Well, this feels weird. So here it goes. Since you all (or y’all, depending on what side of Maryland you’re reading this) are my online buds, I’ll share some news about me since writing my first post on this blog a year ago.

Don’t Fear the Reaper, for some strange reason, remains the most read post on pleasefeedtheanimals. I honestly don’t know exactly why. At the time I was without a full-time job for the first time in my career. Yet, for some reason I still don’t understand, I was feeling was tremendously positive despite my layoff and uncertain future. I felt it was within my power to reboot my career. Still, the economy last summer was just plain awful. Like many of you, I was wondering from where my next paycheck would come. I should have been freaking out. When I sat down to write, I found the right voice. It was funny. It was upbeat. It was me. I’m humbled that so many of you have read the post and continue to do so. Thank you. Over and over again.

Since then, amongst my frequent online ramblings, I found a lot of freelance work at various agencies, and did a decent job being an independent soldier of copywriting fortune. I felt fortunate to have found work when I did. Honestly, I think a lot of it was luck. My father always told me, “you make your luck,” and I believe there’s truth to that. Even though I secretly wanted the big TV shoot with the travel and the craft services table and the wrap parties and everything that makes advertising fun, I was happy to accept under-the-radar digital assignments and direct pieces. They kept the lights on, the kids fed, the bills paid.

As fortunate as I felt to be finding steady freelance, recently, a full-time job presented itself. I thought long and hard about it. I remembered my last post about someone who turned down an offer in a weak economy. I looked at the news about the continued fickleness of a recovery that just won’t settle in. I accepted. And I’m working with good people who I want to grow with. Perhaps this is my chance to reboot, and to laugh in the face of “the reaper” who I wouldn’t let get the upper hand.

Maybe I’m just having a good year and should simply accept that with the deepest humility. Or maybe I should smugly tell the reaper to take a hike. I’ve got ads to make.

Epilogue: If the happy ending of this post turned your stomach, or made you throw up a little in our mouth, then here’s a hyperlink to agencyspy, where there’s an ample supply of snarky comments to fulfill one’s daily dose of cynicism.

Brad Mislow is a senior copywriter and just wants to please you.

This article has caused a recent uproar on the interwebs lately. To sum it up, a 24-year-old college graduate lives at home with Mom and Dad. He’s been looking for work since graduating in 2008 with a PolSci degree (I know, I know). His search yielded one result, a $40K-a-year offer as an insurance claim adjuster. And he turned it down. According to more than 1,000 overwhelmingly angry commenters, this young man made the dumbest move of his life. Others are outraged that a child of privilege has the option of being choosy when so many would jump at such an opportunity for full time work.

So it made me think about those who haven’t had a full-time job offered in some time. Say you’re offered a job at an agency you’re not crazy about, doing work you don’t want to do…do you take it? Times are tough. Do you suck it up? Let your portfolio take the hit? Just to keep the bills paid?

There’s one camp that says, “of course you take it.” Any job’s a good job. Those bills don’t pay themselves. If you have a family, they’re not going to stop eating or needing new clothes or getting sick, etc. You stick it out until something better comes along. Or just make the best of it. Or both.

Then there’s the other camp. Hold out (and hold your breath). Trust your gut. Wait for the next thing to come along. That choice job offer should turn up someday.  Maybe it does. And maybe it doesn’t.

A career in advertising is judged by the quality of work one completes. Awards are won. Parties are attended. Rockstars are made. That’s what we all aim for. In rough economic times, those goals may just have to wait. Your reality may be way bleaker. If you find employment, freelance or full-time, you may be called in to work on unglamorous client-driven projects: newsletters, direct mail, banners, Facebook pages, etc. You’ll get paid to do it. You don’t have to do it. But do you?

Brad Mislow is a freelance writer type person who loves fresh peaches in the summer.

Anyone looking for a new gig knows that lonely and confusing feeling. The one which you’ve done all you can to get the attention of anyone who can hire you. You’ve emailed. You’ve called. You’ve emailed again. You’re waiting by your cell phone, trying every Jedi mind trick you know to get it to ring. Mine involve a lot of scrunched-up facial expressions and hand motions, to no avail. Must consult Master Yoda on that one.

