I didn’t understand these people. I was someone who needed to feel comfortable at work.  Pictures of my kids (never knew when I wouldn’t be home for dinner), a cushy couch (never knew when I wouldn’t be home), and a framed Chagall print on my wall gave my office a sense individuality.

But really, I was just giving myself the illusion of permanence.

It’s no coincidence that most of the white-wallers had been in the business a while. In hindsight, all of the people I’m remembering were in their 40s and had seen their share of layoffs. At the time I thought it was sad. Poor guy. He’s just expecting to lose this job.

But now, I look at it as pragmatic. Unless you work for yourself, there’s a fairly high likelihood that someone is going to call you into their office one day to tell you your services are no longer necessary. We are bolts in a machine. Workers in a factory.  Each with a finite life expectancy.

I don’t look at that as negative or doomesdayish. Quite the opposite. Having the understanding of my role in the bigger system has liberated me to find another system. That’s what I love about freelancing so much. I can visit an agency, get my hands dirty, and never expect to be treated as anything but a service for hire.

Not to mention, I’ll never have to pack another box again.

I grew up with someone who lived by the motto, “Hope for the best, but expect the worst.” His feeling was, if you hope for the best, there’s always a chance that some day you’ll get lucky. But if you expect the worst, well, when things go sour there’s less room for disappointment.

But here’s the thing — nobody who ever did anything great expected the worst. They may allow for failure on the first or second or 50th try. They may expect an uphill battle and temporary setbacks. But they always believe the best is imminent.

To expect the worst is to subconsciously guide yourself to that end. It paves the way for mediocrity and self-fulfilling prophesies. If you expect the worst, there’s nothing to lose — especially your emotional investment.

What if, just for once, you allowed yourself to expect the best? I mean, really, truly felt it in your bones. If you believed in the best possible result, how would you approach your project differently? Would you spend a little extra time? Do a little more research? If something went haywire after the first day, would you just give up? Or look for a way to learn from it and make it better?

I’m learning more and more each day about the power that intentions have over the course of our lives. And not because of some mystical, unseen energy (although I’m believing in that too). But because of the way our beliefs affect the way we act.

We all know hard-luck people. They expect the worst and are always rewarded. We also know charmed lives that find good fortune every day. Regardless of which side of that spectrum you fall on, you can be sure that you’re wearing your beliefs on your sleeve. And people around you react accordingly.

It’s a little bit chicken-and-egg. Do negative thinkers get that way because of negative circumstances? Or are negative circumstances invited by negative thinking? All I know is, there are people who expect the best and get it. And I expect to be one of them.

It is the purest way to see it. You get to watch Lemonade with a bunch of other folks, most of whom are or have been laid off. Then we get to have a conversation about the film, how it was made, and talk about how you can make your own Lemonade. Usually, there’s some kind of post-viewing party with drinks where ideas get passed around like little bits of energy.

2. Buy the DVD from Lemonademovie.com

These are printed on demand from the supplier (Kunaki) and can be shipped to most countries around the world. For every $9.99 order, Lemonade gets $8.99. It’s a great system that puts a lot of money back into the project. And the end product is pretty fantastic.

3. Buy the DVD from Amazon.com

Some folks prefer the granddaddy of e-commerce over the relative unknown of Kunaki. I can respect that. Plus, they ship to the countries that Kunaki doesn’t. But if you do purchase from Amazon, just know that I’m shipping supply from Kunaki to Amazon anyway. Plus they charge me 55% of every order.

4. Watch Lemonade on Hulu

If you’re unemployed without a steady income, this is the way to go. (You must also live in the US.) The ads are short and not unbearably placed. And you can watch it as many times as you want for free.  If you need a little on-demand inspiration, Hulu is perfect. And if you like it, make sure you leave a review. It matters.

When you read George Parker’s raw blog, Adscam, it’s hard not to get angry….sometimes with George, sometimes at George. It’s written on pure emotion and f-bombs. The douchenozzles, the Poisoned Dwarf, the BDAs. He spews upwards of five posts a day, pulls no punches, and in almost all cases, says the things most of us wish we could.

But when I read his new book, The Ubiquitous Persuaders, I discovered something about George. The man is a scholar. I learned more about the history and roots of advertising in the first three chapters than I have in 15 years, and I consider myself to be something of an ad geek.

George is a lifelong student of the business. And he educates his readers in great detail about where advertising came from, so we can see the absurdity in where it is going. As he says in the book, “Damn, we don’t even learn from the past, so how the hell can we forecast the future?”

