I Hate This Business.

If you asked me what was wrong with the advertising industry, a rather reflective microcosm of American business, there's a good chance I could go on for hours, if not days. More accurately, years, as this blog has been published regularly since 2009.

If I were to be completely arbitrary about it, I'd say it all started when they took away our offices.

When I first started in advertising I was writing help wanted ads. Or as my buddy Jim used to put it:

Eng. Wanted, no exp. nec.
(Engineer wanted. No experience necessary.)

Yup, they actually paid me to write shitty ads like that. And to accomplish that Herculean feat, they gave me an office, with a door, a desk and a window looking out onto Ventura Blvd, where I could see the goings-on of several top notch falafel and schwarma restaurants. I also had a few nice offices in Mid Wilshire, Century City and Brentwood.

Then, in a move to save a few scheckl's, some genius decided writers and art directors didn't need offices. Neither did Media Buyers. Producers, Or Account Executives. The only people who required offices and the incumbent quiet, privacy and space to be productive, were ad agency C-Suiters who were eyeing cushy positions with the ad agency holding company.

And so we were thrown into the open office plan. And introduced to the Long Table of Mediocrity™.

After they took our offices, they took away our time. Nights, weekends, birthdays, anniversaries, vacations, were all company property.

"Come on people, we have to work harder. We're not curing cancer but we are doing a 15 second Super Bowl pre-roll that could make history and get us on the USA Admeter."

They took away our space.

They took away our time.

They took away our fun. ("all business travelers will fly Spirit Airlines and stay at the Red Roof Inn.")

They took away our pride. ("everyone is Creative.")

And now they are taking away our money.

Not long ago, I did a gig for a big agency (and by the way I actually enjoyed working there and the people who run the place are incredibly smart.) I won't be so stupid as to name them but I've got a name for their parent company's accounting and business practices -- BULLSHIT.

You see we had agreed to my normal day rate. The job lasted a little more than 3 weeks, 18 days to be exact. That included a Saturday and MLK Day. When the check arrived however, I was only paid for 15 days. How does that work, you may ask.

I know I did.

Well, using their infinite imagination to screw workers out of rightfully earned money, the payroll department at this big holding company "annualizes" the day rate. I have no idea what that means. And I'm guessing you have no idea what that means. I believe "annualize" means funding next year's party in Cannes and renting the big yacht with the waterslide.

The short of it is I got shorted money. And I got holding the short end of the Fuck You Stick in favor of this unnamed holding company.

Let this little anecdote serve as a cautionary tale to my fellow freelancers, who will no doubt see that you can't spell 'annualize' with A N A L.

Let this also serve as a warning to the bean squeezers at the big holding companies. This is why the industry is circling the bottom of the porcelain bowl, that icky part with the hard-to-remove brown stains.

It's also goes a long why to explaining why almost every text with every other colleague in advertising ends with: