Chasing Windmills

Continued from previous post…

Looking back, the corner office and all its trappings could be summed up via the old expression: be careful what you wish for. You’d gotten the carrot only to find out you didn’t like carrots. You’d grabbed the brass ring but it hurt like hell holding on. Climbing the ladder you hadn’t realized the rungs below would disappear until it was too late. There was no stepping down a few lengths to adjust, catch your breath, and assess the view. You had to keep climbing or plummet, which is exactly what happened. This was not to say certain ambitious and notorious colleagues hadn’t greased the rungs, expediting your fall; they had.

Came a time there wasn’t a safety net. No cushy job after the severance. No friends to catch you, even those you’d helped on their own ladders to the top. You try not to be bitter. What good would it do? Resentments were like taking poison and expecting others to suffer.

Enlightenment didn’t prevent you from occasionally trolling these pricks. Waves of resentment rolled in now and again, like the king tides in Marin, defeating you. Maybe you turned to the Internet, desperately trying to find an outlet for your vitriol. Mercifully, mostly, you never pressed send.

You remember the day you crossed the one hundred thousand dollar mark. When you were 30 years old, and recently married. You took Sarah out to celebrate, sat across from her in the restaurant, maybe even held her hand, speaking about the future as if it were a gift. If you ever were in love with her it was then, when nothing felt impossible. That night even drinking too much seemed fine. You don’t remember if you and Sarah made love but it hardly mattered. Intoxicated, the two of you. The next morning hangovers were pleasant. Lazing together in pajamas, drinking coffee, reading the paper, gazing at homes in the real estate section, day dreaming about the fantastic tomorrows both of you would share.

And yet, even then, you knew money was most of all a yardstick for your ego. Titles would serve the same purpose. Copywriter. Senior Writer. Associate Creative Director. Creative Director. Vice President. Group Creative Director. Senior Vice President. Executive Creative Director. Rungs in the ladder. Notches in your belt.

Perhaps after achieving success, as was accused, you became complacent. It’s possible. You had made compromises, believing certain situations required it. You must wonder about that now.

You were most content when your work got noticed, won awards and attracted people to you. One campaign in particular ran the table at all the award shows, garnering praise around the world. It would become the agency’s show pony, and you rode it proudly. The best whore in the whorehouse and you were its pimp. The man. Waiting for an elevator at work, a group of marketing students gathered behind you. You heard one of them excitedly whisper to his mate. “That’s him!” He was talking about you. “No fucking way,” the other guy said.

Way.

Being revered was beyond anything you’d ever experienced, more gratifying than your promotions and trophies. And it had come unsolicited. Out of the ether! For what seemed like the first time, you’d been noticed for greatness not flaws. No longer were you the fat kid punched in the gut and crucified on the diving board. You were special, with proof. You’d waited so long for that moment had fantasized about it. Comeuppance. By then the fantasy was less about smashing your tormentors and more about gaining respect and validation. You had no idea what it would look like until that afternoon by the elevators, when the world shifted, ever so slightly, favoring you.

You chased that feeling like the drug that it was, madly looking for it in every promotion, every raise, every accolade. It was never enough but the next one would be.

Relationships and family took a back seat. Any idiot could find a mate and have babies. Friends were transient. Parents weren’t there. Finally, you had something you could control. What you craved was conditional and directly related to your accomplishments. Your vocation became the most important thing in your life. You drank. You got high. But it was just a byproduct of success or a panacea to failure. Finally, you had a calling.

You were chasing windmills.

Problem Child with a High Salary

You had lofty titles: Executive Creative Director, Chief Creative Officer, even Executive Chairman. You were on the board of directors at the most famous advertising agency in Chicago, supposedly the youngest member ever. During this period you commanded a huge salary, more than the President of the United States. Frankly, a lot more, especially when you factored in bonuses and stock options. You earned it; well maybe not all of it and toward the end probably less. Then you got asked to leave, to seek opportunities elsewhere, fired. The last time was probably the mortal blow. You didn’t know it but the job you had now was not going to last.

When it came to work, you were only great at two things: copywriting and presentations. You wrote your way into the boardrooms of the world, turning words over and over until they shone like gemstones. Once there, you would sell. Oh, could you ever! You loved selling and did not demure from it like so many other creative people. Those fools, you thought. Didn’t they know advertising and selling went hand in hand? Processing stage fright into stage-might, you had utter command. At times, it was breathtaking. You were excited to perform and it showed. Your confidence seldom came off as a con. During presentations you were like a kid unwrapping gifts at Christmas.

Alas, while showmanship mattered on the way up, once there, not so much. As a director, they wanted you to hire and fire; delegate and operate; things you came to realize you weren’t very good at. You liked to write and sell work. Truth be told, you weren’t interested in the other stuff. It all seemed beside the point, what you had to do as opposed what you wanted to do. Now it was you who was playing the fool.

At best, you’d possessed what the CEO called, “emotional intelligence,” a backhanded compliment, a quality your peers pretended to admire then grew to despise. In management meetings you lectured that creativity was messy and impossible to regimen. But alas, your left-brain partners valued process over intuition. They lacked patience for the soft skills inherent in the creation of ideas. They couldn’t scope it. So they loathed it. For a so-called creative agency this was, in your view, anathema. And so you had refused to whip your troops into creating. You put good ideas on the wall, and quickly. But it was never enough. Eventually, you became a problem child with a very high salary.

to be continued…

Fats (2)

At work, your business partner had taken issue with your daily visits to the Equinox, which was the gym by your office. You’d told him the truth, that it calmed you down and helped you think, that it made you a better creative. It was your lunch hour anyway, you’d said. He’d called bullshit on that and said you always went longer. Ignoring his warning, at noon the next day you marched right past his desk carrying your gym bag. Two months later you would exit the building carrying your belongings.

