Five years ago I wrote this post about calling in well. Having just reread it, I think in some ways it's a timely article because of what's going on in the world right now.
Maybe, maybe not.
The point is I wanted to put up a post and I didn't want to have to write one.
Is that so wrong? Don't answer that.
Anyone can call in sick. When you’re fighting muscle aches, nausea, diarrhea and a 101-degree fever it’s a no brainer.
Of course, we’ve all been around those people who drag their sorry selves in no matter what, looking like they just finished auditioning for Contagion II. For some inexplicable reason – perhaps an overdeveloped sense of importance, a crippling fear of being fired if they miss a day, or just to get even with everyone they work with who don’t give them the recognition they deserve, they feel it’s their civic duty to keep working until they drop.
But if you ask anyone who’s ever worked with me, after they stop denying it, they’ll tell you in no uncertain terms that’s never been my problem.
Sniffles? Home for three days. That’s the spirit.
I used to work with this guy at an agency who would occasionally call in well to work. He’d wake up in the morning feeling great, optimistic, ready to take on the world. On those days, he’d call the agency, get someone on the line and say, “I won’t be in today. I feel too damn good to come to work.”
I’m all in favor of the concept.
Some shops give you a couple mental days or personal days off a year. I suppose they think you should use those if you’re going to call in well. I think it’s a matter of expanding the definition of sick. As in, it would make me sick to go into work feeling this good.
Which brings me to another point (assuming I had one in the first place): maybe it’s time to reconsider the name “sick days.” If people are going to start calling in well – as they should – the days allotted should reflect that policy.
Maybe a combination of sick and well, a term that would define and describe the days for exactly what they are. Let’s call them Swell Days™.
Although technically, that could be any day you’re not in the office.
Sometime about three years ago, I posted this piece about my disdain for morning and almost everything related to it. I thought it might be a good time to revisit it because now, in this strange time, I can sleep in as late as I like and I'm able.
I have great admiration for all those working from home and maintaining their morning routines of early to rise, then getting dressed and ready for work so they look sharp and alert for their morning Zoom conference call.
I know we're all in this together, and I want you know I stand with you.
On everything but this part.
I am many things. Funny. Good looking. Talented. Creative. Compassionate. Encouraging. Well read. Kind to children. Nice to the waitstaff. A catch as a husband. Someone who loves doing laundry. And loading a dishwasher. A good friend. A trusted confidante. An excellent driver. A great kisser. And definitely humble.
However one thing I am not now, nor have I ever been, is a morning person.
Mornings are just a cruel tease. Being a late night person, I rarely get to sleep before midnight or one in the morning. I say sleep in the loosest sense of the word. It's been years, literally, since I've slept eight hours straight through. I get up to pee. Or I startle awake from a dream. Sometimes I'm just restless and watch some TV at three in the morning to take the edge off (because nothing takes the edge off like skin care and exercise equipment infomercials). Occasionally my eighty-five pound German Shepherd launches himself up on the bed in the middle of the night.
That gets the old ticker going.
Oddly enough, one thing that never, and I do mean never, keeps me awake is work. I think it comes from so many years as a freelancer. But the second both feet are out of the office, I don't think about anything related to work until I have to be back the next morning.
And we know how I feel about mornings.
The point of all this, and there is one, is that right around the time the faintest sliver of sunlight starts to hit the pitch black night sky is the exact moment I actually manage to get myself back to the deep, still sleep I've been craving all night. It finally arrives just in time for sunrise. Ironically when I'm finally completely out, it's time to wake up.
There's no gradual, gentle, coming-up-from-the-bottom-of-the-pool kind of awakening for me. Because I know how deep asleep I am in the morning, the alarm has to be more than a light bell, chirping birds or a digital alarm. No, my iPhone alarm is Uptown Funk. It comes on loud, and it's a straight up jolt out of bed. In fact, I have to kiss myself I'm so pretty (see what I did there?).
So if you see me at work in the morning around nine, dragging myself around, looking somewhat foggy and I don't return your smile or your hello, don't ask how you're doing or what you're working on, please don't take it personally. I promise I will.
Let's say you're at the Rose Bowl with a close friend, and you have something you have to talk about with them. Something personal, private. You figure with all the hootin' and hollerin' at the game, the two of you can have the conversation fairly discreetly.
