#313 In which our hero receives another message from the past.

You probably forgot that the site futureme.org even exists… I know I did, even though I’ve received a message from a past me before.

And I recently got another message from the past! Message plus commentary follows.

Dear FutureMe,
Hey man. Right now it's 2/8/06 and I'm sitting in my office at Impact Direct Copywriting.

Generally speaking, I try not to name names in my blog, especially when it comes to employers. However, to say this place was rinky-dink is an understatement. And, more to the point, I tried to bring up the website and it is 404, and the phone number is disconnected. I suspect that the owner, my previous boss, has moved on to other endeavors. Because for as much as I thought the guy was an advertising dumbass, I can’t take anything away from his hustle. He was always trying to make a buck with the next big thing.

I have a second interview at XXXXXX tomorrow, and I'm excited as shit. I really want that job. Driving down to Akron every day would be a total pain in the ass... but more money? Better working environment? Actually working with other people instead of sitting alone in a shit-hole rented office answering phones for a computer repair place? Yeah, it would be worth a little extra driving time.

I got that job and worked there for five years. It started out great, but many, many things had changed by the time I left. The company had been bought by another, larger agency; the focus of our work shifted, the agency name actually changed; and, more significantly, the culture of the place radically shifted. It’s not bad, per se, but it is very different from what it was when I started. For these reasons and others I knew it was time for a change.

(if the “answering phones for a computer repair place” comment seems like a non sequitur, understand that my hustlin’ boss was running at least three businesses out of the one rented office so, depending on who was in and what line was ringing, I had to answer the phone for the advertising agency, a computer repair business or a hospital supply company.)

And the drive to Akron every day? It really wasn’t that bad. The heavy traffic was always heading north to Cleveland when I was driving south, and vice versa, so that was never really an issue. In the winter I could always count on a couple 3-hour commute days because of the ice and snow. But to be honest, I enjoyed the time to think, and I went through a lot of books on tape. Lots of wear and tear on my car, though.

Anyway... I hope your career is doing better. At the very least, I hope you're making more money. I so want to get out of here. I hope Malone works out. I also have a resume into Point to Point Communications... but haven't heard anything from them yet.

Pretty sure Point to Point never called me back.

I'm a little surprised how much of my happiness comes from my work. I never thought I was one of those people. Guess I am. Since I'm not really enjoying my work right now -- or, at least, my co-worker or environment -- it puts stress on my. And, my extension, on [The Scientist] and the girls.

This still surprises me. With this new job, I’m painfully aware that I’m 43 years old and not at the point in my career that I wanted to be. I feel like I need to catch up. This is partly due to the fact that I’ve been laid off from several jobs (not my fault); but it’s also partly due to the fact that I’m a little lazy (all my fault). I’m hoping for some quick advancement at his new agency… we’ll see what happens. Could be very frustrating for me.

Holy shit... Doug (my current boss) just walked in and asked me, "What's a hyphen? Is it an underline?"
Good. Lord.

I don’t remember this exchange, but it sounds pretty typical. He considered himself a copywriter, but constantly had me proof his stuff, which was terrible without exception. It doesn’t surprise me that he would have a lack of understanding about simple grammar. Hustle, yes. Writing skills, no.

Anyway, I'm setting this to send five years from now. If you're still in the same office answer that guy's dumb-ass questions at that time... well, there are razorblades in your toolbox.

Thankfully, it never came to this. In fact, I was out of there shortly after writing this message.

Take care, future me.
craig.

Thank YOU, past me!

I’ll write another one, and set it for another five years in the future. Good Lord, what will that be like? I’ll be nearly 50, and the girls will be 13 and 10.

Yikes.

***

NEW SHOE

Got a shoeshine the other day.

This is not usual behavior for me, for a couple of reasons. First, I generally don’t wear shine-able shoes to work. See, when I started this new job I adopted the “dress for the job you want, not the job you have” mentality and bought new shoes. These shoes, to be exact:

I agonized for an embarrassingly long time about what kind of shoe to buy (and then for an even longer time on what kind of socks to wear with my new shoes) because I was determined to continue to wear jeans—albeit new, more fashionable jeans—and the shoes had to look decent.

I became enamored with Clarks Desert Boots and ordered a pair online. They’re served me well. But they’re suede. So I can clean them, but not shine them.

That said, I have a pair of Doc Martens dress shoes that I like a lot. I’ve had them for years and don’t wear them as an everyday shoe. I think of them as my “grown-up” shoes, i.e., what a real professional might wear to work every day. Generally I wear them to fancy functions or for client meetings.

I had such a client meeting a couple of weeks ago, so I wore these shoes in. Since there’s a shoeshine guy in the lobby of my building, I figured I’d get a shine. This would be my first professional shoeshine since I had the shoes I wore to my wedding shined. So, it’s been ten years since my last shine.

First, a word about the shoeshine guy in the lobby.

If you saw this guy in a movie, you’d accuse the writers of lazy storytelling. I mean, he is every stereotypical shoeshine guy you’ve ever seen in the movies: older, African-American, gray-haired, stoop-shouldered, shuffling. He has the typical set-up right outside the elevators, two elevated chairs atop a platform of drawers full of mysterious shoe shining polishes and creams.

I walk past this guy every day. Sometimes he’s reading the newspaper, but usually he’s just sitting there staring off into space. I’ve seen very few people stop to get a shine. It strikes me as a sad life… sitting there waiting, waiting for someone to stop.

A co-worker and I were talking a while back about shoes shines and what they cost. Thinking back to my pre-wedding shine, I realized that I didn’t remember what it cost. I had it in my head that it was something like $15, but that seems high. But then again, I had nothing to judge it against. What’s it worth to get a shoeshine? It’s not a necessity, it’s more of a commodity. But then again, it’s a status-symbol thing more than anything. So if people will pay hundreds for other status symbols like custom-made suits, why not $15 for a shoeshine?

Finally I just stopped and asked the guy one day as I returned from lunch. “Six bucks,” he told me. Okay, that seemed reasonable. So I took my admittedly dull shoes downstairs and hit the guy up for a shine.

There were no other customers.

I found the entire experience to be a little embarrassing. First, I’m up on this elevated throne, right in front of the elevators where everyone looks automatically as they exit. Then there was the white-guilt aspect of having this little black guy shine my shoes. He asked if I had ever had them shined before, and I admitted that I had shined them myself, but probably badly. He grunted in (I assume) agreement.

I brought my newspaper so I wasn’t just staring stupidly ahead, but I mostly just held it up while I peaked at what he was doing. I wondered if there was some secret technique that I didn’t understand to get a really great shine.

But he just brushed off the dirt, rubbed off the old polish with some sort of deglazer, applied polish and shined them with a rag. He spritzed the rag with water first, I’ll have to try that next time. He spent a lot of time polishing the toes of my shoes. I suppose that’s the part you can most easily see when you’re looking down. It’s probably good customer relations to make sure that part of the shoe really gleams.

It probably took ten minutes. I paid him the six dollars, and tipped him two.

I can’t imagine he makes a living doing this. There’s a hotel in my building, and he has to be drawing a salary from them. There’s just no way he’s cutting it by shining maybe a pair or two of shoes a day at six bucks a pop.

Like I said, I felt slightly embarrassed by the entire experience. But when I was showing off my shiny new shoes back in the office, I noticed the guy had slopped show polish all over my socks.

I’ll have to remember to tell him to be more careful next time, when I get my shoes polished again in 2022.

 ###

#311 In which our hero pauses to consider the question posed by a supposedly homeless man.

