Clocked out

My pal Rich Siegel at Round Seventeen wrote a great post about the expectation of you working late if you work at Chiat. Which, if you've ever worked there, know is absolutely true.

But it's not only true of them.

Here's the thing: if I'd wanted to keep doctors hours, I would've been a doctor. Which would've made my parents very happy. Then, I wouldn't have had to explain what I do over and over to them. They never understood. Many times I don't either.

I didn't become a doctor for many reasons. One of which was that I didn't want to be on call at all hours of the night. I think it came right below "I'm not smart enough," "I'm not doing prostate exams," and "Who'd be stupid enough to have me as their doctor?"

I've been working on a major automotive client which shall go nameless - Toyota - that I've worked on before and enjoy.

Only this time I've been doing it through a small, virtual marketing agency that I've never worked at before. The experience has been something short of pleasant (except for the checks: that part's been very pleasant).

For some odd reason, this company is under the mistaken notion I'm on call 24/7, just waiting for their last minute copy changes. Which usually come after their last minute change in direction. The other night, I had no less than eight emails from them that arrived between 1 a.m. and 3:30 a.m.

I didn't read them until I woke up around 7 a.m. And I'm pretty sure if they'd taken a breath and thought about it, they'd have realized those emails didn't need to be sent in the middle of the night. No action was going to be taken on them (certainly not by me), and they could've gotten a good nights sleep (always thinking of others - it's my curse).

My friend Janice used to have this sign in her office:

I think I've found the Christmas card I'm sending to agencies this year.