I'm guessing what you don't do is run down to the center of the field with your friend, position yourself in front of the same microphone the sixth-place runner up on The Voice from season three used to sing the Star Spangled Banner, and have that private conversation loud and clear in front of 90,000 people.
Because if you did, it'd be that kind of squirmy uncomfortable and even irritating for the thousands who paid triple scalper prices to be there to watch the game, not listen to your sad life problems.
That's more or less what it feels like when people at work hit Reply All to work emails.
First of all, I love email as much as the next guy. Alright, not so much the ones trying to sell me Viagra or send me my hundred-million dollar inheritance from an Egyptian prince once they receive my bank account and social security numbers. Who falls for that stuff?
By the way, that check should be here any day now.
Where was I? Oh yeah. Emails that aren't strictly business matters at work are for the most part unnecessary. You know the ones I mean. The one or two word ones, that, for some reason, the people sending them feel need to go out to all 245 company employees in the email directory.
"Have a good weekend!"
"Great job!"
"Did the client see it?"
"Lunch?"
"Can you believe this weather?"
"Did you see La La Land?"
"Want to go for a walk?"
How about a long one off a short plank.
For whatever reason, people are too lazy to look at which button they're hitting when they reply. At least I hope they are. It's just too sad to think they want everyone in on their conversation.
And by the way, if the two people who are engaged in the conversation and are replying to all with their personal chit chat are actually friends, can't they just pry their fat derrieres out of their ergonomically enhanced Herman Miller Aeron chair and walk fifteen feet down the hall to the long, open office seating table and talk to their friend face to face?
Last week was a four-day work week for me. I took a paid day off on Friday because I wanted to catch up on a few things I didn't have time to get to over the holidays.
And because I could.
My timing was impeccable as always. Friday was the day I came down with the flu. This is Wednesday night, and for those of you keeping count, I've been down and out with this misery for six days.
However, in a bold gesture of generosity and consideration for others, I decided not to force the issue and drag myself into work and risk giving this cold/flu-ey thing to everyone who has managed to dodge it so far. It's the kind of thoughtfulness I wish the person who gave it to me had exercised. I'm not naming names, but you know who you are.
Anyway, I'm at the point of being bored and restless out of my mind, yet not well enough to drag myself back into the office yet. Even the dogs are ready for me to be out of the house. I think the coughing is keeping them awake during the day.
So, as if I had any other choice, I'll just ride it out.
And to my colleagues who are the picture of health, working hard, exercising at lunch on the beach and taking the stairs up to the office without having to nap for three hours after, I just have two words for you.
I wish I could say it was because I spent 48 hrs. in Vegas, non-stop drinking and gambling, maybe taking in a few shows. But sadly, no.
This past weekend was a total loss because that cold, flu-y bug that's been taking no prisoners finally came a knockin' at my door. Well, it came knocking at my wife's door about a week ago, so I knew it was only a matter of time.
Hard to imagine, but I'm not as pleasant a patient as you might think. At the beginning I'm fine—the part where it looks like I can go on with my life and work through it without having to carry around a box of Kleenex. But once we move on to phase two, the sore throat, runny nose, coughing up all colors of the rainbow, sneezing and other sordid bodily adventures, I'm not good about it at all.
I get that no one likes being sick. I just think I hate it more than most people.
All weekend long, I was taking naps in between CNN repeating news about the groper-in-chief's middle east trip and The Aviator playing over and over on HBO.
The other thing I hate is that my normally marginal level of productivity is reduced even more (I know, how would you know), and every little thing seems to take its toll.
Sunday morning, after two days of sweating through a fever and hot weather, I thought a shower was in order, not just for me but as a public service to my family. They all said it would make me feel better. It didn't. While I was in the shower it felt great, and I was tricked into thinking I was refreshed and felt good enough to get a few things done.
Come to find out it was only one thing: make a beeline back to my bed and take another nap.
The older I get, the longer it takes to bounce back from anything: colds, flu, bad movies, the price of sushi. I hate being reminded of that.
But I know that this too will end. Being the considerate individual I am, and the fact I'm still under the weather, I've decided to stay home from work today (you're welcome co-workers) and take care of myself.
Tomorrow, hopefully, I'll be back at it: showered, rested and ready to be marginally productive.
Whenever I hear "It's the season!" I know whoever said it means the Christmas, Joy To The World, Goodwill Towards All time of year. I'm all for it (except for the Mariah Carey Christmas song Macy's has on a loop).
But the holiday season happens to coincide with another, less popular one—cold and flu season.
