Beckett Media Tour

Mixing work with cards? Not really, but I was in Dallas last week on a business trip and took the chance to swing by the Beckett Media corporate center.

I received some messages from people who expected the corporate office to be like L.Frank Baum's Emerald City and others questioned why even go there. For me, it was an opportunity to see the inner-workings of Beckett.

In my opinion, the Beckett corporate office is a lot like many corporate buildings we work in today. There are offices of people working harder and longer than ever, and offices filled with reminders of when times were better.

Beckett's Tracy Hackler met me at the security desk for the tour. The first stop was the main entrance area where a wall of current Beckett magazines are displayed. We then entered a two story room full of employee cubes, large tables, and smaller offices looking over the area. Most of the cubes below were empty and the tables were full of print proofs. The offices upstairs still had many people working after 5:00 to meet deadlines. Tracy's office had some cool Arena Football League memorabilia and Chris Olds' had the Beckett Alabama issue on his desk (he's a huge 'bama fan).

We then walked to another part of the building to find the Beckett theater! Their headquarters has a nice stadium seat theater for corporate events, movie nights or watching the college football BCS Championship. While most of us watched the Texas/Alabama game at home on the couch or in bed; to meet print deadlines and get a product to the street in a timely manner, Tracy, Chris and others were at the Beckett headquarters until 4am during the night of the national championship. The movie theater had the championship game on the big screen for employees to catch the score, see some highlights or view Colt McCoy's x-ray results.

The card grading area was in a secure location of the building. Only employees with badge access could get in the area and obviously visitors were not allowed.

The tour ended at the filming studio/box break room and it was full of 1/1 cards! :) Seriously it was just a room with the lighting, camera and table. I just kept thinking - this is where conspiracies are born! :)

The Beckett tour lasted about 30 minutes or so. It was good to see and I'm grateful for the time he spent.