I work in downtown Cleveland and, like any largish city, there’s a fair number of panhandlers on the sidewalks. Now, it’s tempting to say these people are “homeless,” but you don’t really know, right? I mean, some of them certainly look the stereotypical part: ragged clothes, weathered faces, maybe a hint (or more than a hint) of crazy lurking under the surface… but I’ve never seen anyone actually sleeping on the street around my building, even when I’ve been there late at night. Far as I know, asking for change is their job, and they go home to their apartment at night.

I got hit up by one guy a couple of weeks ago. He didn’t fit the part of shaggy, wild-eyed homeless man, he looked pretty much like any other casually dressed person I pass on the street daily. He was crossed the street and headed toward me, catching my eye. Immediately I’m thinking, “Okay, what’s this dude want?” when he gets close and says, “Hey man, you got a cigarette I can borrow?” This puts me at ease and I tell him no, that I don’t smoke. Then he says, “You got a dollar you can spare?” And for a second I actually consider it! Not because of any altruistic desire to help my fellow man, but because I appreciate his rap: he put me at ease by asking for a smoke, then followed up with the unexpected request for money. Nice work.

But I didn’t give him any money, of course.

I have a pretty strict policy of not giving money to panhandlers. I think I’ve only actually ponied up twice in my life, and in both cases I feared that imminent harm would befall my car or my person.

This morning I was walking out of the parking garage when I saw that one of the regulars on my street was standing right where I’d need to pass. This particular guy is definitely in the “scary homeless” camp; bedraggled, wide, crazy eyes, propensity to shout at people who don’t give him money. This guy once hollered at me from a block away to give him some money, like I was going to go out of my way and hustle over to him to open my wallet.

There’s a couple people walking about three yards in front of me, and he hits them up first. “Hey lady!” He nearly shouts. “Can you give me some money? To get something to eat?” Everyone keeps walking without making eye contact.

It gets to be my turn, and when he asks for money I say, “Can’t help you, buddy.” This is generally what I say, and it usually seems to do the trick and the panhandler in question moves on to his or her next mark. I did throw in the “buddy,” because I was in a good mood.

But instead of moving on, this guy looks me dead in the eye and demands, “Why not?”

And I pause.

I try not to be an asshole to strangers. It’s not like I’ve ever told a homeless person to “Just get a job!” or something like that. So I don’t want to be that guy who just moves on and doesn’t even acknowledge this person’s existence. And while I’m pretty quick on my feet generally, I don’t know what to say. My first thought is to say something like, “I give you money, you’re just going to spend it on booze.” But I don’t say that because what if he really is just looking to get something to eat? And my second thought is, “Why don’t you give this guy a dollar? What’s a buck to you?” In the end, I just put my head down and keep walking.

I’ve been thinking about it since, and I’ve come to the conclusion that the real reason I don’t give any panhandlers money is that I don’t want to contribute to the system. The system where people beg for money on the street and other people actually give it to them, which in turn encourages more people to beg for money in the streets. I don’t want to be approached for a handout on the street, and I don’t think anyone else (I’m thinking of women, mostly) should be made to feel threatened on the street. If someone really is homeless, there are local outreach programs that can help them—some of them, at least.

At least, that’s how I’ve rationalized it to myself. Maybe the truth is that I’m a racist asshole. I don’t think so, but I’m sure most racist assholes don’t think of themselves that way either.

As I walked away, the guy shouts at me, “When I hit it big in the lottery I bet then you’ll wish you gave me some money!”

***

#307 In which our hero recounts a mysterious and new word he learned at his new agency.

I’ve been at the new job for about eight months now. I feel like I’m getting into the groove of this place, finally, but the first couple weeks were a little rough. This agency is a purely digital agency, and my experience is primarily print and collateral. I’ve done plenty of websites and online banner ads, but I’ve never gotten into the finer points of search engine optimization, highly-interactive user experiences, rich media banners and all the other stuff that takes the online experience to a much higher level.

I expected there to be a learning curve, but it was steeper than I thought. There was a lot of information presented in orientation that had me scratching my head; stuff that I assumed I would pick up as I got settled in.

But then, there was the lingo. This agency is thick with jargon and agency-specific titles, programs and processes.

My first week on the job I was anxious to prove myself and jump in and start producing good work. I was almost immediately pulled into a project for a smaller east coast bank. During the briefing, the Creative Director mentioned that we were going to have to turn around a concept pretty quickly, and would be producing an adlob to sell the idea.

Adlob?

This is a term I was not familiar with. He mentioned it in passing, like it was something that everyone would know. I wrote in my notebook “ad-lob? WTF?” and planned on looking it up later. Maybe it was a banking term? I’ve done lots of financial stuff in the past, but that wasn’t ringing any sort of bell.

But I let it go. Then, a couple of minutes later, the CD mentioned it again. I stopped him, saying, “Okay, sorry, but what’s an ad-lob?”

He explained that it was an “ad-like object.” Adlob. I laughed and shook my head. In my previous agencies we would have probably said it was a mock-up. Most likely something that looked similar to an ad you might see in a magazine. Nothing that was to proper dimensions or even with finalized copy and graphics—just something to get in front of the client so they know where our thinking was.

This was my first taste of much more silly jargon to come.

###

#301 In which our hero reveals the rather unlikely story of how he got his job, part 2.

When we left off, I was again trying to get my foot in the door of a new agency.

I saw the creative director’s tweet, so I fired off the following email:

Hey D.,

Word on the street is you're back in the market for a copywriter. I'd love to continue the conversation we begin at Starbucks way back when.

My resume is attached.

Thanks,

craig.

I didn’t hear anything back for two days. On the afternoon of the second day I figured I’d send a “hey, you got my resume, right?” sort of email just to remind him that I was still interested. I was also very aware that last time we talked it was mentioned that I didn’t have a lot of online experience. I was assured this wasn’t a big deal, but it still concerned me. As it so happened, I had just finished a really cool internal website project—featuring zombies. It was for the agency Halloween party, and the art director I worked with did a fantastic job. As of this writing the site is still up and functioning at this link, but I imagine it will be taken down at some point. I thought it really expressed my creativity and I hoped this guy would appreciate it.

So I logged into my email account to send off the reminder email and the zombie website link, to find this email waiting for me:

Hey man...good hearing from you. Quite honestly...I worked with you and Brad says great things about you (which is key) but quite honestly, my guess is you're a bit "high" for our salary...I wanted to hire someone a bit more junior...not unless you're interested in taking a big pay cut ;-) Be happy to chat or grab a cup of coffee with you sometime...thanks for the note.

I was disappointed, but what could I do? If they were looking for a entry level writer, I most certainly was out of their price range. So I wrote back:

Yeah, if you're looking for an entry level person, I'm sure I'm way out of consideration.

I'd love to work with you and Brad again. If a senior level position opens up I hope you'd consider me.

In the meantime, here's a project I worked on recently that was a lot of fun:

http://www.malonealert.com

It's a website for our agency Halloween party. We had a week's worth of games, including a contest where you had to shoot cut-out zombies with a NERF shotgun. I wrote everything you see, including the scripts for the PSA videos on the bottom of the page. I shot and edited those, too.

I'll hit you up for that coffee sometime when I'm in the area.

Take care,

craig.

And I figured that that was it. But then, about 20 minutes later, I got this email:

Dude..I consider myself a zombie expert...me and my son. Have you read The Zombie Survival Guide by Max Brooks? Classic! Thanks for sending...keep in touch...I'll be sure to do the same.

I had no idea that this guy was into zombies, of course. But fate seemed to give me an in. So I followed up with this:

I haven't read that, but I did read "World War Z" by the same author. Highly recommended.

Not to brag, but I won "Best Zombie" in the costume contest this year.

And got this email in return:

Photos?