If you work in an office like I do—with central air-conditioning you thought was your friend—you know colds and flu shoot through the workplace like wildfire.
It's basically a game of dominoes. Once the first person falls, it's only a matter of time before everyone else does.
You can't help getting sick, but you can help other people from getting sick. It's easy, here's the trick: stay home until you're completely better.
Not a lot better.
Not better than you were.
Not almost better.
All the way better. The way you were before you had any inkling you were coming down with anything. It's only common sense and common courtesy, amiright?
But as we all know, there are people who, in spite of a phlegmy, hacking cough, juicy sneezes, noses running faster than Usain Bolt, fever so high they could fry eggs on their foreheads and fatigue so intense they're asleep standing up, for some reason insist on coming to work.
I suppose they might feel a certain sense of responsibility to the job. Or have an unrelenting work ethic that doesn't allow them to put themselves before the job, which they feel must get done regardless of their current state of affliction.
Both things I know nothing about. Just ask anyone I work with.
I hate it when people do that for two reasons. First, the idea of coming to work in general is one I resist with everything I've got pretty much on a daily basis. Maybe it's because I've been freelance so long, or the fact I appreciate my freedom and want to set my own schedule. Maybe it's because I'm an only child and the world revolves around me (but you already knew that). It could be that I'm just a lazy bastard who'd rather sit on the couch and binge Breaking Bad, again, than earn money to pay my bills and feed my family.
A man can dream can't he?
Anyway, the idea of coming to work when I'm sick wouldn't even occur to me. Besides, hard to imagine as it is, I'm even less productive when I'm sick. And getting back to that common courtesy thought, color me old-fashioned, but I just think it'd be better not to pass along the creeping crud I'm fighting to my fellow workers. They'll remember it come Secret Santa time, which means better re-giftable items for me.
And since no one's giving out medals or raises to people who drag their sorry asses in while they're on their death beds, there's really no percentage in it.
Besides, can you ever get enough daytime television? I think not.
Sorry for the rant, but occasionally you have to knock some sense into people so they do the right thing, like stay home when they're sick, get well, and not infect anyone else along the way because they have. to. get. back. to. work.
I'm not saying this post is directed at anyone in particular, but I'm not saying it isn't. With any luck, maybe they'll read it while they're having a fever delirium in their sick bed.
I don't know whether it's because I'm an only child, or just sometimes lost in my own world (I know, they're the same thing), but I've never been bothered by uncomfortable silences. In fact I believe there are places where they're perfectly appropriate.
For example, I don't want to hear about your day while I'm in the elevator. And, as I wrote about here, I don't want to hear anything you have to say while I'm in the men's room.
But when I fire up the old ridesharing app—Lyft is my service of choice—for some reason I feel I should listen and engage with the person I'm driving with, or more aptly, who's driving me. After all, it isn't some corporate yellow cab picking me up, it's an individual in their own car trying to supplement their income. I'm all about supplementing income, even if they're doing it with my money.
And in the same way every picture tells a story, so does every Lyft driver.
There are Lyft drivers I've ridden with that've been awesome, and actually feel more like friends. Natasha is one of them. Glasses, inked, Prius driver and cat owner, I don't know where else our paths would've crossed. I've ridden with her a few times, and she has an energy and openness about her that's refreshing. Plus she's funny, smart and laughs at my jokes. I think we all know what a pushover I am for that. It makes me wish the ride to work was longer so we could talk more.
Then there's Craig in San Francisco, who if I didn't know better I'd think was my long, lost brother from another mother. When I got in his car (a 5 year old American something that was spotless and looked brand new), he had Miles Davis playing, and the first words out of his mouth to me were, "You like Miles?" It was a great ride.
Funny, smart, engaging people.
While not as deep as Uber, the Lyft driver pool occasionally reminds me that while I enjoy the Natasha's and Craig's, the odds are not always in my favor.
I don't want to personality shame any of the drivers by name here. But here's the thing: there's a certain kind of driver that makes small talk, but it's like canned laughter on a sitcom. It's not real, but it fills the space. My driver the other morning was one of those. He talked about the weather, and answered questions I didn't ask. "How early did you start driving this morning?" "Oh it is a beautiful day, not too hot." Alright then.
I prefer Lyft over Uber, even though many of the drivers work for both services. But they almost unanimously prefer Lyft customers, saying they're nicer and friendlier than Uber riders. Which is how I feel about Lyft drivers, so win-win.
