In fact, there are some weather terms that can just as easily be applied to the agency culture as well as the inhabitants. For example:
Jet Stream
You know when the creative director, account supervisor, planner, junior account executive (in charge of the carry-ons) and research director board a plane together to fly to yet another Adweek seminar on Digital Creativity Strategies and Better Banner Ads in the Caribbean? The one you told them about and wanted to go to, except there was no budget for you? That’s the Jet Stream.
The Mean Temperature
Agencies are notoriously angry places. It doesn't take much to set them off. Someone's work sold and yours didn't. You weren't invited to a meeting you should've been at (don't worry-meetings are like buses). No one brought in bagels. Someone looked at you the wrong way. People at agencies have thin skins and long memories. They're not exactly rays of sunshine to begin with, but when they feel they've been wronged they're meaner than a junkyard dog having his anal glands expressed. When you figure out exactly who's mad at who, and how mad they are, that's the Mean Temperature.
High Pressure System
These kind of systems can be created in a number of ways. An approaching deadline. A meeting with HR. Finding out what someone else makes. The creative director wants to "talk" about his/her "idea." These systems can be found daily in the ever changing environment of the agency world.
Unstable Air
This is usually found in meetings where planners are involved. They're almost always telling you their insight that just isn't quite insightful enough. Usually they know it, and as a result aren't making the point as confidently as they'd hoped. Hence, unstable air.
Wind Chill
What you get when that joke you made about the creative director gets back to them.
Warm Front
The new receptionist. That's all I'm sayin'.
Of course, there are many more terms that apply, but I'll leave them for another post. After all, many of you reading this still think of advertising as a fun, glamorous, star-studded business to be in.
And I wouldn't want to rain on your parade.