So I sent back this:

(Actually, this isn't the photo I sent back. I had a much better one, a close-up on my face where you could tell I was wearing one red contact.)

And almost immediately got this in return:

Dude...LOVE the red contact...killer! Where did you get it?

And at this point, I’m kinda like, what’s going on here? We’re chatting back and forth like old friends, but the whole point of this exchange was that I wanted a job, and it seems like we’re moving away from that. But I figured what the hell and sent this:

The contacts are a brand called "Gothika." You can get all sorts of crazy lenses. I bought these online a couple years ago for a vampire costume (photo attached).

Now, not to toot my own horn, but that Nosferatu costume was bad ass. It is by far my best Halloween effort ever. I loved it, but in no way did I expect to get this kind of response back:

Get the fuck outta here! That rocks! Did you shave your head?

Keep in mind that there are actual emails I'm cutting and pasting here. So when I get a f-bomb email in response, like we're best buddies, I’m still very much where’s this going? But replied with this:

You bet. Shaved my head, shaved off my goatee, the works.

The best part? I lost the costume contest. To a guy who came in drag. Three years later, I'm STILL bitter about it.

And then, got this in response:

I want to hire you more than ever now.

I was home when I received this email and called The Scientist over. “What am I supposed to make of this?” I asked her. I mean, I was all about winning this guy over and making the jump to another agency, but then I started to worry that he was some sort of flake that would make a hiring decision based on a Halloween costume.

But, things at my current agency were really rather shitty, so I continued to play along.

Shit, say the word and I'll shave my head TONIGHT.

And I honestly figured that would be the end of it. This guy would send me an email that said Ha, ha! But unfortunately, like I said before, you’re too expensive for us. But keep in touch!

What I did not expect is this:

Let's grab coffee next week. I think it was the vampire picture. Let me know what works for you.

So we met for coffee. Spent the first 20 minutes talking about zombie movies. This guy, as it turns out, is a zombie NUT. He told me how he and his son will play a game where they pick the best places to hole up in case of a zombie apocalypse. He is INTO zombies.

The funny this is, I’m not. I mean, yeah, I enjoy a good zombie movie as much as the next guy, but I like most monster movies. It was just through a weird twist of fate that I suggested that the agency Halloween party be zombie themed, allowing me the present a zombie website for consideration and giving me the excuse to dress up like a zombie, which in turn gave me an in to showcase my vampire costume from three years ago which, it appears, so impressed this guy that he decided to interview me again.

Weird.

I mean, I have a good portfolio, and I took his advice and updated it with samples that better showed off my digital experience and my “big idea” creativity in general. I think (I hope!) that he wouldn’t have given the job to any smuck who happened to share his love for zombie movies.

So, long story short, he did offer me the job in the end. Not on the spot or anything, I still had to jump through several painful hopes for their HR department—including talking to SEVEN different HR people. But here I am, working for one of the largest agencies in northeast Ohio, the largest privately-held digital agency in the world, and the #1 “Agency to Watch” as rated by industry mag Advertising Age.

Thanks, Nosferatu!

###

#300 In which our hero reveals the rather unlikely story of how he got his job, part 1.

As promised, the tale of how I landed my current job.

About two and a half years ago the agency I was working at hired a new writer named Brad. When I was looking at Brad’s brief background info on the “welcome new hires!” wall, I noticed that we had worked at a lot of the same places. In fact, he had been hired in at my old job at The Columbus Dispatch shortly after I left.

We chatted and hit it off. But Brad was fired after three months. No fault of his own; the agency had staffed up anticipating that we would win at least one of the three new pieces of business we were pitching. When we ended up with none of them, the decision was made to “de-staff.” I’ve seen agencies make this sort of move before, and I’ve always thought it was pretty shitty.

Brad and I stayed in touch after he cleared out. He ended up going to Wyse Advertising, the same agency that I worked for when I first moved to Cleveland. Our careers were on weird parallel paths.

About a year ago Brad emails me out of the blue and tells me that he’s at a new agency, and they’re looking for a writer. Up to that point I had been really happy with the agency I was at, but things had started to go south there, and I was growing increasingly unhappy. So I shot Brad my resume. Someone from their HR department contacted me and the wheels of the interview process began to turn. But they were turning veeery sloooowly.

I had to fill out some online employment forms, and have a pre-interview phone interview with another recruiter from the agency and jump through a few other hoops. I was a little frustrated by the glacial pace of things, but I think Brad was even more frustrated. Which was understandable since he was the other writer and was getting severally shit upon with a ridiculous workload.

Finally Brad calls me and says, “Screw this! I’m just setting up an interview myself. You can meet me and my boss at Starbucks and we’ll talk.” He tells me his boss’s name and I’m like, jeez, that name sounds familiar.

About a week later I show up at the appointed time and place and find Brad already there. We get some coffee and chat for a bit. Then his boss (who’s the Group Creative Director for Cleveland) shows up and I realize that I do know this guy. In fact, we worked together at Wyse which is, remember, the same one that Brad went to after he was fired from my current agency. The advertising community is pretty insular in northeast Ohio.

He remembers me and we BS for a minute about how Wyse is doing, and the people that worked there, and so on. Then we get to my portfolio and start going through it.

Then, in the weirdest of coincidences, as we’re sitting at Starbucks with my book wide open on the table when who walks in but my old Creative Director from Wyse. He and the department’s writer (a guy I also worked with) just happened to be on that side of town for a client meeting and popped in to get some coffee. This guy sees Brad’s boss first and says, “Hey D. Good to see you.” Then he notices Brad (he didn’t know those two were working together now) and says, “And Brad! Hey!” Then he notices me, and says, “And Craig? What the hell is going on here?!”

We all laugh and share a small world moment. Then he sees my portfolio and starts flipping through it. It’s funny because I still have work from my time at Wyse in there and he’s like, “Oh yeah! I remember this project!”

It’s all rather odd.

We finally get back to my interview and it’s all pretty positive. My work is mostly traditional advertising (i.e., print ads, radio, brochures) and the place I’m interviewing for is a digital agency (mostly websites and email) so there’s a little concern there… not so much that I can’t do the job, more that the work I’m showing doesn’t put me in the best light to get hired.

Hands are shaken all around and it’s over.

What follows is a really disappointing series of emails from Brad and the HR department, that boil down to this: you’re awesome, but we’re not going to hire you right now. We’re going to hire a freelancer instead. Catch you next time.

So that’s that.

A year passes. Brad and I stay in touch, and he laments how the freelance writers they’re getting in suck and how they should have hired me.

Then, about five months ago, the creative director tweets “Immediate opening for a copywriter in Cleveland. Send me your resumes.”

I pat myself on the back for being smart enough to add this guy to my Twitter feed after our last meeting and shoot off an email right away.

What happens next is so strange that I still have a bit of trouble believing it’s all for real.

###

#299 In which our hero tries to catch up.

The blog’s been dark for a couple months not because I don’t have anything to write about, but just the opposite. Lots of big stuff has been happening lately. Some highlights:

Mom’s Health

After all the doom and gloom in the past six months, mom is actually doing really well. I mean, she has COPD and as such, she’ll never have the quality of life she once did. She progressed rapidly from needing oxygen when she exerted herself, to needing it for longer periods while she recovered from illness, to full time. For a long time she keep telling me that she was sure that she’d get off her oxygen as soon as she recovered from the latest bout of flu or pneumonia or whatever.

She doesn’t say that any more.

It’s pretty clear that she is now permanently tethered to her O2 tank. In fact, there was an incident several weeks ago where she lost power in the middle of the night, meaning her oxygen concentrator machine stopped working. She didn’t think she had enough bottled O2 to make it through the night (she only keeps a few small bottles in the house, enough for her to take with her when running errands) and she panicked. She called 9-1-1 and the local fire department brought her a big bottle of O2. Of course, the power came back on an hour later.