I work in Orange County, and the thought's occurred to me it might be interesting to drive for Lyft. As long as I'm going back and forth, I may as well bring someone along, use the carpool lane and make a little cash for gas and dinner.
Which all sounds well and good until I start thinking about sharing rides with total strangers, and remember I'm an only child.
There are some experiences in life you reflect back on fondly, through the flattering haze of nostalgia, wishing you could go back and re-live them. Then there are those other experiences, like my high school girlfriend, that you'd never go through again even if someone paid you a million dollars in 1962 money.
For me, the Palm Springs Aerial Tramway is one of the second ones.
I'd actually managed to forget I ever went on what I like to call the Tram O'Terror until this afternoon, when I was enjoying a brief respite and chocolate donut with my good friend Lori, who I'm working with at my current gig. I asked her if she had any big plans for the weekend, and she told me she was going to be in Palm Springs.
That's when it all came rushing back.
Years ago, in a galaxy far, far away before I even knew my wife, I used to go out with a girl named Anne Siegel (not my high school girlfriend). Her parents owned a condo in Palm Springs, and every few weekends we'd hop in her brown Camaro, head out there and enjoy the weather, the restaurants and the pool.
On one of our visits, we decided to ride the Tram O'Terror.
Here's something you should know about me: I'm not afraid of heights. I like flying, tall buildings and standing on top of hills looking down at the city. I took helicopter lessons for awhile, although I never flew enough hours to get my license. Altitude doesn't phase me.
What does phase me is riding in a little death cart hanging by a thread, while traveling 8500 feet up a ridiculously steep hill, swinging in the breeze all the way up.
I don't remember how long the ride actually was, but it seemed like an eternity. It was also thirty-five degrees cooler at the top than at the desert floor where we started (fortunately at the top there was a gift shop selling souvenir sweatshirts - what're the odds).
I know I took the tram back down, but I don't actually remember that either. I might've been passed out, hyperventilating too much or honing my spot on impression of a little girl screaming to really pay much attention.
At any rate I'm pretty sure that somehow, someway, that tram trip and the raw, crippling fear it sent coursing through me had something to do with the fact that now there are only two mountains I'm comfortable riding all the way to the top of.
In theory, Facebook is a good thing. I can find people I've lost touch with, catch up with celebrities and even talk to them if it’s really them posting on their page. I can follow my favorite brands for discounts and special offers, view endless vacation photos, baby pictures, inspirational sayings, favorite musician YouTube clips and German Shepherd pictures (which I personally can’t get enough of) that friends feel compelled to share with the world. It can be a fun, informative, time-killing app if used correctly.
Where it comes undone for me is the preaching, guiltifying, lecturing and cage-match quality bickering some people feel compelled to administer in the course of my Facebook feed.
I stopped getting into Facebook fights a long time ago. In fact, the post I wrote here almost five years ago was the last time I remember really losing any semblance of control, and continuing an online argument for no reason other than to hammer my point home to someone who was never going to hear it.
Oh, wait a minute. There was another time in the recent past I got into it online with a writer/director/voice-over talent/creative director/agency-owner friend I've known over thirty years. I had no idea about his extreme right wing political beliefs, but all it took to find out about them was posting something favorable about Obama and not so flattering about the way he was being treated by the Republican congress. You know, something factual he didn't want to hear.
What can you do. Some people walk around loaded for bear.
Anyway, after a certain number of back and forth posts, there comes a point in any Facebook argument where it becomes less about the topic at hand and more about energy and endurance. It forces me to ask the tough questions, like how bad do you want it kid? Will it all be worth it in the end (if it ever ends)? Am I willing to go the distance?
What I've discovered about myself, when it comes to Facebook fights, is that I am not.
I put up a post today about the general blahs of being back at work after a holiday weekend. To my way of thinking, not very controversial. I’m pretty sure it’s a universal feeling that after a three-day weekend, no one—regardless of what industry they're in—wants to be back at work after enjoying time off. AmIright?
I got some comments agreeing, and a few likes, but I also got a comment that said, “You’re booked. You should be grateful.”
Let’s disassemble that comment, shall we?
First of all, my post was a little joke, based on a universal truth. And by the way, jokes are so much funnier when you have to explain them aren’t they?
Next, does the fact I made a joke about not wanting to be at work exclude me from being grateful to have the gig? I think not.
