Hospitality

Spent several hours this afternoon at the offices of a client, being subjected to PowerPoint-based 'research findings'. Information that could have been conveyed in about six slides was endlessly reiterated and stretched into a hundred slide coma-inducing festival of boredom (in order for the research house to justify their enormous fee).

Despite the fact that the client in question is one of the world's largest purveyors of coffees, bottled waters, milkshakes and many other beverages, there wasn't so much as a paper cup of tap water on offer during this three-hour ordeal.

This is very bad form indeed. At our offices there's a hospitable tray of cold drinks, bottled water, tea and coffee at the ready whenever a meeting is booked.

There's also a plate of assorted biscuits doing the rounds, but as these are served by the catering woman with the leprosy-type skin disease on her toes and fingers it's probably safer to resist them.

Night of the Living Dead

By 5pm this afternoon when the sun was beating down with slightly less ferocity than before, I scraped together the energy to go and get a few supplies from Woollies. I'd run out of their special little yoghurts and also really needed some cake. This being a Sunday though, I thought to check their business hours online first - didn't want to drive all the way there and discover they closed at 5. Happy days! They were open til 6.

In due course I pulled up outside and walked towards the supermarket, coming to a sudden halt where an unfriendly steel gate barred the usually welcoming entrance. A piece of paper stuck to the window begged forgiveness for any inconvenience, but Woolworths would be closed from 5pm onwards for a stock-take. BASTARDS! Every food item in the shop immediately became a thousand times more desirable when viewed through an impregnable safety-glass barrier. Other lost souls who had been similarly denied milled around in front of the store.
Curse you, Woolworths!

Food for thought

This evening I went with my friend Lisa to see 'The Iron Lady'.
Here is my takeout from the film: growing old in complete poverty and obscurity is shit. Growing old but being wealthy and renowned is... shit.
My companion hit the jackpot though, as I stumbled in the dark while locating my seat and spilled three-quarters of my modest box of popcorn onto the chair next door. Lisa had been afraid her jumbo box (she loves popcorn) would not be sufficient to quell her hunger, so contentedly sat plucking my spillage off the seat cushion previously imprinted by a thousand pairs of buttocks.
To be fair, she hadn't had any dinner.

Delusions of grandeur

Hilariously, after a year or so of committed skiving, living on the smokers' balcony, being flung off accounts for being drunk around clients and posing a general health hazard, the MAM has decided that he is actually management material. He's petitioning VIPs like the chairman and CEO to be allowed to take over the senior creative position recently vacated by one of the ship-jumping rats.

Do we detect the influence of his new lady love in this sudden thirst for status? Picture the pillow-talk that must be going on: 'Darling, it's time they recognised how talented you are. You deserve to be a creative director. God, you practically carry that department, slaving away for 2 or even 3 hours a day. Give them an ultimatum - either they promote you and double your salary, or you walk out.'

That last bit is wishful thinking, but I think the gist is about right.

Seriously though, how insanely deluded can you get? Closeted in big offices in another wing of the building though they are, rumour of his misdemeanours must have filtered through to the upper echelons by now. The MAM is strictly downwardly mobile. Then again, I suppose stranger things have happened. Barely.

Love is blind.

And it doesn't have a very good sense of smell, either. The MAM's new Love is very protective of him, asserting that his drinking/smoking/grooming issues are far less serious than others in the office (who are less in love with him) might suggest. Which is sweet. But tragically misguided.

In other news: I attended the most painful client briefing session ever. The senior client couldn't make it, and delegated the briefing to a colleague upon whose shoulders responsibility seldom falls.

His technique was simply to slowly read the brief, of which we all had a copy in front of us, out loud. Very little was offered in the way of insight, and the only entertainment to be had was when he referred to the 'female women' who form part of our target market. They are the best kind of women, in my opinion.

Confirmed.

The love that dared not speak its name is now official. The Managing Director's secretary is having relations with the MAM. And giving him hickeys apparently. How desperate is this woman? Obviously being single sucks when the years are advancing, but my god. There are standards which must be upheld.

The general consensus around the office is that she could, indeed, have done better. By grabbing any random wino out of a Salvation Army shelter, for instance. She's got some serious work to do getting her booze intake up to par. A few people have commented that the MAM seems to have cut down on the drink a bit, but we all know that good behaviour in the first flush of love is unlikely to be maintained for very long. I give it three months before she's breaking cider bottles on his head like his last love interest.

boredroom

We are meant to be thinking of names for our new boardrooms. I just know they're going to want things like 'Inspiration' and 'Synergy'. But I think we should copy the Yahoo head office and label the boardrooms with words that have the prefix 'in'.
'Hey, we'll be in Continent'.

I also like the idea of calling them after the rooms in 'Cluedo' where the murders take place. I would definitely be happy holding meetings in the Billiards room. Especially if it had a lead pipe in it.

And yet more intrigue

Noticed this morning that the MAM is sporting a fading hickey on the left side of his neck. This raises many questions. ie: What the fuck? Is he forty-three, or twelve? Who in God's name was willing to suck on his manky neck, and why on earth did they feel it necessary to mark their territory in this way? Can he possibly have done it himself?

Now that I think about it, about a month ago he was hinting about some unfortunate new woman he had in his sights. He wouldn't say who though, as she's in the industry. When interrogated this morning he would only say that things 'got a bit out of hand' during his Valentine's day celebration. Shudder.

Interestingly, a long-single PA at the agency abruptly declared her love for a new mystery man in an attention-seeking Facebook status update yesterday. She and the MAM were observed in a huddle today, chatting about their movements for the afternoon (ostensibly they have nothing much to do with each other).