She said it was quite the fuss in the neighborhood. She laughed it off, but I know full well that the reason it was a fuss in the neighborhood is that when people see an ambulance in my mother’s driveway, they assume the worst. And they should.

But, as of now mom’s in pretty good shape, all things considered. Even her latest cancer scans came back clear. And the weather’s finally starting to turn, so mom’s getting back out and about. Being how social my mother is, this is a critical turn of events.

Bullying at School

Lily (my 7-year-old) had a run-in with a bully at her daycare. She had mentioned had N. was sometimes mean to her, and both The Scientist and I witness N. being a little bossy, but we really didn’t make much of it.

But one day while my wife was picking up, she was there when this little girl mouthed off to the teacher. The Scientist chided her (that the teacher didn’t immediately address this disrespectful kid is a whole other story) telling her that she was being rude, and shouldn’t talk to her teacher, or any grown-up, like that. She pouted a bit, and stomped off. A couple minutes later one of N’s hangers-on came over and told my wife, “N. says she doesn’t care what you say, because you’re not her mommy.” So The Scientist went over to N. and said, “Y’know what? I know your mommy and maybe I’ll just talk to her about your behavior directly.” This seemed to put the fear of God into her, and she straightened up. For the rest of that day, at least.

But soon after Lily started telling us that N. was bothering her at school. We told her to ignore N. as best as she could and not engage her. But Lily said that she tried that, and N. would follow her around the classroom, taunting her and basically being a shit.

So, the next day of daycare, The Scientist pulled the center director aside and told her what was going on. And then the director pulled N. aside and said something to her. Whatever it was, the situation seems to be handled. N. isn’t bothering Lily any more, and even plays with her sometimes. Lily is such a sweet kid that she holds no grudge whatsoever.

It’s tempting to just dismiss this as kids being kids, but it worries me. Mostly because Lily is such a sensitive soul, and it only takes something minor, like being excluded from group activities by one mean girl, to set her off. And bullies, like the proto-mean girl N., feed off of that. I worry that Lily will constantly be the target of shitty kids who enjoy making other kids cry. Part of me wants to always be there to intervene and smack down anyone who dares hurt my child; but another part of me wants Lily to learn to be tough, and deal with crap like this herself. I’m sure the real answer is somewhere in-between the two.

Employment

And now, the really big news! I quit my job! And got another one! Not necessarily in that order!

I’d been increasingly unhappy at my job for some time. First, it was in Akron, meaning a 45-minute commute every day. Which sucked in terms of gas consumed and wear and tear on my car but, honestly, after five years I had gotten used to the drive. In fact it was kinda nice to have the time to listen to the news or, more often, audio books. But still, in the winter you could count on at least a couple days in which the 45-minute drive turned into two hours or more. And it was always a pain to juggle kid pick-up and afterschool activities with the drive.

The agency had also changed considerably from when I first started. Five years ago it was fairly laid back, and really tried to keep things fun with monthly activities like a 5 o’clock ice cream social, or 2 o’clock margaritas or an impromptu pancake breakfast.

But, over time that stuff started to go away. My department used to have departmental outings; for example, we all took off at noon one day and went bowling. That stopped happening, mostly because the volume of work demanded that we needed people there at their desks churning out the work at all business hours.

And that’s really the biggest thing that got to me, the agency turned into a factory. It felt like we were all on an assembly line, and the overriding goal to was crank out a large volume of work. If it was good work, and creative work, that was a plus. But mostly we needed to hit the deadlines. Which became shorter and shorter, most of the work due in a day or less. And even the projects where we had enough time to give them some good thought got short shrift, since they went to the bottom of the pile so we could address the short deadline stuff.

I had some run-ins with account people who actively dissuaded creative thought in favor of “safe” concepts that would sail by the client. More and more I was put into the position to create copy that wasn’t the best, just the least objectionable.

Everyone in the Creative Department was worn down. I didn’t even put up much of a fight anymore when confronted with absurd deadlines or piss-poor direction. I just rolled over and did what I was told.

Which is the worst possible situation a creative person can him themselves in. Because I really believe that creativity is a muscle, and if you don’t exercise it regularly, it will atrophy and die. I was very much in jeopardy of having that happen. Which could mean that not only was I not doing my job very well, but I might actually be hurting my chances at ever getting another job. I’ve seen co-workers who have a portfolio of work they did five, ten years ago. With nothing creative to show done recently. That’s a huge red flag to a perspective new employer.

Even so, I only half-heartedly looked for another job. And, as it turned out, a job found me. This is such a ridiculous story that I’m going to write it up as its own post. Stay tuned!

###

#289 In which our hero makes a pointless post.

I’ve recently come to the conclusion that most of what I do at my job is pointless.

As my long-time readers (both of you) already know, I work in advertising. I actually love it, which seems to fly in the face of what I’ve written above. But I don’t see advertising like other people do, i.e., blaringly loud TV commercials that interrupt your favorite show just as it’s getting good, or obnoxiously scented ads that fall into your lap when you open your favorite magazine.

I see it as a dynamic job in which I help connect people with products they need in creative, entertaining ways. I get to do something different every day, and am faced with new challenges that push me to improve my skills.

That is to say, that’s what my job should be. That’s not the day-to-day reality.

No, the fact is that at my current agency my real job is to creative advertising that makes the client happy. That’s job 1. Not connecting with customers, or positioning the brand or, even, selling product. It’s making the client happy.

And not even that, really. What I’m really tasked with is not making the client unhappy. So, if I work on advertising that touches on brand promises, clears their legal department easily and doesn’t offend anyone… they’re happy. Not happy like “Wow! That’s great advertising! This is really going to move some product!” More like, “Good, this won’t rock the boat and force me to do more work then the bare minimum I need to.”

Let me give an example. Well, not an example really… I don’t want to lose my job, so I’ll speak in generalities.

One of the clients I work for is a large food manufacturer. One of those mega-conglomerates that makes everything from frozen pizza to gumballs. One of the many things we create and execute for this client are FSIs. FSI stands for “free-standing insert,” and it is that loose piece of paper printed with a coupon that you find stuffed into the center of your Sunday paper.

And coupon is the critical part of that description. The only reason that FSIs exist are as a vehicle to get that coupon into the hands of a shopper. They aren’t designed to build brand awareness, make you feel good about the company, or any of the touchy-feeling stuff that Marketing Directors love to talk about. One reason: coupon into hand.

And I’m sure you get that. I mean, if you’re a coupon clipper you’re used to flipping through all those sheets and putting aside the coupons for products that you like or would like to try. I seriously doubt that you take the time to really read the rest of the page… the part that talks about the wholesome ingredients or the earth-friendly manufacturing process or whatever. You just want the 50 cents off.

The clients I work with, however, do NOT get this. They think that this FSI is just as valuable as a marketing tool as it is a coupon delivery tool. And part of me gets where they’re coming from. They’ve been taught through marketing classes or from their superiors that each touchpoint on the path to purchase is an opportunity to herald that brand position and blah, blah, blah.

Coupon. Into. Hand.

But these clients labor over every tiny aspect of the FSI. Should it say “delicious ingredients” or “taste-tempting ingredients”? Are we showing enough racial diversity in this ad for hot dogs? We need to change the photo because the kid shown is a little overweight, and that doesn’t support our health and wellness platform.

And so on.

I want to shout at them, “Hey! The only part that people look at is the coupon! If you want to up your redemption, make the whole fucking page your coupon!” Honestly, that’s all you need to do: slap on a nicely shot photo of a slice of your frozen pizza or mini corndog or whatever and make the 75 CENTS OFF as big as you can. Or better yet, if you want people to buy your stuff, give them more money off. A $1 coupon will redeem better than a 75 cents coupon any day of the week.