And while I’m on the subject, I actually don’t need people telling me what to feel and when to feel that way. I don’t accept that from strangers, I didn't accept it from my high school girlfriend and I’m certainly not going to take it from friends (well, Facebook friends, not real life friends).
I’m not saying people shouldn’t put up how they feel about things. It's a free country, free speech, your right and all that. And I recognize that by posting anything, and being a part of the Facebook community, I leave myself open to whatever comments anyone with a keyboard and access to my feed wants to make.
But, like in a nice restaurant, 90% of the game is presentation. It'd be better—and, even though it might not sway me, it'd probably make me more receptive to hear their point of view—if people commenting on my posts framed it in a way that expressed their opinion without condemning me for not sharing it.
And by the way, this idea I should or shouldn't do or feel a certain way just doesn't fly. Not a big fan of the word "should"—people "should" know better than to use it with that hand-on-hip, reprimanding, wagging-your-finger tone.
To me, it's just as frustrating and insulting as people who ask you to copy and repost what they’ve posted for one hour to prove to them you’re against cancer, bullying, parting your hair on the right or whatever. I’ve written here about how I feel about those people (“What do you mean ‘those people’” “What do you mean ‘Those people’?” - see below). How much validation does one individual need?
Besides, if you're looking for it from Facebook posts, you have bigger issues than whether or not people share your point of view.
I know you all won't agree with me, but if you do copy and paste this post on your page for one hour.
I was in Austin for a few lovely days, and then flew back last night. I was home about eleven hours, unpacked, re-packed, then was back on a plane to San Francisco this morning.
By the way, lest you get any ideas about paying the house a visit, my German Shepherd, alarm system, wife, and, the thing you should be most afraid of – my teenage daughter – are still on full alert guarding the ponderosa.
It all feels very jetset-y, until you’re waiting at baggage claim and three planes worth of luggage come cascading down the slide onto the carousel, and everybody pushes you out of the way shouting, "Mine's the black one!"
Then it feels like water-boarding would be a viable option, for them. Not you.
There’s a rhythm to travel, hopping from one plane and place to the next, blowing into town long enough to see the family, then heading out again until next time. Like jogging and eating beets, if you do it often enough you build endurance for it. I think what I’ve learned is I don’t do it often enough.
The glamour of air travel is a long, lost notion – something I wrote about here four years ago. As far as I can tell, now it’s just mainly exhausting.
But, and it's a big but, just like the person in the middle seat next to me on the way up here, I have to confess - I still like the process. Getting the flight I want. Choosing my favorite window seat (aisle seats are for people who think flight is just a theory). Seeing what kind of plane I'll be on. I also like the perks that come with sitting in the front of the plane: early boarding, a bathroom less traveled, bigger seats, more space and eavesdropping on the flight attendants as they tell passenger horror stories.
If I sound like I'm sending mixed signals, it's because I am. I like it, and I don't like it. Not unlike my high school girlfriend.
It's hard to believe years ago I used to have a crippling fear of flying considering how much I love it now. I guess if I'd known about that front of the plane thing I would've gotten over it a lot sooner. I used to take what I called my "Flights To Nowhere," four or six flights a day between cities just to rack up mileage so I could maintain my Premier status in United's frequent flyer program. Like Clooney in Up In The Air, I didn't do anything, buy anything or stay anywhere that didn't reward me miles towards my goal. I even had a nickname: Flyboy.
Anyway, these days flying for me has become utilitarian instead of recreational. Which is okay.
Because the truth is now that I've racked up all those miles, I'd hate to use them.
I don't think I have to tell you that over five years ago, I wrote a post about the many, many branch offices I work out of.
And by branch offices I mean Starbucks.
You may be a little cynical and think I'm bringing this up because it's a Saturday night, and I'm too lazy to think of anything new to write about. Well, no. Not entirely.
The reason I bring it up is because today I found myself working on a freelance gig at the Sunset Beach Starbucks for a few hours. And I noticed the customers who came in and out were very, how you say, beachy.
I've never worked at that office before. But I decided to widen my horizons a bit. I was tired of seeing the same people at the ones I usually work at. Plus it was a hot, sunny day and being near the water sounded like a good idea.
It made me realize even when I'm doing the same thing, there's a way to change it up. It's a lesson I could probably apply to a few other areas of my life.
I know, I should write fortune cookies or Hallmark cards - what can I say, that's what I thought.
I think I'm going to institute a new policy: every time I go work at a Starbucks, it's going to be a different one. God knows there isn't a shortage of them. I think seeing different kinds of people - how you say, clientele - helps the creative process along. That alone is reason enough to work there.
The ebb and flow of work at an ad agency is a mystery. Like online metrics, or an account planner’s opinion, it's often unpredictable and unreliable.
Some days it's a hive of activity, with people taking stairs two at a time, foam core boards in hand, comps stuck to them with push pins flying everywhere, racing to solve some important marketing dilemna.
Other days, for reasons equally unknown, there isn’t much to do. And the day goes by slower than Interstellar.
Though if you saw Interstellar, you know nothing could possibly go any slower.
Creative people want to be creative in everything they do, including killing time. As you see from the blurry, lo-res picture above, Matt Groening had some suggestions on the best ways to do that.
I have a few more:
1) Facebook Facebook FacebookIn an era where a disproportionate emphasis is placed on social media (“I can’t wait to engage with my toothpaste online!”), you can literally spend hours brushing up your social skill set.
Sure, to the untrained eye it might look like you’re posting shots of the sunset and cute cat photos all day. But if anyone asks, you’re studying up on Facebook advertising and the algorithms that allow them to target ads to the last subject you viewed or wrote about.
TIP: Make sure no one’s watching when you post your third Most Interesting Man In The World meme.
2) Starbucks Coffee BreakWhile Groening has already covered coffee break in the cartoon, he’s talking about that brown sludge that barely passes for coffee in the agency kitchen. I’m talking about Starbucks.
All you have to say is, “I’m running over to Starbucks and grab some coffee. Anyone want anything?” Everyone will immediately nod their approval, tell you no thanks they're fine, and then you can leave the building.
Whether you actually head to Starbucks is up to you. When you come back empty-handed almost forty-five minutes to an hour later, you can always say you drank it there. Or the line was too long. Or they ran out of the raspberry pump.
TIP: Don't say there wasn’t a Starbucks nearby. No one will believe you.
3) Your baby-size bladderRepeat after me: the bathroom is your friend. No one will blame you or even think twice if you make a bathroom run hourly. It can be a little iffy when it comes to how long you can actually spend in there, but there are always lots of things to blame it on.
Like last nights' chili. Warm sushi. Or that agency coffee I was talking about.
TIP: Don't actually have bad chili or get sushi poisoning. This isn't a method acting class.
I'm sure there are a plethora of other ways to kill time. After all, I'm talking about very creative people here. And dear readers, I'd love to hear suggestions from you as well as some of your own experiences in this pursuit.
This will be very deja vu-ish (funny, you don't look vu-ish) to my fellow copywriters and art directors.
You've been working for eight weeks on an important presentation to the client. The day of the big meeting finally comes. It's a Wednesday at 4pm. There's no immediate deadline, but this was the day and time everyone was available, so this is when it was scheduled for.
As the meeting goes along, the client laughs at the right places, nods their head and you're thinking how great it's going. Then just as you're all getting ready for Miller time, as you're walking out the door, the CMO asks if they can have a word with the management supe and the creative director.
When they come out of the conference room, the smiles are gone. So are any thoughts of Miller time. The clients you thought loved everything had a little problem with it. They hated everything. And they want to see new work in the morning.
The call goes out - everyone at the agency stay at the agency. Place your dinner order and cancel your plans for the night. You're there until morning, coming up with new ideas for the clients to hopefully like as much as they led you to believe they liked the first ones.
There are so many things wrong with this picture it's hard to know where to start. But I'll start here: What does it say about a client who knows you took a couple months honing to perfection the ideas you just presented, and then asks you for entirely new ones fifteen hours later?
It says they're an asshole.
Anyone who had any idea what it takes to do what you just did would realize it doesn't happen in that short amount of time. They're poking a dog with a stick. Watching you jump through the hoop. They're laughing, and not with you.
The other thing that's wrong with the picture is the agency agreed to do it. Without an ounce of self-respect, dignity or value for their own work, they cut themselves off at the knees and affirm to the asshole client the work they do really has no worth, since you spent months working on it the first time when you could've just come up with it overnight. Like the account leaders just told them you would.
There comes a point, at work, in life, where you have to - and let me quote the bumpersticker here - just say no. When you have to make clear you respect yourself even if they don't. That great thinking takes time. And the fourteen hours from 5pm to 7am is not that time.
