I should have known better.
I should have known better than to think the worst was over. That the anecdotal hires and increased headhunter activity signaled a respite from the putrid pall of pink slips littering our lives these last two years.
But no. Not yet. Not even close.
I should have remembered the June 30th closing bell. You can set your alarm to the quarterly bloodshed.
I’ve been able to distance myself emotionally from this absolute, indisputable fact. That is, until yesterday, when I stumbled on yet another post-dismissal Bukowski’s drink fest and saw, I dunno, a dozen amazing talents drowning themselves in their bottomless mugs of layoff lager. Some of them my friends. All of them too talented to be there.
I’m like the victim – not the criminal – who returns again and again to the scene of the crime. Or, as fellow animal Michelle tweeted to me yesterday, “You remind me of an Italian grandma who goes to funerals for social activity.”
Bukowski’s is where Boston’s ad scene goes to die. The otherwise amazing pub has been popularized by this brutal fucking business. This thankless, sure-we’ll-take-your-life-then-crap-on-it-when-we’re-done-with-you career we’ve chosen.
I’ve tried to stay positive. I’ve tried to give our collective creativity the benefit of the doubt. That somehow our industry would find a better way. But no. We are still nothing more than the fecal byproduct of advertising’s ineptitude.
And, you know what, I’m fine with that. We are line items. Gears in a cog. Makers of widgets. Stricken from the budget as easily as new copy machines and Aeron desk chairs.
But spare the “we are family” bullshit. Enough with the rah rah emails and company retreats. Stop telling us that the talented humans of Agency X are what separates Agency X from other Agency Xs. Because families don’t lop off the newest or most expensive offspring when the belt needs tightening.
Imagine that dinner conversation. “I’ve called this Proulx family meeting with some unfortunate news. As you know, we’ve just lost our main source of revenue – my job – so we had to make some tough decisions. Ben, as the eldest child you can stay but with 33% fewer meals. Clara, I’m sorry to say, your position as a child in this household has been deemed redundant. Since you were the last in, we thought it fair that Ben keep his position as Proulx spawn. However, because you have been here for 3 years, you qualify for a severance package, which includes placement assistance into a foster family. Feel free to use me as a reference. Really, I mean that. And thank you for all your cuteness and unconditional love. Best of luck.”
We are not family. Commitment is not reciprocated. It says as much right in the offer letter. “Employment at Agency X is at will and can be terminated at any time….” Shame on us for thinking that’s just boiler plate language. Shame on us for forgetting that everyone, EVERYONE, is out for #1.
We hang onto the culture myth. We believe you when you spout family values. We want to drink your Kool Aid. We want to join your movement. We want to be part of the something special that the 1/10th of 1% of advertising agencies temporarily achieve. We’re human. And humans need connectedness to something larger, spiritual even.
Shame on us for believing we could get all that from our jobs. And shame on you for making us believe you wanted the same thing.
30 Comments
Sad but true. And you left out the part when, after Clara has been dismissed, the reduced family is gathered again for the next pep talk: “I know we are all a bit sad. But Clara had not really been pulling her weight lately. Not quite as cute as when we first had her. This reduced family is actually leaner, BETTER than it was before!”
I hang my head low. Swallow hard and deep. Lift my glass to the fallen. And never swallow the kool-aid again. I won’t!
Ah, the carrot that dangles by a fishing line. Every time you jump for it, they pull it away.
For four years (at an agency I will not disclose), that was the story of my life. No matter how many times I jumped and missed that carrot, I always jumped twice as hard the next time and I never gave up.
After I was let go, the spell was broken. I suddenly realized I was FREE! You can torment me no longer you demon spawn of Beelzebub! Return to the depths from whence you came!
And now, here I am…a little lost in the world. No clients or senior creatives to guide me…and for the first time in four plus years (apart from getting a little bored every now and then) I’m happy.
When I find my next creative home, I hope to have the guts to forgo the kool-aid, and have a shot of bourbon instead.
I’ve felt this way for years. While I certainly hope to like the people with whom I work — and a few of them may become like family — the agency as a whole never will be. It’s a business. So, yes, please, for the love of all that is mildly holy, stop calling us family. And stop with euphemisms like “associates” instead of employees. Unless I have a chance of being made an equity partner, I’m not an associate. And I’m cool with that.