Basically, you’ve found yourself in the limbo world of radio silence, and you don’t know what to do next. Lord knows you need that job, but all you’ll settle for is a fucking phone call or email saying “Hi. We got your message and you [got the job/didn't get the job/we're not deciding anything till the boss gets back]. Something. Anything.

No one sets out to be a stalker. It’s just too time consuming and far too creepy. And the cheerier you sound, the creepier it is. I bet if I listened every one of my follow-up voice mails, anyone would conclude that I’m a bumbling idiot or a serial killer. Because behind the breezy, casual “hey, I was just seeing if you looked at my work and made a decision yet” is “will you people just hire me already? Don Draper is not going to magically appear and write banner ads for salad dressing. So clear off a desk and brew a pot of heavily caffienated coffee. I’m coming over!” Nope, can’t do that. That’s why there are security desks and large men behind them.

Has sending brief but cordial rejection letters gone the way of the Gulf Coast sea turtle (ooh, too soon?)? They were all the rage when we were fresh out of portfolio school. Friends of mine used to post them on a wall of the house they rented. The jist of them all was:

Dear____,
Thank you for your interest in ____ agency.
Unfortunately, (lame excuse here).

We wish you luck in your endeavors.

Signed,
someone’s actual name.

As trite as that is, at least it was a response. The crazy thing is that nowadays it takes a fraction of the time to bang out an email. No envelope. No stamp. No mail carrier. And yet, so few places do such a simple act.

We’re all big boys and girls. We can handle the rejection. If we can’t, why the hell would we want to work in advertising, a business, in which more often than not, you hear the word “no”?

So all your follow-up emails and voice mails just go down a black hole, I guess. Just digital bits and bytes gone forever, sucked into a galactic vortex. That is, until some ad or project you worked on goes viral, wins an award, or gets the attention of some very desperate creative director needs a warm body right now to bang out ideas that were due three days ago.

Hey, sometimes you take what you can get.

Brad Mislow has a new website! It’s bradmislow.com! Clicky clicky clicky!

I was in a meeting this week and someone asked me how long did I work for my first agency.

“Eight years,” I said.

Everyone looked up.

Judging by the expressions around the conference table, you would’ve thought I was the 2,000-year-old man.

(with a Mel Brooks old man accent): Let me tell you about 1999! Oy! The black sketch books we carried around! People listened to music on CDs! Oh boy, were they shiny! You would stack them on your desk like waffles! We didn’t know any better!

Eight years in advertising is an eternity. My next job lasted two. As a freelancer, I now count work cycles in weeks. Sometimes, in days. I guess the next logical step would be to work at a place for eight hours before moving on somewhere else.

Longevity used to be celebrated. End of year holiday parties would call out people who worked at an agency for 10, 20, 30, 40(!) years. It’s one thing to read a book by David Ogilvy. It’s another to have actually reported to him.

Ad people like to move around. We all know that many agencies don’t do much to encourage longevity any more. There’s kind of a natural flow of hirings and layoffs to keep agency culture fluid. This is not necessarily a bad thing until you realize that no one at in your department knows anyone above a certain level on the org chart, or where the damn toner cartridge is.

I once read that people under 40 in today’s workforce will change careers seven to eight times in their lifetime. I’m starting to see why.

They aren’t given much of a choice.

Unless they don’t want to eat.

Brad Mislow is a regular contributor for this site and an irregular person overall. If you see him, say hello.

You can’t win, economy.

The more you swing, the stronger I get.

Biding my time.

Waiting until I can barely feel your jabs.

And your body blows feel like pixie taps.

Are you ready?

‘Cause here it comes.

You may be up in points.

But it’s a 12-round fight.

And I’m about to knock your ass out.

Since leaving my employer last June, I have often wondered if it was time for the traditional full-time job to end.

For large corporations, the 40-hour week makes sense. The employer gets a monopoly on your time and skills, and you become dependant on the paycheck. Because your entire income derives from one source, the company can force you to work overtime or shuffle you around in the corporation with little regard for extra hours or changing roles.

Guess who’s driving that bus?