I'm not saying you can't come up with something, you can. But at that time of night and level of burnout and exhaustion, when creatives are cracking each other up with bad Christopher Walken impressions, scrounging around for cold pizza and sleeping face down on their keyboards, it won't be anything either of you will be proud of.
Which only lowers their opinion of the agency further. It's a vicious circle.
Still, the same people that agreed to this insane request will be the ones high-fiving each other like overgrown frat boys just for the fact they managed to churn out something that, if there were any justice, would be sitting at the bottom of a birdcage. We've all been there.
I think anyone who knows me would agree that while I'm a joy to work with and for the most part a little social butterfly, I also have a short fuse and don't suffer fools lightly. Another thing they'd tell you is I don't have a problem saying no for the right reasons when everyone above me is saying yes for the wrong ones.
When you have a plumber over, you don't ask if they could just replace a small pipe for free before they get started.
You wouldn't ask your auto mechanic to replace a few hoses for free before he does a tune up.
Alright, so I think we've learned analogies aren't my strong suit, but here's what I'm getting at.
Why do agencies like to send freelancers the creative brief, along with all the Powerpoint presentations, research, first drafts, graphic treatments and assorted other information - some useful, most not - a day or two before the job starts and ask you to review it all before you come in?
I'll tell you why. Because it doesn't cost them anything.
I'll tell you something else. I never do it.
The fact is I'm not on the clock until I am. Don't get me wrong - I don't just do this for the money. I do it for the love. Of the money (okay, who didn't see that coming). So the night before I start a new gig, when I'm with my family, watching Breaking Bad for the fifth time, walking Max - the world's greatest dog, or whatever I'm doing, it's on my time.
You know what I'm not doing on my time? Working for free.
It's not like there's any fear of coming in unprepared or uninformed. If you've ever set foot in an agency, you know meetings are the currency and lifeblood. Everything they sent you will be reviewed, reworked, rehashed and rethought a thousand times before you put pen to paper (old school expression).
And of course, by the time you start, approximately seventeen rounds of meetings later, the assignment will look nothing like what they sent you to read in the first place.
I think my high school girlfriend put it best when she said, "I'm not just giving it away."
And while I didn't appreciate the sentiment then, I certainly do now.
I'm not sure what it is about advertising, but it seems to attract the very best of humanity and the very worst.
When it comes to the second group, I suppose the lesson to remember is never underestimate the profound, almost other-worldly ability of people to be thoughtless, inconsiderate, rude jerks.
We've all encountered them. I don't need to give you examples of their douchebaggery.
Alright, here's one.
I have a close writer friend who's mom has been battling cancer. She took a turn for the worse, and wound up in intensive care in a hospital out of state. My friend's brother called and told her to get on a plane and get up there if she wanted to say goodbye.
She let her boss and co-workers at the agency know what was going on. Of course, they understood and sympathized. Then she headed for the airport.
While she was in the intensive care unit with her mom - gloved, masked and gowned because it was a sterile, germ-free environment - the agency called her. They asked her to work on some brochure copy that need revising while she was there.
I guess they thought she'd get tired of keeping her dying mother company and would want something else to do. You know, all that sitting around waiting. All you've got is free time.
Since you asked, here's another one.
Unless you've been on a news blackout, you know about the fires that have been raging in San Marcos. I happen to have a close art director friend who had to evacuate his wife and one-year old daughter from their dream house they've been in a couple years, and happens to sit at the top of the hill the fire was rapidly burning up. They grabbed the items they couldn't bear to lose, threw them in the car and drove away from their house not knowing whether or not it'd be there when they got back.
While they were at the hotel, his employer called and said they needed him to do some work, and sit in on a meeting. It was okay with them if he did it by phone.
Because, like my other friend, he should have his priorities straight, right? Forget attending to his frightened family, dealing with the uncertainty, the added expense and the crushing stress of it all. That's just crazy talk.
What it comes down to for me is this gross insensitivity really solidifies our belief in the "It's not my job." philosophy. There's no sense of personal responsibility - when you have a soldier down, you just pick up the slack without being asked. Or without passing it on to someone else to do.
It's also clear to me at the agency orientation new employees get when they start, no one's bothering to instill any appreciation for the golden rule: treat others as you'd like to be treated. If any of the people calling my friends to work were in the same position - and in spite of their supreme jerkness I hope they never are - the last thing they'd want is a call asking them to work. Especially from people like them.