Two days I started a full-time gig back at the place that laid me off 2 1/2 years ago. There’s been a fair amount of change during that time, and I’m excited to be there. But will it be my family? No. No way. My family is currently downstairs playing with block and tearing up the foam flooring. That’s family. The agency is a cool bunch of people hanging out and doing advertising for money. It comes. It goes. And that’s okay. My family is forever.
Peace and prayers for those now searching.
Fox
“But spare the “we are family” bullshit.”
Thank you.
What is it with those that spew this “we are family” crap? Respect the intelligence of the people you have hired, because they are smart, that’s why you hired them and can see right through the veil. We are story-tellers. Who do you think is casting the talent to convey the message?
Be a champion for the talent/family. That’s what a healthy relationship is.
All it took was one internship for me to realize how covered in bull shit the advertising [agency] industry is. Sadly I’ve watched my peers fall in love with an industry that cares not one bit about them. I can’t fully blame them. After all, the infatuation starts with entrance to an ad program somewhere, followed by rigorous competitions where brilliant work is defecated on (true signs of industry narcissism) and ‘cool’ meetings with other ‘creatives’…it’s all bull shit. What they don’t realize is that their education was not (or should not be) intended for them to love an industry. It is to use advertising as a discipline to fulfill our own goals and aspirations. Because, lets face it, it’s a great discipline. If you ask me, Clara is lucky she’s learning this lesson now before she gets sucked in like all the other tools at the “top.” Clara should figure out what she’s truly passionate about and find a community or industry that will appreciate her skills there. And if being in the advertising industry is her passion, I feel sorry for her because just like that award-winning direct mail piece, she too will eventually be thrown away.
Truth is, like any business, revenue versus expenses is the only thing that can matter. I’d be willing to bet that many agencies put off hard decisions until it was absolutely necessary. Doesn’t make it suck any less, but you can’t pay salaries with money that doesn’t exist. As for the “we are family” thing, well, if you take the word “family” as it’s preached in corporate america as having the same meaning as your own personal family, then sorry, but you’re just naive. Businesses probably should just stay away from the word “family” I suppose, but to me the spirit of what it means in business is about trying to create some kind of culture that can inspire people. Culture is not a myth, at least not to me. Some seem to think a lame group speech using the word “family” creates a culture, but it’s never so much what’s said than what’s done in the day to day. I’d say I’ve worked in a couple of places that had that. Many, if not most that haven’t. No speech by any CEO would change the reality. But I never in my happiest times in advertising ever considered my co-workers “family”. (Other than my wife, who was first a co-worker and now officially my family) But in more than a few cases I was a part of some pretty tight teams with some amazing people. I loved them and enjoyed my time working with them. But I knew it would end someday. They would leave. I would leave. Or what has happened over the last couple of years would happen. Family is forever, business isn’t. And I’ve been on both sides of the layoff equation, and let me tell you, neither side is a happy place to be. But if you choose to carry around the anger created by these times, that’s even worse. I mean, you can quit advertising if you want to, but business is business pretty much anywhere you go. And no matter how much we’d like it to be otherwise, the balance sheet always rules.
JN:
I agree with everything you’re saying here, except for one point: that “agencies put off hard decisions until absolutely necessary.” There’s always something else to cut besides a job. There is always another perk that can be scaled back, award show entries that can be put on hold, summer outings that can be postponed. And, yes, some agencies are putting their best recession faces on and minimizing these luxuries. But if came down to saving a $50k job or forgoing $50k in award show entries, which one do you think gets cut? “People are our most important assets” rings hollow when the CEO’s office is being renovated in the middle of layoffs. It’s reality, yes. But we don’t have to like it. And I refuse to believe there isn’t a better way.
Sadly, I can attest to these hard truths and I’ve never been laid off. Nobody is perfect, hypocrisy is endemic, and even the greatest companies can have deep flaws. However, I believe empathy, compassion, adaptability, and the Golden Rule are still our path out of this mess. Be a good teammate, and work your butt off for great personal opportunities and people who share your values. Just remember to remain in charge of your own career. Nobody else cares about it as much as you do.
We’ve all been in the situation where we lobby for a long-overdue raise and they say they wish they could, but don’t have the money. Then once you hand in your letter of resignation, they suddenly find the money, and more!
After that experience and then a lay-off many years ago, I learned that it IS just business.
I still love this business (and currently barely squeaking by on meager freelance gigs), and here’s my mindset: It’s their job to pay you as little as possible. But on the flip-side, it’s your job to make as much money as possible. So work hard, do great work, and charge what you’re worth. That way when the layoff comes (and they always do — especially if you’re a high-income earner) you won’t feel like they were taking advantage of you, and you won’t take it personally.
But I hear you on the “family” speeches. I guess that’s so they can get you to spend weekends with your “family.”
To make matters even worse, when we do get an interview, the interviewer or recruiter has the balls to poke holes in our resumes because of short stints at some agencies due to factors beyond our control.
Sorry for being proactive when the writing is on the wall and looking out for myself because you don’t give a shit about me and someone has to. The days of working for an agency and rising up through the ranks in position and salary to be sent off with a nice inscribed gold watch doesn’t exist anymore.
Just like your allegiance is to the holding company and your stockholders, my allegiance is to myself.
We’re hiring. Email me if you’re interested.
Nice running into you at Bukowski’s even though I was crying in my Narragansett (can you believe they were out of PBR?!)
Really?? And I say this with all due respect to you and your situation: You thought big advertising agencies were caring and respectful of human beings and talent (and everyone sitting around you had deep concerns for anything other than their own personal climb?) Talent to big ad agencies is the t-shirt of the week…especially if it rakes in the dough. So I am trying to reconcile everyone’s utter *shock* of being taken in like a movie star only to be spit out when convenient, because it sounds surprisingly naive to me. The best revenge won’t be found trying to relive the glory days like an old high school football star over beers at the local watering hole but to take your creativity and talent onto something else so that this antiquated industry’s model can dissolve like “plop plop fizz fizz” into MadMen oblivion.
I can’t speak for other organizations, but in my department, there is a feeling of family. However, the feelings you have for people — the bonds you build — don’t make the business realities go away. A couple months back, I had to lay off an art director…a friend. He’s a guy I’ve known for a long time, worked with at another agency, attended Browns games with. But when a bunch of our clients cut their spending, so did we. And someone had to go. It was my friend. What you don’t see from those firings is the days of angst that comes before it. First I had to decide who to lay off, and give good reasons why. Then I had to figure how how to tell him. Should I be cold and business like? Should I give him a hug and tell him how sorry I was? Should I just get our HR person to do it? It was a weekend of agony for me that I’m sure he never suspected. In bigger companies, layoffs might be taken lightly. But not in mine. It is the worst part of my job. It is like losing a family member.
It’s a cold, hard reality that wakes us to the fact that although corporations may be viewed as individuals under the law,they are so very far from human. More and more these days, I understand that no one but me will be looking out for my best interests. By nature, organized group mentality will push out the few to allow the survival of the many. It’s a fact that sucks, but becomes wildly apparent in these lean times–which may last a long time.
It’s an industry made out of professional liars. It shouldn’t be surprising when realizing we constantly lie to ourselves as an industry. How else would we sleep at night?
http://videosostav.ru/video/62f9c6553fc0d31dcb800e5fdf000327/
It’s a sad truth, once your gone family is no more. But advertising is all about creating illusions, isn’t it?
Amen.
Anytime, and I mean ANYTIME you hear someone mention the “We are a family” line in a staff meeting it’s a harbinger for layoffs and is usually masking a deeper trouble. Otherwise, why would they feel the need to say it. Never buy into it.
sad but true and full of BS.
Why are you so bitter? It’s a business. Every business has to make tough decisions. You’re talking about your ex-agency like they were a cult. I feel bad that you allowed your naivety to trick you into thinking you were invincible, but when the industry you’re in thrives on competition, don’t for a SECOND forget where you are. Sorry for the harsh words, but I think you need to wake up.
