The new position is different from the previous position. On paper, my role is much the same, but in practice the mode of operation has significant differences. Whereas the previous agency was a lightly-staffed satellite office of a purportedly trans-continental but seemingly slipshod operation, the present agency is the worldwide headquarters of a major global advertising powerhouse. From the windows, one side has a beautiful view of mid-town perched on a hill overlooking the downtown section of the city. The other side looks across the Hudson river to New Jersey. For such a magnanimous building, the agency’s projects seem surprisingly small, and the budgets, based on as much as I am able to infer about them, reflect this.
Whereas every creative decision at the previous position went through a sometimes unhealthily intense debate with the Creative Director and Art Director, decisions in this firm are mostly passed like radon gas unnoticed without smell. Perhaps a behemoth advertising firm has difficulty adapting to the Internet era.
The digital group in which I operate consists of a handful of people at best: three Project Managers of one sort or another who sit together at a series of giant desks stacked side by side as far as the eye can see in the main open area. These people keep calm and organize periodic meetings with up to three Creative Directors, each of whose office has a more stunning view than the next, to extract the wisdom to be shuttled over to two or three Art Directors, who sit in slightly more sheltered sections of the open area. The Art Directors produce pretty graphics representing the visionary concepts lavished upon them by the Creative Directors (in theory). All work must pass approval from the Account Managers, who must ultimately ensure that the client is happy and that the client’s strategic goals are met by the work. None of the personnel are used to working with someone of my obscure skills. I am a sort of bridge between the Creative personnel, the Project Managers, and the Account people, stepping on the tips of each of their toes until they stop bothering to shine their shoes.
Only the Project Managers appear to devote their entire time to Internet projects. The others have decidedly non-interactive backgrounds and tendencies. Everyone seems to be a Vice-President of This-And-That-Other-Thing, although they perform roles no different from non-executive production staff I have encountered in other firms. Each bathroom is replete with Scope mouthwash, hand lotion, and gentle facial tissues.
As it nears almost a month that I have been helping them, certain aspects of the business are becoming clear. There are a handful of big clients who must fund the majority of the operation. The Internet group could not be profitable, so this must mean that there are major accounts in other media, such as print and television, pulling the train along – areas of the business to which I have little-to-no exposure. Judging by the sounds I hear while in the toilet, I am one of the few people to use the readily-available disposable splash-suppressing sanitary toilet seat covers with folded annular and bridging inner portions.
Because they are owned by a French parent organization, and, wink-wink, we all know the French have a different outlook on labor, or so I am told, the accounting system to determine the operating costs of any account (i.e. client project) is purportedly based on net revenue divided by the number of employees. Since outside vendor companies are not considered employees, a variety of accounting tricks of using employees vs. outside contractors ensue. At the moment, I am hired as an employee, although I may have to switch to using my corporation since I have recently begun working on an in-house project that is not bringing in any revenue.
As I was one day early on in this job instant messengering with a disgruntled employee from my previous client, I found myself recommending to them that they switch to a larger agency, where I said with new-found surprise, there is less politicking. Having been there longer, I now know that the atmosphere in this agency is politically toxic.
The agency’s head Creative Director left the job during my first week. People who live a life in these types of environs apparently consider such events to be monumental. He asked his creative underlings out to a steak dinner – all except one or two. One of the snubbed underlings, who happens to be the Art Director I am working most with, sits directly across from a Copywriter every day of the week, all year long. They are very close and collaborate on everything. Copywriter J got quietly up to leave for the lunch invitation without saying a word to Art Director J.
Art Director J came to confide in me (I was a safe confidant given my independent status) wide-eyed in some sort of subdued fluorescent tube Art Director rage that it was unconscionable for Copyright J to have sat across from her and not said anything about a lunch invitation to which everyone except Art Director J was invited. I told her to let it go – it’s hard for me to fathom the snub and even harder to sympathize with the outrage.
Another week passed before L, a more junior Copywriter, but senior in personality and wit, called me in that whiny American sort of outrage via the internal line (a clunky-looking office telephone that some people are apparently accustomed to using) to complain about the direction the project we were working on together was taking. I happen to agree with her that the guidance from our assigned Creative Director is more-or-less worthless, and the Art Director was producing design work that did not adhere to my plans and did not make the project seem exciting. But I’m not sure I was able to satiate her thirst for outrage and vengeance.
But finally, a few days later, we had the big presentation (via clunky telephone) with the client… ten or so of us in a room. Account Manager A asked Creative Director J who should to talk the client through the ideas for the project. Creative Director J, clearly not thinking about much beside the buttons on his cell phone and the good-standing of his hair coiffure, indicated with a hand gesture of distraught that I was probably the one to do so. This might have made sense in a less politically charged environment, since the flow of ideas is, after all, my specialty. Account Manager A immediately caught his faux-pas and hurriedly asked Art Director J to do the talking to the client, as if giving a cupcake to a sobbing child.
For several months now, I have been keeping an Excel document especially to track my hours at these types of positions. Each client has its own designated sheet, where I keep a log of hours and fees for each week of work. Immediately upon arrival in the morning, I update the starting time for the day. Immediately after lunch (and sometimes before), I enter in the length of my break. Before departure, I update the timesheet to reflect total hours worked for the day. In this manner, I am aware of exactly how much money I am earning at every leg of the day, every day of the week, every week of the year, and ultimately for the year as a whole. When I send an invoice at the beginning of each week, the date, invoice number, and amount is tallied in the Excel document. When the client pays the invoice, I enter bold text “Paid” next to the invoice number. A final sheet, mislabeled “Net Worth”, automatically updates with every new entry to reflect my total earnings this year.
The office has an atrium with a skylight, a jukebox, some circular tables, and a small coffee shop run alternate days by ghetto tall Showannah and a bubbly tall Latina woman. Showannah has decided that I like green tea in the morning. And something about being someone who has an assigned drink appeals to me, so despite my preference for non-caffeinated beverages, I often have green tea in the morning. The afternoon is peppermint tea time, sometimes with an oatmeal raisin cookie. The atrium is almost always empty.
The building has a cafeteria four floors below mine. I have not yet ventured there.
Today, one Project Manager asked me for a critique of the designs produced by one of the Art Directors. All in all, the design left a lot to be desired. The site is obviously going to be boring and static, although Project Manager K explained that this was not likely to change given budget and timing constraints.. When I was finished with my feedback, Project Manager K said, “Thanks, I’m so glad we have someone like you around.” Project Manager J, sitting on the other side of the desk looked up and exclaimed, “Fuckin’-a, Yes!,” followed by “I only wish the Creatives understood that.”
I said, “The Creatives will not understand.”