Clean thoughts

Over the holiday weekend, my son was away with a friend, starting to concept his next award-winning short film. My daughter was spending the weekend as a counselor at a camp near Big Bear.

Which meant my wife and I had the very strange and rare treat of having the house - not counting Max, world's greatest dog - all to ourselves.

If you’re married with kids, I’m sure you’ll appreciate it almost as much as we did. I don’t think I have to tell you that we proceeded to do what any long-married couple does when they finally get a little private time away from the kids.

We cleaned and organized the house.

First, we decided instead of drudgery it was going to be fun. We put on the soundtrack to the movie Chef (awesome – go to iTunes now and download it, I’ll wait) and blasted it while we were working. We decided to spend twenty minutes on the living room, and take no prisoners.

Everything was on the table, figuratively and literally speaking. Books, magazines, receipts, DVDs, papers, pillows, blankets – things that had been lying around or just left out for the last few years were either put where they belong, donated to charity or trashed. It’s amazing how much we accomplished with a focused effort and a predetermined amount of time.

Then we did the other thing long-married couples do whenever they get the chance and the kids aren't around.

We took a nap.

Off the clock

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.

Pay as you go

When it comes to credit cards, I like to know I'm at least getting a little reward for my completely undisciplined spending. That's why I have two airline affinity cards I use to help me rack up the miles.

Funny thing about credit card companies - they expect you to pay them. I know, right?

Sometimes, as any freelancer will tell you, the bills get there before the checks do. The cash flow isn't always as prompt as you'd like it to be. It's not that it's not there, it's just not there right now.

A few months ago, I managed to run up one of my cards to a healthy sum. It fact, at that point in time, it was a healthier sum than I had coming in.

Eventually I paid it off, but I'm not a guy who likes to have debt. I'm not comfortable with it, never have been. I used to pay my phone and electric bills a year in advance just so I wouldn't have to think about them (I also used to spend my rent money at the track, but I don't do that anymore either - long story).

Now before you say it, don't say it. I know I could've invested that money instead of letting the phone and power company earn interest on it. But to me, my peace of mind and retaining the ability to breathe knowing those bills were paid was a good investment.

Anyway, as a result of having run up that card - little suckers just sneak up on you don't they? - I now do something I've never done. I pay as I go.

At the end of every day, I go on the credit card site and see how much I've charged. Then I transfer money from my checking account to cover the daily balance. With a keystroke, I'm current on the card.

It also helps because knowing how much is in my checking keeps a tighter rein on my spending since I know I'll have to cover it the next night. At least that's the theory.

But with 467,000 frequent flyer miles, I'm not sure how well it's working.

Unacceptable behavior

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.

As it should be.

I'd like to make a withdrawal

For the past several weeks, I've had a head-dizzying, rib-aching, throat-inflaming, dry hacking cough. I couldn't get two words out without going into a full on coughing attack. In fact I wrote about it here when it first started.

Early on, I was holding onto hope it was strep throat, or some other bacterial infection I could knock out with antibiotics.

I'm a big believer in antibiotics.

I don't pay no never mind to news reports that talk about drug-resistant strains, doctors over prescribing them or patients abusing them. Antibiotics are like buses - if one doesn't work on what I have, there'll be another FDA approved one coming along any minute.

Better living through chemistry. I'm all for it.

Anyway, three doctors, two physician's assistants and one holistic healer later, I had to face the fact that it wasn't bacterial. Instead, they all agreed it was a virus.

Unfortunately they also agreed the only choice I had was to ride it out. They said they were seeing a lot of this, and it usually ran its course in three weeks. All well and good, except in an extremely rare example of overachieving, mine went on for eight weeks.

Beyond the obvious, one of the drawbacks was I went weeks without sleeping. I couldn't get through the night without waking up on the hour coughing up a lung. I finally resigned myself to the fact I was going to be walking through the world in a fugue state, even more than usual, until I got past this thing.

However after several holistic cough medicines, tons of Hall's Cough Drops (if you own stock in them you're welcome) and daily doses of Robitussin DM, one of my doctors finally prescribed this.

Something something Codeine.

