Limbo-ness

To relieve my boredom, I have been playing Gimme Friction Baby all day in the office. And no, this isn’t some new term for fapping which is the current term for wanking which was the old term for tickle the pickle. It is, somewhat pleasingly, an online game to do with expanding balls.

Unfortunately, my friction pleasure was interrupted by an urgent request for Winning Eleven which took up an hour of my time and was followed immediately by a relaxing lunch. And now I’m waiting for Gimme Friction to load again.

This is the problem with serving notices. You hand them your letter, they say awwwww, but could you please serve out your month’s notice, and then they force you to play online games with suggestive names.

Having already resigned four times in my brief four-year career, I really should be used to it. But I’m not. It feels odd that projects in which you were heavily involved just days ago are now distant and, well, meaningless which results in slacker behaviour.

I have told a few people about my resignation. ‘Pah, again.’ they all muttered. Come on people! Can’t any of you act surprised?? At least add a slight upward tone at the end so your statement could be construed as a question.

***

Actually, screw everything I’ve just said because I’ve just come out of a meeting and am now up to my eyeballs in work. A camera pitch and a healthcare booklet, eh. Remind me why I’m leaving again?

I wish I felt differently

I suppose I left that last post dangling a little. So let me elaborate. I haven’t really lost interest in advertising. But that’s simply because I’ve never been interested in the first place. It’s always been a job. Not a passion.

Now I know many folks in the industry who will say that passion should be our driving force. They will doubtlessly believe wholeheartedly in the power of ideas and their own creativity. They will demand that we constantly push the boundaries. They will proclaim that the metaphoric box is there just so that we can do our thinking outside of it. It’s the usual mumbo-jumbo you see splattered on the pages of Marketing magazine. But seriously now, come off it, why don’t you?

I’ve always wondered how so many smart and hugely creative people could be so enamoured with an industry that’s essentially a pest. A huge wart on the side of this capitalist beast we’ve nurtured. Surely, if you believe so fervently in the power of ideas, you can do better than to use these amazingly powerful tools to sell washing powder. And what about all this pushing of boundaries? The boundaries of what? Creativity? What does that even mean?

And by the way, who cares?

We in the advertising business are just so full of ourselves. We’ve got all our cosy award shows. A gazillion websites filled with ads for the world to marvel at which we then, almost always, proceed to massacre with a juvenile fervour that I am truly ashamed of. We buy and read endless books about our own industry legends, aspiring to be like them while simultaneously hating their guts for profiting from their peers.

Yet all this gloss does nothing to hide our niggling insecurities. The truth is no one outside of advertising gives two hoots about what we do because, in the larger scheme of things, advertising doesn’t come anywhere near the top. Or even the middle. We’re just the shit that’s settled at the bottom of the bowl. And we’re making hell of a din about it.

Silver. But so what?

Despite doing absolutely nothing, I have found myself with a silver award. Look here if you don’t believe me. And get your damn jaw off the ground.

This is all thanks to Daphne who, after much tenacious cajoling, finally got me to put some words to her ideas.

Ah, sweet is the taste of victory.

How odd then that the urge to quit advertising has never been stronger. I’ve simply lost interest. Again.

Oh, fuck it.

Frottage

To stay ahead in this rat race of ours, I’d gladly step all over your head and you’d be happy to chew my tail off. Friction is inevitable. So since we’re at it, we might as well get some gratification. Unless you’re a guy, that is. Then you can just go to hell.

Just a scribe

I have just gone through the FA of a serviced residence brochure and I don’t mind telling you that as I turned the pages, I wept with complete abandon. Every paragraph just screamed out for structure editing and, in some cases, a total rewrite. And yet I was completely helpless.

To think that it had all started so well with the client making it perfectly clear that we had won the business on the back of some sound copy. Why then did they insist on the tagline equivalent of “Because food is for eating” when we had options which, if not poetic, at least made some sense? And what’s with sentences that go “Stay with us… …and you’ll feel great”? Why have those dots? Are they supposed to keep the reader in suspense thinking “Hmmm, if I stay with them, I’ll (dot, dot, dot, hmmm, dot, dot, dot) feel great!”? Why!