My Creative Director once told me that clients pay agencies the money they get from consumers from selling products and lies that art directors create at agencies. Expecting that same agency to be ethical and caring and upfront to its employees all the time is a lie in itself especially in a recession, when that same money starts to dry up. That’s the nature of the business. You all paid for the SVA’s and AD schools knowing full well the hi’s and low’s of the business. Same goes for nurses and doctors cant freak out when someone dies during surgery. Or when a baseball player gets traded. It sucks, but thats the nature of the business. When there is a downturn, people get laid off. U expect benjamin palmer to tweet or put a big announcemnent on the barbarian group website, your lieing to yourself. If all the agencies could push a button to cover up all the people they let go because of the cannes festival expenses they would do it in a heartbeat. This is a shallow industry rotten to the very core. People are just now realizing this. lol
Broken promises hurt, even if the promise shouldn’t have been made or believed in the first place.
That being said, we have a management debacle in all industries, in which our largest firms are obsessed with quarterly numbers instead of building long term value.
The market has forced management of public companies into a short-term outlook. A business doesn’t have to see its workforce as a family; it should see it as an asset. A strategic investment of time in training, practice, and higher education enhances the value of that asset and improves its value later.
I don’t need to be a family member, but seeing management running scared when running a business is just a shame.
Funny thing about this debate is that there can be no winner. Either you throw yourself headlong into the family-mission-team-culture dynamic and risk meeting your maker come layoff time, or, you punch a clock with no real higher purpose.
I always wanted to believe (and still want to) that there are a few agencies out there that have a clear purpose, and manage their growth around that purpose. But when shareholders decide the times to hire and fire, culture becomes a myth because the only higher purpose is quarterly profitability.
Which, again, is cool with me. But instead of the family conversation, or saying that “our people are our #1 asset,” tell it like it is. Just tell us that the culture is about profitability…not about “the work” or “the people” or “a movement.” It would make the departure so much easier to swallow.
Many industries including advertising have been becoming “free agent” cultures and this current crisis is going to create even more of that. We also have exceptional tools for networking and production, among other tech, that we did not have in years past. If good inexpensive healthcare becomes available for the self-employed, I know that tons of people are going to go/stay freelance once clients start spending again. a whole lot of companies are going to wish they hadn’t put the thumbscrews so severely on their best people.
It isn’t about the work. It isn’t about the people. It isn’t about the culture. It’s about the bottom line. Once you understand, there’s a certain liberation in that knowledge. Work for yourself, your family, your book, your future. Nothing else. Be ethical, pleasant, polite, but do not care. Don’t have passion for anything other than your book and your career. Do the right thing, help others, but help yourself first. Do not care. Do not get emotionally involved. No agency is unique. No agency has a “culture” that’s any better or worse than any other agency. There are good agencies and bad agencies, there are no moral agencies. They are not evil, they are bloodless. Do not care. You and your family and your book are all that matters.
You just have to brush off all the BS speeches of family and “togertherness”, nod your head and go back to your desk or team and do the best you can. It’s not like we’re invading Normandy here that these “family” and “culture” references mean anything at the end of the day.It makes the board and executives feel good about themselves so, let them have it.
It has become so cliche and mundane. If it was family then the HR director would not have said to me at MY EXIT INTERVIEW “it’s so nice to finally meet you” after 7 dedicated years at the agency. (imagine a sibling or cousin saying that to you in a family setting).
Lastly, I totally agree with ADMIN (8) about cutting costs where you can. Does submitting an entry (with all its costs) mean more then the people who got you there in the first place? So say, you won the award and half the people who worked on that campaign got laid off a few months later. How strange is that?
“Funny thing about this debate is that there can be no winner. Either you throw yourself headlong into the family-mission-team-culture dynamic and risk meeting your maker come layoff time, or, you punch a clock with no real higher purpose.”
No, there’s a third option: do good work in another industry (software, for example), one that neither demands you pretend that work is your family, or becomes an exercise in clock-punching. Advertising is RIDICULOUS, folks. It’s a tiny little self-referential bubble of an industry that regards itself as the beginning and end of all things creative. It is not. Wake up and get the hell out.
Boy this sure hits home for so many of us, and it certainly does for me as I have spent the last week packing a house for my trip back to the US, having given a company 8 years of my life. It is, unfortunately, not just advertising that this happens in and thank you for pointing out what should by now be clearly obvious to all of us.
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