Showing posts with label throwing. Show all posts
Showing posts with label throwing. Show all posts

Tuesday, July 15, 2014

What time does the bus get here?

There are all kinds of signs to help us navigate the roads: Stop. Yield. Merge. Slow. Pedestrian Crossing. Deer crossing. Falling rocks. Lane ends.

So how come there aren't warning signs like this one to help navigate the business world?

It's not like it doesn't happen. It happens on a daily basis. If you're in advertising and it happens to you, all it means is you showed up one day.

Like getting laid off, losing a client, not getting a bonus, canceling a vacation or listening to agency pep talks, it's inevitable at some point someone's going to figuratively throw you under the bus.

It'd be nice to at least get a warning.

Maybe it’s like that team of brainiacs at Cal Tech who've spent the last twenty years of their lives working on an advanced earthquake warning system. They still haven't perfected it, and probably for the same reason agencies don't post signs like this.

There's no way to be a hundred per cent accurate. And they can't predict when it'll happen.

What's interesting to me about this particular sign is how you can’t tell which figure has what job. I can’t tell who’s the thrower and who's the throwee.

For instance, I'd be hard pressed to tell you if it's the account person tossing the creative under the bus. Or the creative director kicking one of his team under, just after he trashed their storyboard in a client meeting in favor of one he did that no one saw until two minutes ago.

Maybe it’s the client kicking the agency under after seeing that crap storyboard the creative director pulled out of his ass at the last minute.

Who’s to say.

All I know is even though there aren't actual, physical signs warning you when a colleague is going to boot you under the Metro, there are signs nonetheless.

Watch for them.