Instead, I say things like, “Okay, we’ll try to find some stock photography with a more fit child,” or “Okay, we’ll try stacking the packaging vertically instead of horizontally,” or “I’ll change ‘healthy’ to ‘healthful’ to make the lawyers happy.”

This pointless revision and effort over such minor advertising vehicles is exhausting. And, worst of all, it seems like that’s most of what I do nowadays.

###

#275 In which our hero keeps his eye on an odd office in his building.

The building I work in used to be a big warehouse. At some point it was refurbished and transformed into offices. But they cut away the floors in the center of the building, leaving a really cool open atrium kind of space. Some of the offices have windows that face into the atrium.

There’s also a breezeway from the parking lot across the canal, which is where I park. I walk across the breezeway every day, past an office that has a row of windows looking out into the atrium. But by the way they’re positioned, they’re also looking into the walkway. So anyone sitting in that office is pretty much at eye level for people walking in to work.

This is going somewhere, so stick with me.

So, this one office space was vacant for a long time (there’s also an office on the opposite side, but the tenants of that space were smart enough to install blinds, which they never open). One day when I was walking in, I saw that a business has moved into the space; architects, judging from the rolls and rolls of blueprints.

The space is basically one big open room, with a conference room (which also has a window opening to the atrium) and a couple small offices with doors on the far side. There also appears to be a small waiting area and reception desk, but I can’t really see that from the walkway.

The new tenants moved eight or so big wood desks into the space, abutting them back to back, like an office environment from the 50s. I thought it was interesting, and looked forward to seeing people sitting in those desks, staring across at each other, sketching architectural renderings longhand and smoking Lucky Strikes.

But no people ever came.

Days, then weeks went by, and I never once saw a person in the office. I supposed it was possible that they were out in the field, overseeing construction or something, and only occasionally came to the office. Maybe after 5pm, when I was already speeding north.

So I took note of one desk in particular, which had a fat, loosely rolled blueprint atop two small, tightly rolled blueprints. I watched to see if they ever moved.

Every day, as I walked in, I took note of the blueprints: one fat on top of two tight. No lights were ever on in the office, no signs of people having been there. And the blueprints never moved.

Now, it wasn’t like the place was just a storage area, there were desks with chairs, a big conference table in the conference room, staplers and the like… clearly people were meant to work there.

But no-one ever did.

This went on for months and months. One day I took a side-trip around the corner to look at their front door. It had the company name stenciled on it, and they were commercial architects, as I suspected. There were no lights on, and I wasn’t brave enough to try the door.

Almost there.

Then one day, I came walking across the breezeway as normal to find a work crew in the office. They were hauling out all the big 50s-era desks and replacing them with modern-style cubicles. On my way out I saw that they must have installed a dozen of these cloth-lined cubies, each with its own desk, overhead drawers, chair and computer.

And still, no people working there.

I found this all more than passing odd. I asked a couple of people at work about it, but they were as clueless as me.

Then! One day, I came to work and saw a woman working! She was sitting in one of the cubies, with her computer and chair positioned so that she was looking out the window. She had brought in a picture to hang on the wall, and some deck doo-dads to personalize her space. It looked like she was going to be there for a while.

And now we get to the part that bugs me.

Every morning when I come to work, if she’s already there working, I’ll glance over at her, and she’ll look up over her computer screen, and she’s give me a dirty look, as if to say, “What are YOU looking at?”

She is literally the only person in an office FULL of cubicles, all but three of which do not face this window, and run no risk of having the occupant accidentally make eye contact with another human. If you’re so annoyed that I’m peeking in on your own private work world… then move. Anywhere. Or just turn your computer so that it’s not facing the window. It’s really that easy!

The odd thing is, I still haven’t seen anyone else there. Just this one woman with the miniature stop sign and photos of (presumably) her children on her desk.

Maybe I’ll get a sheet of paper and write a little sign to hold up next time I pass:

GET SOME BLINDS

###

#272 In which our hero receives a message from the past.

I’ve previously mentioned this cool website, Futureme.org, in which you can send messages to yourself in the “future,” that is, these messages are stored somewhere and not delivered until the future date you set.

I had sent future-me a message at one point, but I forgot how long I set it to wait. Every once in a while this website would bubble up to the surface of my mind and I’d wonder if that message would ever come. But it had been so long I assumed the service just didn’t work.

But I got my past message yesterday!

I had completely forgotten what I had written, and it was really funny to (re)read. Message follows with commentary.

Hello Future Craig!

It is June 10, 2004 as I write this. The kinda cool website futureme.org says it will send this to you any time in the future... I'm going to set it for five years. I wonder what'll be different by then.

Right now, Lily is only seven months old. Just in the past week has she started to really crawl, she can get around now! By the time you read this she should be walking and talking (something she can't do at all now), and will be even more a real little person. I hope to God she finally grew some hair.

Wow, it’s amazing how little I knew about kids then. I though she’d be walking and talking at age 5? Holy crap, this kid can run like a demon. And talk? She spins these amazingly elaborate tales that never fail to surprise and delight me. She’s so much more of a real person at age 5 that I could ever of imagined.

And it’s hard to remember that it took Lily so long to grow hair. Now she has thick, luxurious red hair halfway down her back.

You're working at ADPRO right now... it's not terrible.

Well, it certainly got terrible. This would have been my first year there, and it was, as reported, okay. Not terrible, not wonderful. That would come later. As an aside, I’m going to censor some of the names that follow, but I don’t have to obscure the agency name since it went out of business less than a year after firing me. No real surprise there… it was struggling financing well before I started working there.

Your boss is XXXX XXXXXXX, who isn't a horrible boss, but he's clearly out to cover his own ass first, and screw everyone else. At the beginning of the month you were turned down for a raise, even though XXXX (says he) wanted to give you one. You're still more than a little bitter about that.

This was the first sign that ADPRO was not a healthy place to work. My boss outright lied about compensation, making it sound like it was likely that I would get a raise at 6 months, 12 months, 18 months… while the truth was that no one in the agency had received a bump in compensation in YEARS. So yeah, I was bitter… and still am. This is alleviated somewhat by the information I received a while back that my former boss is now working for an extremely small shop (like 5 people) and the two principals work him into the ground and don’t appreciate his work. This may or may not be true, but I choose to believe that he’s getting a taste of his own medicine now.

You work with XXXX XXXXXXX and XXXXX XXXXXXXX, graphic designers.

The first of which was fired four months before me, the second of which quit several months after me. I’m not in touch with either any more.

AE XXXX XXXXX is one of the bigger assholes you've ever had to work with.

Man, that was the truth. In a weird twist of fate, this guy came in to interview at my current agency. I really wanted to run to the general manager and torpedo any chance he had to actually getting hired… but I didn’t. I guess I believe that what comes around goes around, and I’m not willing to roll those dice. Man that guy was a dick. He wasn’t hired here anyway.

You and [The Scientist] and just starting to pack up the house in preparation to moving. Actually, [The Scientist] has started, and you're dragging your feet because you fucking hate moving. I hope you guys found a nice house... bigger, nicer room for Lily, bigger kitchen, PLEASE.

This must have been when we were just moving stuff into a storage area to de-clutter it and make it feel bigger. We ended up selling our house much quicker than expected, and had to scramble a bit to find a new one. Which we did in short order. But not without first having to deal with a bunch of bullshit which is chronicled here.

And a bedroom for Lily's new brother or sister? S/he should be born by now, huh? Wonder how that went. Another C-section for [The Scientist]? I hope it was less stressful for you guys this time.

