Cutting the legs out from under yourself
You Are A Cog.: Obviously
Read this article by Birdy. It's a great view into Corporate America and the measures upper management takes to save themselves despite the damage to be caused to the Company they have been hired to nurture.
In the late Ninties, I had the best job I will ever have. All of you have seen how Advertising Companies are portrayed on TV. Beautiful, talented people working in a cut-throat atmosphere in ultra-posh settings. Seems like every tv show or movie glamourizes the Ad Executive, but really who's ever seen those people? Me. That was my job.
Our office was located in the most expensive floorspace in Manahattan and the world. I would ride the elevator with the famous who needed to do interviews on different floors. Reba McEntyre, The Beach Boys, Faith Hill.
I would call home
"Honey I was three feet from Ricky Martin!"
"The baby has diarrea"
"Britney Spears!!"
"He just puked on me too"
"Tom Seleck!!!"
"Can you pick up some Pedialite on the way home?"
Our offices were made out of glass walls. Our weekly staff meetings were Catered. In fact we had our OWN In-House Caterer with a special kitchen. Despite the special kitchen, all she did was order trays of sandwiches from expensive restaurants like 'Cosi'. (She was Latino. I know this because she was constantly telling everyone that she was Latino. I would interject "Oh, I didnt know you were Spanish" after one of her tired Latino Experience stories. She had a strong Spanish Accent, yet we were both born in the same town in New Jersey)
Our company parties were at Manhattan nightclubs frequented by J.Lo and P.Diddy. All of our work was for Fortune 500 Companies. We thought up their commercials, their ads, their logos and we built their Brands.
Our CEO once rented a private ship to sail us around Manahattan on a booze cruise to celebrate yet another big name contract. Not a "Circle Line" but an actual Sailing ship, with waiters and music and many many bottles of Champange.
Bleary Eyed Account Executives would recount wild after work sex parties, there were whisperings of Cocaine use in the bathrooms and which of the gay Art Directors was secretly Straight.
The company was stocked with the Titans of Advertising. Anyone who had ever made a name for themselves was plucked from their seats and hired by my company. The company was structured with layers of Creative Directors, and Senior staff. Idealy it should be a pyramid format. Mostly workers supporting some middle management, supporting the top executives.
I found that the higher up you went, the less you knew how to do. Not that these people were incompetant, many were brilliant. Just that they were busied with Concepts and Strategies, and unfamiliar with the tools that would turn those Visions into reality.
Here's an example: One of the Vice-Presidents described for me in a phone conversation what he wanted done for a book jacket we were designing for a famous author. I researched and designed the cover. The Vice-President was given the cover credit without mention of me, his computer skillset ends at checking email. It was a New York Times Bestseller.
I left that job at the turn of the Century (doesnt that sound cool? the turn of the Century?) The company was thriving on the dotcom boom, but the four hour commute was killing me and my family. I moved out of the area for a sweet job writting software, maintaining close email contact with my friends in NYC.
The Bubble Breaks
Soon after I left, the dot-com bubble began to break. Money started to dry up and the company begin to cut back on the parties. They instituted a Hiring Freeze. They limited raises. They sent out positive emails about how things were getting tighter but were about to turn around, have confidence in your Ship-Captain.
Than came the first round of cuts. Because they truly believed that the downturn was temporary, Management only laid off workers at the bottom level. It had worked very hard acuiring it's all-star management staff and wasnt about to let them go for a single bad quarter.
The next quarter the same thing happemed. The recovery, couldnt be far off, so they cut the workers again. This happened for four rounds of lay-offs til 9-11. Soon the company still had a massive payroll, and almost no-one to do the little work they had. Furthermore, Pride & Policy did not allow them to hire back those workers that they had just laid off. Unwilling to trim the company evenly throughout the recession, management had thrown away the company.
Steakbellie Loses/Wins
My software company went down with the towers. Being unemployed is a great lesson in humility that everyone should experience once, kind of like a good ass-kicking. In the depths of my sorrow the Red Phone rang.
"Steakbellie, We need you in New York!"
"I'm on my way!"
The next six months were a complete blur. I rode a Greyhound from Philly to NYC every day, and did the Production work of an entire company. Most of the glass offices were dark and those few staff that remained were glum with gallows humor. No more catered champagne birthday parties.
I would show up with a box of doughnuts and a grin. I was already out of a job, so I didnt have to worry about losing one. This was only a temporary patch for me and I was charging my former employer exhorbitant fees just to show up.
I'm still alittle bitter about what happened. The excutives who ran the business were so concered about preserving themselves that they choked all of the life out of the company. Despite the tales of excess, they produced some of the finest work I've ever seen. Everyone I cared about at that company was laid off and they went adrift to be bought by a bigger company, that bought it for their catalog of work for a song and a cup of coffee.
Read this article by Birdy. It's a great view into Corporate America and the measures upper management takes to save themselves despite the damage to be caused to the Company they have been hired to nurture.
In the late Ninties, I had the best job I will ever have. All of you have seen how Advertising Companies are portrayed on TV. Beautiful, talented people working in a cut-throat atmosphere in ultra-posh settings. Seems like every tv show or movie glamourizes the Ad Executive, but really who's ever seen those people? Me. That was my job.