The gym does more than keep you fit. Working out nullifies the committee in your head, same as opiates and vodka once did. Albeit healthier, working out is still an addiction. It keeps you sane, same as going to meetings.

To be continued…

Holiday layoffs. Why now and why always the middle tier that gets the axe?

He’s making his list…

We read about holiday layoffs in the trades. Perhaps we experience them in our lives. A grim subject, I know. For I have been on both sides of this sad equation. What I’m about to tell you may not be morally right or wrong but it is a matter of fact.

First, a note on the obvious. Nobody likes to fire people. Especially during the holidays. We forget that, in the rush to create demons. Still, firing is better than being fired. Like I said: obvious.

Why now and why always the middle tier that gets it? Well, Virginia…

Since August, the CFO of your agency has been warning the CEO that the numbers are down. Way down. The CEO, being a glass half full guy, advises restraint in pushing the panic button – don’t want to alarm the troops or start any rumors! Besides, he says, the tide will turn. There’s still that pitch. They debate behind closed doors. Alas, come November, the shortfall is now impossible to ignore. Budget reports are due and the agency is, let’s say, $750,000 dollars below its target. And so the CEO calls together his or her management team: Managing Director, ECD, Head of Planning. A dour PPT ensues. New business did not come in. Organic growth was less than expected. Yada, yada, yada. To sum up, the CEO requests that every department cut a portion of overhead, say 250k each.

The Management Team goes off to their respective corners and creates a “list.” Rather than fire 5 junior people to arrive at his number the executive invariably chooses the highest salaried person he can do without. She figures she can pick up the slack or more likely beat it out of the kids. That, and it’s a hell of a lot easier to let go one person versus doing five. A couple ACD’s. An Account Sup. Two Senior Planners. Throw in that loose cannon from the production department. And Boom. A half dozen souls doomed. If the shortfall is bigger then so will the body count. By the time HR has the necessary paperwork completed it’s after Thanksgiving and just before Christmas. The result is another Black Friday.

Here’s the kicker, in case you missed it. Since the senior-most people were asked to create these lists that means neither they nor the askers appear on them. Gadzooks! This is perhaps unfair – it may very well be that one or two of them are the reason the agency is ailing in the first place. Likely even. What is certainly unfair is having now arrived at their targets the senior executives qualify for a bonus. You may ask, could not the bonus pool have filled the shortfall, sparing jobs? Nope. Because that money comes from “separate buckets.” That last piece has been explained to me several times but I still don’t get it.

Economics and ego. The result is not unlike a third world country, or a sweat shop: a minority of leaders bossing a majority of juniors. Of course there are exceptions but not enough and less so every year. Maybe that’s why so many holiday parties get out of hand… because tomorrow we die.

Not the only ones: http://money.cnn.com/2016/12/20/news/companies/christmas-layoffs/index.html

Like many brethren I’m doing freelance and can provide superior content creation as well as creative leadership: https://steffanwork.wordpress.com/

The recession in Adland: Do the bad times have a silver lining?

This recession makes being me less excellent.

Many of us used to relish Donald Trump firing dumbstruck contestants on the Apprentice. Or Simon eviscerating some hapless warbler on American Idol. We take delight in watching the Simpson’s Montgomery Burns humiliate and then extricate his subordinates, often down a secret hole in front of his desk. Nelson, the “Ha-Ha!” bully is another Simpsonian example. There is brutal comedy in the misfortune of others. The Germans have a word for it: Schadenfreude. (To be precise, substitute the word “pleasure” for “comedy.”) Either way, it’s an unfortunate, even barbaric, part of our humanity.

And it often flourishes like mold in the hallways of Adland. If/when one agency hears of another’s misfortune we cheer. In bigger agencies, creative groups on one floor often compete and root against creative groups from another. Internet trolls constantly throw stones at wounded agencies and their people. While most aim at management, the torpedoes invariably end up hurting massive portions of the ship, not just the bridge.

I’ve written about this before. But that was before the recession. With few agencies exempt from its grave fallout, I doubt anyone is gleeful over much of anything right now, let alone another’s misfortune. That tipping point came and went. With people –good people- disappearing from our ranks it is as if a plague were let loose in adland…the whole damn country! Whereas we once morbidly watched as our comrades were marched out the door, thinking “not me, never me” now we cannot help but see ourselves in their shoes.

And yet pain like this can provide our most teachable moments. There is a silver lining. To coin another phrase: the show must go on.

Therefore, those of us who remain pick up our games. If we are good we become great. Considering the alternative, we must. We also count our blessings. We learn humility. We let go our resentments because they feel especially vulgar right now. While veins of meanness run deep on the Internet, not so much in the hallways of Adland. There is less complaining about partners and bosses. Fewer requests for money and titles. Less Me. More We. What we have (peers, clients, job) is far more important than what we don’t.

Guess what folks? It always was! But we forget. Until the pain of others reminds us. Humility. Gratitude. Fortitude. If we acquire even a little grace during these difficult times, something good has come from it.

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