Let me do the math. This was sent June 10, 2004. Macey was born June 9, 2005. So, The Scientist wasn’t even pregnant yet, by a couple of months. I don’t really remember this, but The Scientist and I must have planned when we were going to try for #2 pretty carefully.

[The Scientist] just started the job at XXXXXXXX. Knowing her, she'll be at this job for 10 years. I hope she still likes it... after hating her job for so long, she deserves one that she likes at least a little.

She still likes it. So, yah!

You're still driving the Neon. I really hope by the time you read this that you have a new car.

Ah, my old red Neon. How I loved that car. I really wanted to get another manual, but The Scientist insisted that I get an automatic. Which has worked out for the best, I suppose. But I miss that zippy little 5-speed.

You love your wife very much. Looks like[REDACTED].

This section detailed some personal stuff that my wife and I had to work through which you--nameless, faceless Internet--need not know about. Suffice it to say that we did indeed work it out.

Man, she's one hot piece of ass.

That sentiment is no less true now than it was five years ago.

Hope all is well with you and yours,

craig, circa 2004.

The Scientist thinks I should write another one. If I set if for another five years, that would make Lily 10 and Macey 9. I can’t even imagine what those kids will be like then. And The Scientist and I will have been married 13 years.

Here’s hoping that her ass remains as hot as it is now.

***

#262 In which our hero somewhat reluctantly participates in a questionable company-mandated charity contest.

My agency is big on charity work. Not pro bono advertising work (which is a little odd) but general fund-raising and collections. We typically “adopt” several underprivileged families around Christmas and provide gifts, coats and assorted stuff, for example.

Recently, we had a food drive. The deal was that the charity organization would provide us with ten 55-gallon plastic barrels, and we were to fill them up with canned goods, paper products and other non-perishables. Which is all and good.

But, then an email went out explaining how we were going to turn this food drive into a FUN! activity for the entire agency! We were going to decorate the barrels! You would randomly be assigned to a team, and your team would get together to brainstorm how to decorate the shit out of your barrel! Oh, what fun would be had!

This reeks of mandated participation, which doesn’t thrill me. Years ago I worked for The Columbus Dispatch newspaper. The owner’s pet charity was United Way, and he liked to brag that 100% of his employees contributed. This was achieved by strong-arming anyone who didn’t want to participate. And, honestly, it was coercion, plain and simple. At the time I was working in the phone room, and not making a fortune by any stretch of the imagination. So I didn’t really want to give any money to charity, especially when I could better use that money to pay off my credit card debt. But when I didn’t immediately return my United Way form, my boss, then my boss’s boss came down on me. First it was a nice “ah, come on, donate a$1 a week, that’s not so much, is it?” Then it became, “Y’know, John F. [the owner of the paper] takes United Way contributions very seriously. You wouldn’t want to piss off the president, would you?” It was all really obnoxious.

So, I wasn’t excited by this apparently mandatory contest BS. But I went to the initial group meeting because… well, because I want to keep my job. And every little thing I can do to make myself seem like a team player/someone management wants to keep around, I’m going to jump at it.

And, it just so happened that one of the guys on my team is the same jackass who beat me out of the Halloween costume contest two years ago. And, as you may remember, I’m still bitter about that.

And this guy came to the meeting prepared. He had sketches of what he thought we should do to decorate the barrel. Which was to but a gigantic nutcracker head on to of it, with a working mouth to accept the canned goods. Now, I’ll admit this is an intriguing idea, but how the hell do you make that work? Was this guy going to craft a giant nutcracker head out of paper mache? When someone asked him how to do it, his answer was, “I dunno, we could carve it out of foam or something.”

Now, my original plan was to go to the meeting but not really help that much. I was busy with my real job, after all. But, I would be goddamned if I’d like this guy get his way. I had what I thought was a pretty damn clever idea, and I told the group about it. And, more importantly, it was 100% executable. I sketched it out on a piece of paper and passed it around.

After some debate (some dumbasses still wanted to make this unmakable nutcracker head) it was deceived to do my idea: Santa’s reindeer.

My idea was simple: do something that no other group would think of (it was a competition, after all): turn the barrel on its side, make sawhorse legs, and make a head with antlers. It came together easily in my head.

Then I made a mock-up, using foamcore and a Mountain Dew can as a proxy for the barrel. It looked great. So I told everyone I’d cut the real deal out over the weekend and bring it in on Monday.

That weekend it took me about four hours to cut the parts out of plywood. It went amazingly easily, especially considering that I’m not at all handy. Another 15 minutes of brown spray paint, and it was done.

I brought it in and started to assemble it. I told the rest of my group that all they needed to do was find a blanket or piece of cloth or something to cover the barrel, and a red nose. One $5 blanket from Walmart and a foam nose later, and it was done.

Behold!



I was really pleased with how well it all came together. Most of the other barrels were more traditional in design (there were a lot of chimneys with Santa coming down, an angel, Oscar the Grouch in his trashcan, things like that. None of the other entries put the barrel on its side.

I thought that gave us a good chance of winning but, honestly, what I really thought would put us over the top was the butt:

I made a plug for the open part of the barrel, with a trap door. The idea is you had to lift the deer’s tail to stick the canned goods in it. That’s right, you had to stuff the food up the deer’s butt.

Given the mental age of a large portion of the agency, I thought this was the perfect gimmick to give our entry the edge. And it was certainly more fun that some half-assed nutcracker head.

I should have known better.

The votes were tallied, and my reindeer lost. By two votes. TWO! I can’t win a damn thing at this agency.

However, the entry we lost to was very cool. It was a Starbucks’ holiday cup, complete with hot chocolate and whipped cream. It was beautiful. Not as innovative as my entry, but very cool. If I had to lose, I’m okay with losing to that entry.

Okay… but still bitter.

###

SOUR HOUR

Speaking of Halloween; you might wonder if I dressed up for my work's annual Halloween party. You might wonder this because you remember that my costume last year was fucking AWESOME (if I do say so myself).

Now, the prize for best costume last year was a pair of round-trip tickets to anywhere in the continental United States. Not a bad prize. I wanted to win them, bad.

I did not.

Instead, this jackass won by dressing up like a woman. Ugh. I was rather put out by the entire thing. I debated if I wanted to make an effort to dress up this year or not; I was still pissed about losing to the tranny (Still, after an entire year? Oh yes.) but I enjoy making and wearing costumes, and if there was a good prize I figured I'd go for it. But, then the prizes were announced and the grand prize for the costume contest (a $50 gift certificate) was less than inspiring.

But, since I'm a good sport, I dressed up anyway:


Yep, I was "Bitter." My costume was a big hit. There were a surprisingly large number people who still remember last year's costume and think I was robbed.

Which I was. Yep, still bitter.

###

#255 In which our hero discusses what was said to him by a coworker recently causing flames to shoot out of his eyes (our hero, not the coworker)

nIf you follow my Twitter account, you already know that a coworker called me an “asshole” last week. And I mean really called me an asshole, in anger, with malice. I have to make that distinction because when creative people in the advertising industry get together the conversation often quickly drops to the level of 8-year-olds on the playground.

I’m not going to get into the particulars of the project because a.) it wouldn’t be wise for me to discuss actual client work on my dumb blog and b.) it’s irrelevant to the story. What this really is about (other than the account executive (or AE) in question being an arrogant knob who’s pretty piss-poor at his job) is the constant and universal struggle between AEs and the creative staff.