Coincidence?

And Intrigue!

An emergency staff meeting was called today. Apparently there is an agent provocateur on the loose, leaking insider information concerning the agency's management turmoil and internal power struggles to the press. Two embarrassing newspaper articles have already appeared, giving details of lawyers' letters and quoting an 'anonymous board member'. Who could this dastardly traitor be?

Being a few minutes late to the meeting, I missed the preamble and came in on the words '...there is somebody out there undermining this company in the public domain'. Shit! I was convinced for a sweaty & panic-stricken moment that they were referring to a certain humble little blog.

But no, the glass cyanide capsule in the hollow tooth remains uncrunched for the time being.

Scandal!

A magnificently juicy tidbit came to my attention this morning, perking a bleak monday morning up no end. This hot morsel of gossip concerns a senior client service executive of objectionable touchy-feely habits.

It seems that this lady has been identified by more than one gentleman (from photographs on the dreaded facebook) as a former high-class hooker at a long-closed establishment not far down the road. The heyday of this brothel was during the mid nineties, and it drew much of its clientele from the nearby ad agencies. Of course we're all prostituting ourselves to some extent by working in advertising, but this is taking that premise a bit far.

She certainly has a rather fawning geisha-like manner with clients. One gets the feeling that no service would be entirely out of the question when it comes to fulfilling their needs...

Excavating beneath rock bottom

This week I was asked to design a logo for a pitch another division of our company was working on. Their art director had already designed two logo options, which I can say without fear of contradiction were absolutely fucking terrible. I mean truly, shockingly, knocked-together-in-3-seconds-using-Microsoft Paint-bad.

I stayed at work late doing four new options for them, which although perhaps not examples of undiluted design genius, were at least eight thousand times better than the gems they'd created. I thought I'd seen the last of this job, but no. Today I was roped into making up their enormous pitch presentation, which involved applying the chosen logo to endless print ads and TV storyboards.

I asked which logo they'd selected and these imbeciles sent me (of course) one of the COMPLETE PIECES OF CRAP they'd done themselves. I decided to spare myself the aggravation of a debate about this. Having accomplished as much as I could manage during the day, I was out of there at 5pm despite heavy hints that I should stay for as long as it would take to finish.

My life.

Youth today

This morning I announced an exciting news bulletin to the office at large: Argentina is up to its old tricks trying to get the Falkland Islands back again. Suckers for punishment.

I expected this information to provoke a degree of interest and lively debate. Instead it provoked blank stares. The existence of the Falklands has escaped their notice it seems, along with the 1982 conflict in which Argentina tried to assert sovereignty over the 'Malvinas'.

It's true that in 1982 the births of some of my colleagues probably still lay years distant in the future. But then, I wasn't present during the French Revolution and yet I still know about it.

women and children first

And another rat over the side. Moody Bastard has opted not to return from his paternity leave, leaving a rapidly shrinking crew that I know will inevitably end in the MAM and I adrift together on the Marie Celeste.

MB was due to return from his leave and attend a briefing on a big car campaign with me when he decided to dynamite his bridges. I shall endeavour not to take this abandonment personally (may his thumb ring get snagged on the door of a runaway truck).

On the plus side, I can now sit in a time warp all day listening to Absolute 80's streaming radio uninterrupted by MB's grumbling. Today's half-forgotten gem: Promised you a miracle by the Simple Minds.

twit

Being devoted to the TV show 30 Rock, in particular Alec Baldwin's brilliant performance as NBC boss Jack Donaghy, I started following Baldwin on Twitter a few days ago.

He is a committed tweeter, constantly updating his followers on his thoughts and activities. Baldwin is generally to be found at an awards evening, glamorous after-party or jetting across America to appear on the Tonight Show. He frequently tweets romantically about his gorgeous Spanish 27-year-old yoga instructor girlfriend.

All this gratuitous happiness and success makes me sick. Baldwin, you have been unfollowed.

Detox update

Pah. He claims not to have had a drink since the 31st January, but the fragrance of eau de smirnoff remains suspiciously strong.

Tango & Cash

Can't believe I left out the best bit about Moody Bastard - he wears thumb rings. Yes. According to a rubbish new-agey website I found, this could be because they are supposedly 'symbolic of strength and individuality'. Which would fit in with his Johnny Cash complex. He's away on paternity leave at the moment as June Carter Cash is having his baby. Unfortunately the baby is a girl and so can't be christened Johnny.

NEWSFLASH: The MAM is telling everyone that he's embarked on a detox programme to help him lose weight. This involves giving up drinking.

Pardon my rampant cynicism, but is a vanity detox regime going to succeed in diverting him from the committed path of life-long alcoholism where rehab has failed? I think not. I'm going to ask him how the non-drinking is going tomorrow morning before moving in for a sniff. Will post the results. The things I do for this blog...

Testing

Second day of attending research groups to test (rather lame) TV concepts for a well-known chocolatey cereal. Happily, the concepts were not mine but the work of none other than the MAM.

Lacking emotional investment, I could watch with detached amusement from behind the two-way mirror as random members of the public failed to understand, and then critiqued, his quite simple adverts. Usually it’s agony to watch the half-wits and mutants they seem to find for these sessions tearing apart the fruits of your labours. The desire to smash through the window and leap into the room screaming ‘Stop being so FUCKING STUPID’ is overwhelming.

Not this time though. For comic relief the MAM (an unreconstructed sexist pig) had put an overweight, middle-aged aunt into his ad, who would crush reluctant children to her substantial bosom. As our focus group filed in, consisting of one elephantine woman after another, it was clear that this was going to be a tough sell.