What readers of this blog will surely connect with is George’s breakdown of big agencies’ self destruction. Conglomerates buy independents, and with rare exception (Goodby being the only one of note), the creativity they purchase gets bean-counted to death when accountants start running the joint. From the very first chapter:

The bottom line is simply about making the bottom line. Or, as the financial director of one of Madison Avenue’s largest agencies was reputed to have said upon hearing they had just picked up a prestigious national account that would allow the agency to do some high quality work, “Fuck the work. What about the money?”

George calls The Ubiquitous Persuaders “A fifty year update of Vance Packard’s book The Hidden Persuaders,“ which I admittedly haven’t read. All I know is that this current version provides excellent analysis of everything from the industry’s gold rush to acquire technology clients to commercials promising the end of erectile dysfunction. It’s educational, entertaining, and one hell of a fine read.

I once thought George Parker was a vitriolic, no-substance curmudgeon with a chip on his shoulder. Well, The Ubiquitous Persuaders proved me right about everything except the no-substance part. If you read AdScam, then you must buy and read The Ubiquitous Persuaders.

You will never look at Mr. Parker the same way again.

Several people pointed me to this article in the Boston Sunday Globe about the future of the workplace. And I’m glad they did.

You should absolutely read the piece in its entirety, but here’s an excerpt that summarizes it nicely:

Please Feed The Animals made a new business presentation last week.

We didn’t have anybody with a British accent talking about psychographics. There weren’t teams of leaders responsible for different sections of the deck. And I couldn’t turn to a boss to bail me out of the rocky bits.

For the first time in my career, I was pitching new business without representing an employer. We showed our past work, sold the shit out the idea (singular), and showed the estimate.

We had some back and forth. Articulated our viewpoint. Overcame objections.

And at the end of the meeting, the client signed the estimate.

Just like that.

It was exactly how you picture new business meetings going down. It literally could not have gone any better.

Then two days ago, after we started getting our team in place and working on the assignment, politics happened. The head of the company decided to it give it to their agency of record.

Needless to say we were disappointed. And so were our direct clients. They thought they had been given autonomy. We thought we had been given the project.

The good news is we learned how to stand on our own two feet. We gained confidence in our model. And, they are paying us for the hours we put in.

All we can say is, shit happens.

But for a while there, the future sure seemed pretty clear.

On Lemonademovie.com, there’s a link to join the email list.

For the next two days, subscribing will get you access to watch Lemonade in its entirety online. Then on Friday 12/15, I’m removing it from the server.

It’s my small way of saying thank you.

A couple months before Up In The Air was released, someone who knows someone at Paramount told me about its similarities to Lemonade.

Well, I was finally able to see UITA last night. Other than mentioning that I enjoyed it very much and think you would, too, I’m not going to give it a review here per se.

I did want to talk about its similarities to Lemonade. And mostly, how it differs.

While the movie is largely about a hired-gun axe man, they cut in clips of real-life people who lost their jobs. Overall, it’s a nice touch of reality in an otherwise glitzy Hollywood production. And that’s pretty much where the sameness ends.

The bigger thought for me was this issue of escapism vs. truth. We go to the movies largely to be entertained. People — myself included — think nothing of dropping $50 on a couple of tickets and some popcorn to get away from life for a while. And judging by box office sales for Up In The Air (about $54.5M to date), we don’t mind watching actors live out our day to day bullshit on the big screen.

That said, Ryan Bingham (Clooney’s character) transcends our day to day. He’s not our reality.  Bingham carries a Black Card, flies 300+ days a year and romps under hotel covers with mid-life hottie Vera Farmiga. There’s not much middle income white-collar connection to that.

But the people on the other side of the desk — the ones he’s paid to fire — that’s you and me. Those are the people I connect with. Theirs are the truths I want to tell. And that’s the big difference between Up In The Air and Lemonade. The former is a beautifully executed fantasy that entertains a notion of reality. The latter tries to make reality entertaining.

So I ask you, is a largely fictional film about layoffs more appealing to you than a real one? Would you rather see dashing leading men act out what it’s like to fire someone, or hear about real-life triumphs from the other side?

I know the story I want to tell. But what’s the story you want to hear?

I see unemployed people thriving. Starting their own businesses. Acting on their passions. Finding better jobs than they had before.

And I see employed people stressing. Seeing their families less. Looking over their shoulders and wondering if they’re next.

Why do people cross their fingers and hope to avoid layoffs? Why not adopt an entrepreneur’s mentality now, while you’re still working?

Both the employed and the non need a bit more recklessness in their lives. Rather than act like you could lose your job at any moment, you should work like you could die any day.

At the 2005 Stanford University graduation ceremony, Steve Jobs gave a rousing speech that is passed around email and Twitter to this day. He said:

For the past 33 years, I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself: ‘If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?’ And whenever the answer has been “No” for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something.

Instead of being worried about losing your job, have the attitude, “so what?” It might just make you enjoy it a bit more.