All I can do is shake my head and feel sad for the people making the calls. I imagine how cripplingly unhappy they must be in their lives to be so unaware of others and their situations.
My writer friend's mother has stabilized, and is doing better despite the fact there is an inevitable outcome to her illness. But for now, she's here, she's fighting and she's winning.
As for my art director pal, he got the all-clear to go back to their home yesterday. It is intact and untouched by the fire. They were lucky.
The work they were both called to do never got done. At least not by them.
I’m not a good patient. Never have been. And the fact that right now I’m on my sixth day of being down with some virus obviously hatched in a deep, dark part of the Brazilian rain forest, Amazon adjacent, isn’t doing anything to make me a better one.
I’m not sure exactly what it is, but this unpleasant little bug has been making me cough my lungs up the entire time. A dry, hacking, rib-breaking cough which can be described, without getting too clinical, as “non-productive.”
This unrelenting cough of course means I’ve had absolutely no sleep to speak of for the last six nights. I have however caught up on some fine 3 a.m. cable offerings, like the original American Werewolf In London, Marathon Man and Godfather 3 (well, two out of three ain’t bad).
This all started with a sore throat last Thursday, went to chills, then to feeling a little warm – it all felt a bit flu-ey. But the main symptom is this incessant coughing that just won’t stop.
This morning I finally went to my doctor, who said they’ve been seeing a lot of this. It’s just a virus going around, and I have no real choice but to ride it out. Here’s the punchline: when I asked how long, he said it’s been running about three weeks.
Now Monday I start a new gig. And as I wrote about here, sick days aren’t one of the benefits a freelancer gets, at least not without watching the bank balance remain in an upright and locked position.
So I’ll just keep resting, drinking fluids and hope that the Vicodin cough syrup that was prescribed knocks me out enough to finally get some sleep tonight.
I’ve had this for six days, and I have six more to get over it before I start work. Not to sound completely mercenary, but all I’m thinking is what any freelancer in my position would be thinking.
With any luck, I’ll get past the cough in time for them to cough up the cash.
Here's what I think happens. Every Friday after work - when I'm lucky enough to be working - unbeknownst (five-dollar word) to me I get kidnapped and placed into a time machine set for Monday.
Then, as if there was never any weekend at all, it's just me and Monday morning.
The kidnappers are smart. They implant false memories in my head, like what happened on Dexter (someone got killed), True Blood (someone got turned) and The Newsroom (someone was walking and talking fast) when they aired on Sunday so I'll believe I've actually had a weekend.
But I haven't. I know this because they also give me memories of running around the entire weekend I didn't have doing errands, then doing chores when I'm at home. For some reason, they don't want me to have any memories of a pleasurable, leisurely weekend.
Because they know that would just make me want them more.
Even though I think I'm writing this on Sunday night, I know that can't be and it's probably actually Monday morning.
Fortunately after this coming week I'll be on vacation. Then every day will feel like Saturday.
Campaign ideas don’t want to be bad, but like Jessica Rabbit said, sometimes they're just drawn that way.
The fact is an idea can often look good on paper, then get lost somewhere along the way to executing it.
And I'm just man enough to say that sometimes bad work happens to good writers: the lousiness of some of my spots has been my creation and mine alone.
For example, the am/pm mini mart spot where I made a joke about the son in the family being adopted. Immediately after it aired, they started routing all the complaint calls from adoption advocacy groups to me so they could tell me, in very raised voices, why adoption jokes weren't funny. I listened patiently, then told them I was adopted and I thought it was hilarious.
I’m not, but sometimes you just want the noise to stop.
Then there was the absolutely awful campaign my partner Doug and I presented for Suzuki cars using the cast of LOST. There were several spots, but the highlight (lowlight?) was one where instead of a blue VW van, we had them discover a Grand Vitara on the island. We liked the show and we wanted to go to Hawaii, so sue us.
It's a good thing it never went anywhere. It wouldn't have been nearly as good as this one:
I don’t remember this, but my wife swears years ago I wrote a radio spot where the characters were building a house out of meat (SFX: Hands slapping ground beef). This was pre-Lady Gaga. Obviously I was way ahead of my time, which is so rare (see what I did there?).
This isn't the first time I've written about good and bad ads. I posted a piece here about it.
But I'm beginning to think putting up posts running down the list of bad ads I've done is probably not the most career-enhancing move I can make. So forget you've seen this.
