conservatism, and headed to Harrisburg for my interview. I interviewed with another intern candidate (hence forth known as “my competition”) who seemed to know a lot about Pavone. I, on the other hand, could only name a few clients and probably the breed of the dog on the website, which actually turned out to be a real-live dog, wobbling around the office.

During our two-for-one interview, we were each asked the most recent book we’d read. Her reply: some Harry Potter book. My reply: some entrepreneur book. “My competition” and Paul (our interviewer) then had a whole conversation about Harry Potter, a subject which I didn’t (and still don’t) know anything about. I sat there and thought, “Damn, I knew I should’ve said ‘How I Became a Pirate’”, which I had read to my son the night before. At least then I could have somehow steered the conversation towards “Pirates of the Caribbean,” (which I had also watched the night before, hence the pirate bedtime story).

After the interview, we each had 20 minutes to produce a writing sample. I was stumped. She quickly sat down and started typing away. I was getting a real Marsha Brady vibe from her by now. What the heck was I going to write about? Life as a recent graduate? How to screw up an interview by naming a boring book? Why it’s important to recycle? What??

I had to admit, I started out writing about option number one – life as a recent graduate. I figured I could be honest, but still add a little humor, but after about a page and a half, I held down the backspace key and deleted it all. I do my best writing under pressure, so with about five minutes left, I wrote about what fascinates me (and drives me crazy) the most: the love of my life, my four-year old son. I glanced over my left shoulder and snuck a peek at my competition’s progress (almost two pages) and thought to myself, “I did what I could do, if they don’t like it, I guess this wasn’t meant for me.” I then saved my document, thanked them for the opportunity and headed back to York.

A couple of days later I received a call from the human resources manager asking if I would be interested in an internship with the public relations team at Pavone. To say I was excited would be an understatement. I was ecstatic. Even though I knew I would have to travel and hour to and from work everyday, I couldn’t wait to start my internship and begin to see the fruits of my “four-year” college labor. Little did I know (and would soon learn), I really knew nothing at all. I had no idea what a mere public relations internship at Pavone would have in store for me…