But what if, instead of looking for one full time job, you worked two or three or more part time jobs? Could that make you a more valuable employee to all of them? At the very least, it is likely that you would develop a wider set of skills. For example, I am a business owner, working for myself as a copywriter four days a week. However, one day a week I work as a sales rep for a large corporation. Not only does my sales role give me a reason to go out into the world and interact with people face to face (instead of over the telephone and the internet), it also keeps my sales skills sharp and forces me to learn new tactics to convert prospects into customers. Working outside of my own company makes me a better copywriter.

Is there a second job that could make you more more effective?

Any sales job will expose you to new sales strategies and different types of customer interactions. Sales tactics are a part of every thing that people do, from pitching ideas to getting kids to bed on time. Everyone can improve their skills in those areas.

Marketing professionals who create work for retail companies can use nearly any job as a learning experience. Even working the floor at Target can give you an insight into the eyes of the public that you never had before, if only to better understand the buyer in a new way.

Working part-time for a start-up or charitable organization can expose you to grassroots and low-cost marketing methods, and even help you develop new ideas to promote products for less money.

But don’t fool yourself into thinking that working as a line chef somewhere will convince a new client or employer to hire you. First, you must leverage those experiences into something else. Create an e-book or pitch magazine articles on “How Being a WalMart Greeter Can Help You Advertise More Effectively,” or create a manifesto on improving customer service at the retail level. Do something unique and interesting with the experiences that you have.

Don’t forget to work for the most important boss – you. In most communities you can operate a business under your own name without any fees, and even communities that require home based businesses to register or buy a license often have exemptions for businesses that produce less than a certain dollar amount in revenue.

There is no reason not to be actively prospecting for clients in this economy. There is still work that needs to be done, but clients can’t always afford an entire agency. You could even reach out to friends and other unemployed former co-workers to form partnerships and handle complete campaigns.

If you choose to go back to the traditional work world, then look at the experiences these temporary jobs have given you and find a way to grow from them. However, you may just fall in love with the flexibility and freedom that being your own boss can give you.

________

Ryan Holota is a Freelance Copywriter and Daddy blogger. You can find him at ArHolota.com and JustCallMeDad.com.

Oh man. I’ve been battling a whopper of a digital brief lately. The assignment is nothing special, but it’s one of those “make some banners now and make the idea big enough so we can launch a new campaign from it.” So, you know, no pressure. Yet it’s been a tough nut to crack. And every day, I’m getting my ass kicked by this piece of paper. My team and I think and scribble and think and play online and think some more. Every night around 9ish, our ideas look pretty good. And around 9ish the next morning, they suck. So we start over. I look at the brief for the millionth time. “This brief’s a piece of shit,” one of us says as it’s tossed across the room. I walk around the office for signs of inspiration and leftover meeting food (there isn’t any). I return to my desk. I look at the brief again. Except it doesn’t look like a brief any more. It’s a time bomb. There are wires. So many wires. What do I do? This thing’s gonna blow. I’m frustrated. Stuck. I start the litany of “if onlys” such as “if only we had a bigger budget…if only we had some sound…if only we had a celebrity voice over…” If only I wasn’t such being a whiner. Briefs like this aren’t solved by whiners. They’re solved by MacGyvers. Someone who can look danger in the eye and beat it with nothing but a paper clip, sandpaper and lemon juice. Sometimes, that MacGyver fella has got to be you. Grab your needlenose pliers and save the day.

Not all assignments go smoothly. Some make no sense whatsoever. Frequently, the “figuring it out” part is saved for the creatives. Lucky you. No one knows how it’ll turn out. And yet, through the fate of the cosmos, this enigma of a riddle ended up on your desk. Whining, venting and complaining don’t move the deadline. Who said what we do is easy? Who said it was fair? Who said every assignment would be awesome? We are taxed to find the answer. Somehow. If we value our jobs. We burn the midnight oil. We burn the midday oil. We load up on caffeine and sugar. We fart around on YouTube looking for inspiration. We do what we do till the ideas flow. Then we have the rest of our careers to wonder why we didn’t do it differently.

MacGyver wasn’t a whiner. He got out of every mess looking like a champ. He would have made a good ad guy. Then again, he never had to deal with client bureaucracy, Facebook and impractical banner sizes. Still, I bet he’d make it to the closing credits, looking awesome, as his mullet victoriously flaps in the wind after saving the day, yet again, just in time for the local news.