For them to butcher so mercilessly the copy which they proclaimed they adored is like telling a woman you love her and then marrying her brother. It is just stunningly preposterous and yet these fools are perfectly happy about the whole affair. If I had the chutzpah, I would’ve punched them in their respective snivelling faces. Unfortunately, that is not the case. Which is why I am restricted to sitting here and ranting away at my keyboard. Such is the life of us advertising scribes.

Pardon this (short) rant

Been busy as a fucking polygamist. No sooner do I have time for the pharma account than the IT account demands some attention and no sooner do I start touch-typing her than the investment account wants a piece of the action as well – at 3 in the morning. The bitches. If I had my way, I’d have them all stoned.

Oh, bugger all this.
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Let’s all be suits

Yesterday, one of my colleagues suggested that today be “Client Servicing Day” which means that all the creatives had to come dressed like suits. My initial plan was to disregard this waste of time but I was told not to “outcast myself” and further warned in the morning via SMS (by my Creative Director, no less) that “If you aren’t dressed up, be prepared for consequences. Heh heh heh.” Hence, I am now glaring at my laptop decked in a black shirt, jeans and sneakers that don’t match.

I think shirts are one of the worst things mankind has ever come up with (along with the enema). Firstly, there are way too many buttons on the damn things. Invariably, I get all the way to the bottom and then realise that I’ve missed one out which means I have to unbutton and button everything only to realise once again that I’ve missed one out. Repeat ad nauseam. Secondly, the collar grates against my neck incessantly which leads to “Redneck Syndrome”. This explains the fact that every time I put on a shirt, I get the hots for my cousin. Lastly, shirts are incapable of absorbing sweat. And in the wonderfully humid-as-the-inside-of-a-pair-of-diapers weather we have here, that is a no-no because sweat dribbling down your back and into your nether regions is neither titillating nor hygienic.

Still, my colleagues have been very enthusiastic about the whole thing. The dude who made the foul suggestion came dressed in a full shirt, pants, tie outfit which was very impressive. This was compounded by the fact that he usually wears just a thin T-shirt, floppy jeans and slippers. We even took pictures. I won’t post them here because some of them show me with my finger in my mouth. Not good for reputation but, hey, they wanted a funny pose.

If nothing else, your ad should at least be funny.

So cheers to whoever wrote this little gem and got away with it.

Via Adrants. Here’s the permalink.

Pulau Ubin, here I come. Damn.

Why is it that people are constantly surprised that I have never been to Pulau Ubin in my life? Is that a place everyone must visit at some point? Exactly what is the attraction of landing on your head after you’ve been flung off your bicycle or jumping off a quarry cliff only to be intercepted before you hit the water by a pleasant outgrowth of rock?

And yet, every single time I tell someone “Ah, I’ve never been to Ubin” their faces contort such that their eyebrows almost touch and they let out this wail of surprise as if I’d just told them that I like to spend my afternoons plucking bits out of babies. The asses.

And so what if I like to spend my afternoons plucking bits out of babies?

Alas, the day has finally arrived. Tomorrow, this blogger will be shipped together with a few other unwilling participants over to that wretched island. Oh no, we haven’t been enrolled in some OBS course. No, that would be unthinkable. We’re just going there to take some pictures and try to produce a nice brochure but that’s bad enough. Danger lurks everywhere on that island. All over the place there are bicycles careening back and forth, people jumping off cliffs and a certain breed of human for whom “belay” has some alternative meaning other than the past tense of “belie”. It takes a brave man to survive such a place. And God, or whatever supernatural being you worship, willing, I will. Wish me luck.

Of course. The past tense of “belie” isn’t really “belay”. It’s “belied”.

Career Limiting

Here’s a handy tip. If your MD’s name is Earl, on no account should you ever ever start an email to him with “Hey Early”. I’ll start packing my box now.