Codeine has always been my friend. Besides gradually, gently carrying me off to dreamland, it found the off switch for the cough. It was a blessing to finally get a few hours sleep straight through.

Here's the funny part. I got really, really, really used to it.

So as the cough started to subside, which it thankfully has, I decided a few nights ago to stop taking the codeine cough syrup.

My body no likey.

Since I quit, I sleep about two or three hours, then bolt straight up - wide awake - for the same amount of time before I go back to sleep for a couple hours again.

And since (Breaking Bad) I watch (Breaking Bad) a lot of television (Breaking Bad) about drug dealers and addicts (Breaking Bad), I self-diagnosed what's been happening as codeine withdrawal.

Sure it's in its mildest form. And you'd think that since I grew up on the mean streets of west L.A. - north of Wilshire - I'd have more experience with this. I haven't, and I have to admit it's kind of interesting and scary at the same time.

I don't expect it'll last much longer. I've polished off the bottle, and soon I'll be back to my usual sleep patterns. But it does go to show how something so seemingly harmless can be quite addictive without you even knowing it.

Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go to Starbucks and get my double shot grande espresso, with an extra shot, and get going.

The great escape

When I hear the words escape plan, like everyone else in advertising I think it's referring to a way out of the business. A gentle transition into another career, preferably one that isn't ranked below car salesman and personal injury lawyers.

With all the rockin' and rollin' that's been going on in places like the Philippines and Mexico City, I know it also applies to earthquakes.

But the more jokes I hear about the zombie apocalypse, the more I think maybe it's no joke at all and that's what's really coming. They just want you think it's a joke. And that's what I need an escape plan for.

Hear me out.

I don't think the dead will rise and start slow-chasing down a brain buffet. At least not at first. What I think is they've already ingratiated themselves, hiding in plain sight among us. If you've ever worked in an agency, people feeding on the brains of others for survival is nothing new to you.

And while it may not result in the zombie gore portrayed in movies, comics and television, I promise you more often than not it's just as messy and no less brutal.

I believe the theory of Occam's Razor - the simplest solution being the right one - applies here.

Walk faster.

At least this'll work against the slow-walking, brain-eating zombies. However, their more subtle agency brethren have already mastered the World War Z art of the fast walk, usually while carrying a Powerpoint deck or an iPad so as to look important - and alive.

You'll have to be more resourceful planning your getaway from them. If they trap you in a meeting, you're a goner.

One of the most valuable tools in the fight against zombies is a quality shovel. Always good for clobbering them in the head and buying yourself some time.

Of course if you work in an agency, you already know it comes in pretty handy there too.

Yours, mine and hours

If you know anything about me - and you probably know more than you want to already - you know I'm not by any definition a morning person. Every day, without fail, morning gets here too quickly (it might have something to do with me going to bed after midnight every night, who's to say). I find just as morning rears its ugly, ugly head happens to be the exact same time I finally hit my deepest sleep.

Then, thanks to a clock, my wife, a kid or the dog, it's BAM! - wake up little prince.

When I'm up and moving around in the morning, it's actually not in a truly wakeful state. It's more controlled sleepwalking until I can get the haze out of my head, stop bitching about being up so early and actually get the day going.

What does help, and it's not often I say this, but fortunately I'm in advertising.

Anyone who's ever worked in the creative department of an agency knows the hours we keep are anything but conventional. Creatives don't arrive until anywhere from 9 to 11, and don't leave until between 5 and 10.

My sweet spot is the 9:30 range. By then I'm awake, I'm alert and not only am I ready to hit the road running, I'm ready to work smart.

The working smart part is the reason I'm not one of the creatives there until 10 or later.

My pal Rich Sigel at Round Seventeen wrote a great post about not working late unless it's absolutely necessary. Which on the rare occasion it is. But for the most part, working into the night, eating bad pizza and hanging out with the boss who doesn't want to go home for reasons only he/she knows is a suck-up move.

It can be a test of loyalty. I can be loyal without taking the test.

In more conservative, traditional industries - like insurance, law, finance or government for example - it's difficult for people to understand the laxness when it comes to workday hours in the agency business.

I'd be happy to meet with them one morning and explain it. Anytime after 11.