Brad Mislow drank waaaay too much coffee today.

I became a huge fan of Brandon George today. Brandon is a student at my alma mater, the Creative Circus. He is also a rabid Cleveland Cavaliers fan.

As every Clevelander knows, LeBron James IS the Cavs. But in two and a half months, they may lose him to free agency.  So Brandon started a campaign to keep ‘Bron in Cleveland. It’s called In LeBron We Trust, and it consists of Brandon doing one news-worthy stunt a week for 23 weeks or until the Cavs re-sign him.

Some of my favorites include:

• Dribble a basketball for 23 hours straight
• Get hypnotized into believing he’s LeBron
• Sit inside a bin of Shaq’s used uniforms

Brandon, thank you for being a living, breathing example of what I’ve been preaching for the last six months. And that is:

Don’t be the person out there looking for a job. Be the person doing something interesting.

I hear you’ve got another year at the Creative Circus. I’d be shocked if you weren’t employed well before your graduation date.

“He’s dead, Jim,” Chief Medical Officer McCoy would sadly report to Captain Kirk every time some poor low-ranking Enterprise crewmember was (predictably) killed on some godforsaken outer planet by a Klingon or some perceivably undefeatable alien life form. Shatner, uh, Kirk would inevitably display a dramatic, but masculine burst of emotion before reassuming command of the mission.

Obviously, I’m talking about the decline and fall of print media.

Is it too early too call it dead by TKO? In case you want to think otherwise, here are some cold, gory details: newspapers have slashed a fifth of its journalists since 2001. Magazines are dropping like flies. 367 magazines ceased publication in 2009; 525 in 2008; and 573 in 2007. Do you live in Detroit and want a paper delivered to your home? Well, t.s. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution is allegedly hemorrhaging $1 million a week(!). Even if that figure is off by a few ten thousands, that business model is no way sustainable. Period. Professional photojournalists are now seeing their work being undercut by amateur photographers using cheap digital cameras and cell phones. And, as you all know, ad sales are way, way, way down. And here we are.

At a recent portfolio breakfast gathering, I approached the artist rep and asked her what she thought of all this. Don’t get me wrong, the work being presented was gorgeous. All the usual contenders were on display – the celebrity book, the borderline pornography fashion/beauty book, the food book, the industrial imagery book, the airbrushed-in-Photoshop book, etc. The work is always great. It’s amazing what some people can do with photography. The sad thing is assessing the value of this kind of work in a digital age.

So I asked this artist rep about it and she said she no longer brings in new photographers unless they can produce video as well. That’s smart, I wondered, but is it enough? “Hope so,” she said. These reps are smart people. I figure they’ll find a way to provide talent to ad agencies. In the meantime, there’s all this great photography with very few places to put it.

The digital part of me doesn’t mourn the decline of print media at all. By nature, it’s environmentally unfriendly, not-to-mention full of obsolete material and in most cases, of poor editorial quality. I don’t recognize many magazines anymore based on their content, with the exception of the New Yorker or the Economist (stop rolling your eyes). There have been so many editorial reorganizations in the last 20 years that the end result is a bad product.

But I do mourn the loss of an art form as old as paper itself. The blank page was exactly that – a great place to start. As an idea person, it was a joy to find a way to fill it with the smartest way to sell a product. Good ones were framed in the lobbies of client and agency alike. Great ones were awarded. And now, it’s time to move on. Years of layoffs in the print industry and advertising industries have gone too deep. At this point, all we can do is slowly wait until the plug is pulled and we watch the patient slowly flatline. It was a good long run. Let’s bow our heads in silence, and get back to making the next iPhone app that will keep people occupied in waiting rooms, DMVs and airports everywhere.

Brad Mislow is freelance senior copywriter in New York, and a regular contributor to PFTA. He wanted so badly to work for Rolling Stone when he was 16, and is happy his career didn’t quite work out that way. Oh well.

The Last Advertising Agency On Earth from FITC on Vimeo.

When agencies (and people) refuse to evolve, this is what can happen.