I’ve worked at several agencies, and it’s always like this. The reality is that the system we all labor under is really set up to fail. It works like this: the client gives some sort of direction about what s/he wants in the latest print ad/radio spot/brochure/whatever. The AE in turn takes that information and relays it to the creative staff, usually in the form of a written document (generally called a “brief.”) The problem should already be obvious: the creative staff, ie., the people who will actually write and design the end result, are getting the information from the client second-hand. To make matters worse, we’re getting the information in a written document, usually well after the actual meeting between AE and client. So we don’t have the opportunity to ask question as the information is being relayed to us, then, if we do go back to the AE and ask questions, the information is no longer fresh in his/her mind.

So every project generally starts at a deficient.

But that’s just a little background, and not really important to what the AE called me (which, you’ll remember, is “asshole.”)

So we have a industrial parts manufacturer with a new product. They are very excited about this new product, so they’re pulling out all the stops to tell the world about it: brochures, trade show panels, email alerts, new mini-website and more. So we, the creative staff, get all this crap thrown at us and we start digging through it, producing the most important bits first. The website, which this tale hinges on, is pushed to the bottom of the pile, because it’s not a critical element and is quick and easy to turn around.

So early last week the AE suddenly sends out an email saying, “Hey, what’s up with the website? I want to show the client something on Friday.” He hadn’t indicated that there was any urgency with this part of the project up until this part. And honestly, it wasn’t a big deal, because the art director and I had been working on it, off and on, all along, and we had finished stuff to show.

Then it got interesting.

The AE looks at our work, then sends out an email the next day. It’s a three page mini-site and he has commentary about each page. And this next part is the problem.

Account executives aren’t writers. They aren’t designers. The best of them have insights into what the client likes and dislikes, what hot buttons set them off or make them fall in love with projects, and can share this insight with you to make the project better. But this guy isn’t the best of the best. And in his commentary, he wasn’t providing any insight anyway, he was art directing the project. And more to the point, it wasn’t really about his comments, it was about the way he delivered them. He was arrogant and condescending, and gave himself a lot more credit then he was due. “This layout is too busy,” he wrote in his email, “and where are the bullets that were outlined on the brief?”

So, hackles up, I write an email in response, saying that the creative team doesn’t think the layout is too busy, and that all the information from the brief is in there, if he would look for it (I said this in a more polite way). The emails keep going back and forth, and get a little heated. His attitude is clearly: I TOLD you want to do, why aren’t you art monkeys following orders?

My attitude is “fuck that guy.” Because he’s trying to act as a creative director, and he has neither the experience or aptitude to do it. My email responses are getting shorter, but haven’t crossed the line to insulting yet.

Finally, the associate creative director and I end up in the art director’s office. The AE storms in all in a huff. The ACD says “Okay, what’s the problem with this layout?”

The AE says, as closely as I can remember it: “ALL I need to know is how this animation is going to work. THAT’S ALL. You just have to give me the information. There’s no need”--and here he looks directly at me--“to be an ASSHOLE in emails!”

Yeah, I know, a little anticlimactic. He didn’t say, “Hey, you’re an asshole!” but it was clear from his body language that he was saying exactly that.

Anyway, I am FURIOUS. And, I’ve been known to fly off the handle once or twice, especially when needlessly confronted by incompetents, so I immediately get up and square off with the guy and say, “Look! I’m not the one being an asshole here!”

The ACD intercedes and brings things back down to a reasonable level--which is nothing short of miraculous being that this ACD is an angry little man--and we hash things out reasonably. I think some of it was miscommunication, but more of it was this AE needed a dumb amount of hand-holding because he can’t properly do the job on his own. All the information he needed really was right there, if he took a moment to think about the project and look at the supporting materials.

So now the guy is all fakey nice-nice with me, as usual. Maybe he’s already moved past it. But I have been known to keep grudges FOREVER and can’t imagine I’m going to forget this any time soon.

But that’s just me being an asshole.

WORK SHIRK

When I eventually go into Lily or Macey's classroom for Career Day and some snotty-nosed kid asks me what it takes to be a good copywriter; I'm going to tell him this:

"Think of something you don't care about. I mean really, really don't care about. Something that never even entered into your consciousness before. Maybe it's the Snail Darter controversy; maybe it's hair replacement surgery. After you've got it, sit down and write a 16-page brochure about how amazingly awesome that thing is. If you can do that--you have the chops to be a legendary copywriter."

I, myself, will probably never be a legendary copywriter.

###

WORK JERK

I've been thinking about my job a lot lately; my career, actually. Nothing I'm dumb enough to post publicly, but it's been on my mind. Ugh. Big thoughts. Make my brain hurt.

Here's a video that you may or may not find amusing. I find it hilarious, because it's true. A hack. An egomaniac. That's me.

###

#237 In which our hero thinks big thoughts.

I’ve been thinking about my career quick a bit lately. Not surprising, being that next month is my two year anniversary at this agency. Assuming I manage to avoid being fired for the next 30 days, this will be the longest I’ve worked at any agency since moving to Cleveland.

I try not to be negative about it, but in my career, I have cause. In the six years I’ve been in Cleveland, I’ve worked at five agencies. That’s probably higher than the norm, but not terribly unusual in my field. Economy goes down, advertisers cut budgets, agencies go down, agencies cut people… it’s a vicious circle and I’ve been on the bent-over end of it several times.

Here’s the first time.

Here’s the second time (The Scientist was eight months pregnant for this one).

Here’s the third time (Macey was two months old for this one).

And being that the economy appears to be heading to another recession, this looms large in my mind. Except, I don’t really expect to get fired any time soon. I’ve probably just jinxed myself by typing that, but I feel like I’m in a really good place at this agency. In my two years here I’ve proven myself, stepped up to any challenge thrown my way. I’ve been rewarded with high profile assignments, and made the main writer on several big name clients. I even started a recycling program that has been so successful that the entire building participates in it, not just our agency.

But.

I can’t stop thinking about some insight I got from a co-worker years ago. The only way to get a substantial raise, he told me, is to go to another agency.

And in my decade of experience, I’ve found that to be absolutely true. If you get a regular raise (which in my experience has NOT happened more than it has happened) it’s always cost of living, never any more. Regardless of stellar job performance evaluations, it’s always the absolute minimal that an employer can get away with.

And I get this. It’s management’s job to keep costs low, and salary is the #1 cost to an ad agency. I don’t begrudge them, really. But I do want to be rewarded for doing good work. And most of my career, the reward for good work was not being fired. It’s really hard to shake that lingering fear that I could once again be called into Human Resources and told to close the door.

But, being respected (to my face, at least) and liked at this agency has given me the confidence to ask around, poke at some people and see what are my chances of actually making some more money.

And answer is slim to none.

I gently asked my boss today where she saw me going in the future; what promotions might exist. She said that while she didn’t know if a promotion to associate creative director (the next rung on the ladder in my department) would happen this year or over the next couple years (translated, that means it will NOT happen) she definitely saw me in the position of being the “lead” on more major clients and maybe even a “creative manager.” There are two roles which entail more responsibility and more work… but no more money.

This bums me out.

So the big question is: should I start looking around again? I have my resume up on Monster.com and all the appropriate job sites, of course, but I haven’t actively sent out resumes in two years. Not since I got this job.

The big problem is that I love this job, and this agency. The client list is good, my co-workers are nice and talented, management is hands-off for the most part. It’s a fun place to work.

But if I want a big bump in pay, I think I’m going to have to jump ship. But I kinda don’t want to. Even if I ended up at a place as enjoyable as this, there’s no guarantee that I wouldn’t be laid off the next month when the economy shits the bed. So I’m wrestling with the concept of how much money is enough money to roll the dice again.

The entire concept frightens me, and I’ve generally shied away from things that frighten me. But, I also think that the only way to gain great rewards is to take great chances.

I dunno.