Our office was located in the most expensive floorspace in Manahattan and the world. I would ride the elevator with the famous who needed to do interviews on different floors. Reba McEntyre, The Beach Boys, Faith Hill.
I would call home
"Honey I was three feet from Ricky Martin!"
"The baby has diarrea"
"Britney Spears!!"
"He just puked on me too"
"Tom Seleck!!!"
"Can you pick up some Pedialite on the way home?"
Our offices were made out of glass walls. Our weekly staff meetings were Catered. In fact we had our OWN In-House Caterer with a special kitchen. Despite the special kitchen, all she did was order trays of sandwiches from expensive restaurants like 'Cosi'. (She was Latino. I know this because she was constantly telling everyone that she was Latino. I would interject "Oh, I didnt know you were Spanish" after one of her tired Latino Experience stories. She had a strong Spanish Accent, yet we were both born in the same town in New Jersey)
Our company parties were at Manhattan nightclubs frequented by J.Lo and P.Diddy. All of our work was for Fortune 500 Companies. We thought up their commercials, their ads, their logos and we built their Brands.
Our CEO once rented a private ship to sail us around Manahattan on a booze cruise to celebrate yet another big name contract. Not a "Circle Line" but an actual Sailing ship, with waiters and music and many many bottles of Champange.
Bleary Eyed Account Executives would recount wild after work sex parties, there were whisperings of Cocaine use in the bathrooms and which of the gay Art Directors was secretly Straight.
The company was stocked with the Titans of Advertising. Anyone who had ever made a name for themselves was plucked from their seats and hired by my company. The company was structured with layers of Creative Directors, and Senior staff. Idealy it should be a pyramid format. Mostly workers supporting some middle management, supporting the top executives.
I found that the higher up you went, the less you knew how to do. Not that these people were incompetant, many were brilliant. Just that they were busied with Concepts and Strategies, and unfamiliar with the tools that would turn those Visions into reality.
Here's an example: One of the Vice-Presidents described for me in a phone conversation what he wanted done for a book jacket we were designing for a famous author. I researched and designed the cover. The Vice-President was given the cover credit without mention of me, his computer skillset ends at checking email. It was a New York Times Bestseller.
I left that job at the turn of the Century (doesnt that sound cool? the turn of the Century?) The company was thriving on the dotcom boom, but the four hour commute was killing me and my family. I moved out of the area for a sweet job writting software, maintaining close email contact with my friends in NYC.
The Bubble Breaks
Soon after I left, the dot-com bubble began to break. Money started to dry up and the company begin to cut back on the parties. They instituted a Hiring Freeze. They limited raises. They sent out positive emails about how things were getting tighter but were about to turn around, have confidence in your Ship-Captain.
Than came the first round of cuts. Because they truly believed that the downturn was temporary, Management only laid off workers at the bottom level. It had worked very hard acuiring it's all-star management staff and wasnt about to let them go for a single bad quarter.
The next quarter the same thing happemed. The recovery, couldnt be far off, so they cut the workers again. This happened for four rounds of lay-offs til 9-11. Soon the company still had a massive payroll, and almost no-one to do the little work they had. Furthermore, Pride & Policy did not allow them to hire back those workers that they had just laid off. Unwilling to trim the company evenly throughout the recession, management had thrown away the company.
Steakbellie Loses/Wins
My software company went down with the towers. Being unemployed is a great lesson in humility that everyone should experience once, kind of like a good ass-kicking. In the depths of my sorrow the Red Phone rang.
"Steakbellie, We need you in New York!"
"I'm on my way!"
The next six months were a complete blur. I rode a Greyhound from Philly to NYC every day, and did the Production work of an entire company. Most of the glass offices were dark and those few staff that remained were glum with gallows humor. No more catered champagne birthday parties.
I would show up with a box of doughnuts and a grin. I was already out of a job, so I didnt have to worry about losing one. This was only a temporary patch for me and I was charging my former employer exhorbitant fees just to show up.
I'm still alittle bitter about what happened. The excutives who ran the business were so concered about preserving themselves that they choked all of the life out of the company. Despite the tales of excess, they produced some of the finest work I've ever seen. Everyone I cared about at that company was laid off and they went adrift to be bought by a bigger company, that bought it for their catalog of work for a song and a cup of coffee.
6 comments:
OI!!!
I was getting too it!
(and of COURSE I'm right!!)
Given the posts of you and birdy, I think the word of the day should be HUBRIS. There is a sense in corporate America that the good times will always be good, hence the lavish spending, and, when things do go bad, there exists the corporate wisdom that only execs can right the ship and that any problems are the little-guy's fault.
Great post!
Unfortunately for us, the guy in the Executive Washroom with the biggest Hubris tends to win.
It's always like that, the bottom dwellers go first. They are doing layoff's where I work and we joke that they'll be no one left to do the work if they keep up the pace.
crap. now I'm really nervous.... everyone keeps getting laid off at this rate and there won't be any jobs when I graduate college in 5 years (ha! as if!) I thought the economy was booming. Who said that? Oh right, I think it was that guy. You know the one... little guy, says "Nook-yu-lar" and does things that make ya wanna give him a good swift kick. Never mind.
Folks, there's always the federal government if job security is issue number one. I'm not too cynical, now, am I? :)
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