###

SURVEY NO WAY

Helpful hint of the day: if a telemarketer calls you with a survey, and you want to get off the phone but don’t want to be rude, tell them you work in advertising. Call I got last night:

TELEMARKETER: Hello sir, I’m {didn’t catch it} with {didn't care} and I’d like to ask you a few brief questions.
ME: Okay.
TM: Is there anyone in the household between the ages of 30 and 34?*
ME: Actually, no.
TM: Is there a male between the ages of 34 and 42?
ME: Yes, I am.
TM: Great! First, do you or anyone in your household work in any of the following professions? Advertising or--
ME: Yes.
TM: Advertising?
ME: Yes.
TM: Um, what is it you do?
ME: I’m a writer.
TM: Oh, do you have anything to do with radio advertising?
ME: Sure. In fact, I wrote some radio scripts just today.
TM: Oh. Um, I think that might disqualify you from the survey.
ME: It usually does.
TM: Let me just check… {moment later} Yeah, I’m afraid that disqualifies you from the survey.
ME: No problem.

Now, unlike most people, I want to take these surveys, because I’m often using the info on the other side. I’m always curious about how the questions are phrased, if they are leading or misleading, and what order they are presented in. Phone surveys are notoriously unreliable, because there’s nothing stopping the recipient from lying outrageously.

And, depending on how clever you are with the questions, you can really get just about any result you want. Typically, on the surveys where they allow me to participate, I have a really good idea by the end of who’s sponsoring the research and/or what product(s) they are gathering information for. It’s fun. Well, for me, maybe.

I guess I could lie myself, and tell them I’m a bricklayer or whatever. But then I’d just be giving some poor copywriter down the road bad info.


* WTF? This is the first time that I’ve been aged out of a survey. For a long time I’ve been in that golden zone, the male aged 18-35 that all marketers want to target. I’m going to be royally pissed if I get bumped up to the next age range, and find myself lumped with 40-65-year-olds.

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OBEY DAY

We have name plates on our offices at work. They are actually CD cases... the idea being that instead of just having boring wall-mounted name tags, everyone in the agency could design their own album cover. Here's the new one I put together yesterday:

Sadly, to date, no-one has.

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LOCKDOWN TOWN

Decided that I wanted something else for lunch rather than what I had brought. I headed out to the front doors, only to find them locked. The receptionist came around the front of her desk to confront me.

ME: Why are the doors locked?
RECEPTIONIST: Oh, sorry, Craig. There’s, um, a security issue in the building, which I can’t reveal.
ME: What?
RECEPTIONIST: If you want, I can let you out, then just call when you want to come back in. Or you can use your keycard to get out the back door.
ME: Um, okay. I’ll get my card, I guess.

So suddenly I was in the position of deciding if it was worth my life to go down to the deli on the first floor for a grilled cheese sandwich. I decided it was.

I poked my head out of the door and looked around. Coast seemed to be clear. Then I looked over the railing of the atrium, and it appeared to be business as usual. People where getting food from the deli, eating in the little food court area, wandering in and out of offices.

It soon became clear that whatever was happening, it was just in our agency. And, as I write this, it still is. No-one knows what’s going on. HR isn’t talking. We’re in lock-down, and no-one will say why.

Very odd.

If I had to guess, I’d say it was a threat against a specific employee. Maybe an angry boyfriend situation? At least, I hope that’s what it is. Because if someone called the president and said they were going to blow up the agency, well… I think I’d go home. Yeah, I’m pretty sure I’m not willing to risk my life for any of the clients I work with.

That’s all I know about the situation at this time. I’ll update later, if I survive.

EDIT: As of 1:45pm the front doors are now open. I happened to run into the relentlessly chipper HR Director in the hall and had this conversation:

ME: Hey, I don't suppose you could tell me why we were on lockdown?
HR: We had some security issues to deal with. And now they've been dealt with!
ME: Un-huh. In other words, no, you can't tell me.
HR: But I did! The issues have been resolved! We're all secure again! Doesn’t that answer your question?
ME: It would if I had asked you to tell me in the vaguest and most obscure way possible.
HR: Ha-ha!

So, apparently my life is no longer in danger. I hope.

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#230 In which our hero does his part to save the planet, which avoiding any actual work on his part.

I don’t remember if I’ve written about this before, but I’m the recycling guy at my work. I never intended to become the recycling guy, but become him I did. It went down like this.

Couple of weeks after I started here, I noticed that the agency doesn’t recycle. I’d see aluminum cans in the trash, and it bugged me. Now, I’m not the super-dedicated save the earth type, but we recycle at home. Generally speaking, it’s not that hard to do, and it’s a good thing for the earth. Mother Earth, good karma, all that crap.

At work we have a suggestion box. You can drop in anonymous suggestions, or put your name to them. I bypassed that entire system and went right to the General Manager. Hey, I said. Noticed that we don’t recycle cans. We really should.

In my naivety, I assumed that this was a simple fix, and that no-one had thought of it before. I thought we could get in some recycle cans, and that would be the end of it.

Foolish me.

As it turns out, we didn’t recycle cans at the agency because the building doesn’t recycle aluminum. They do recycle white paper and cardboard, which is dutifully hauled out by the cleaning staff every night. But there was no provision for aluminum. Which struck me as silly, but there you go.

The GM’s suggestion was that I gather a group of like-minded people with curb-side recycling at home, and we all take turns taking the cans home at night. Which seemed rather unworkable, to me. I mean, I didn’t want to take a leaky bag full of soda cans home in the trunk of my car, and I suspected that neither would anyone else. So I told the GM I’d think about it, and get back to her.

First thing I did was call the city. They confirmed that even though Akron has curb-side pick-up, they wouldn’t pick up from commercial buildings. Then I called a couple recycling places; they wouldn’t pick up unless it was a large amount of aluminum, as in a ton or more. So that was out.

Finally I asked around if anyone in the agency was involved with scouting. This is where I hit the jackpot. The husband of one of our production people was the fundraising chair for their kid’s troop.

I made him a deal: have the scouts come pick up our cans every week or so, take them to a metals recycling place (one of which is conveniently located three miles away from the office) and they could keep all the money. Perfect.

Management was very supportive of recycling; they ordered special recycling cans to put in the kitchens, created space in the warehouse to store them, and allowed me to work with a designer to create some signs and flyers, etc. At which point I thought my work was done. It bugged me to see aluminum cans in the trash, and now people had somewhere else to put them. Mission accomplished!

Then, it was decided that we should recycle other things, too. We contracted with a waste hauling company to pick up our used magazines (you wouldn’t believe the sheer amount of magazines a typical ad agency goes through). And this same company would pick up newsprint and plastic, too (but not aluminum).

So then we had to order more recycling cans, and the cans turned into recycling stations and suddenly it takes me the better part of an hour to collect all the crap from three separate stations and co-ordinate with the waste company to schedule pick-ups. And it was decided that I needed a committee to deal with recycling; so now I chair a committee of 12 people (only about five of which ever do anything). But still, everything was working very smoothly.

Until two weeks ago.

That’s when the scouting fundraising chair guy came to me and said that since his kids had dropped out of scouts a year ago, and he was becoming too busy at work, he wasn’t going to be able to pick up the cans any longer. And, he continued, no-one else in the troop was willing to pick up the slack.

So now there are 20 bags of cans in the back, and I don’t know what to do with them. Well, that’s a lie, of course… a couple of the guys on the committee have pick-ups, so we’ll have to load up the cans and drive them over to the recycling place ourselves. Which defeats the entire purpose of getting an organization like the scouts involved: I didn’t want to actually do any of the work.

I have people on the committee looking into other solutions… but it’s starting to look like it’s going to be a pain in MY ass, and not someone else’s.

All this because I bugged me that people put cans in the trash.

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