Frustrated

The agency I work at (not for) is on a losing streak of epic proportions these days. One of the major daily papers is gleefully chronically our demise. For the most part, I don't care. Since this place is poorly run and pretentious, the old Lennon song "Instant Karma" keeps running through my mind. If things get much worse, there will be more layoffs, and I don't think getting cut would be a bad thing for me. I know I should find another job but I'm not doing a damn thing about it. Getting laid off might be just the kick in the butt I need.

The agency is working on a multi-million dollar pitch right now. I read in the paper that winning this new piece of business is critical because we are on the verge of losing one of our more famous and venerable existing clients. (It says a lot about this place that I learned that from the newspaper.) This pitch has been in the works for weeks and weeks. All the creative and marketing elements have to be tied up by Monday morning so the team of Cool Kids who are presenting can be in Northern California on Tuesday morning.

Wednesday afternoon it was decided by the Cool Kids that my team needed to be brought in. We were told to cancel all our evening and weekend plans so we could spend all our time from here on in at the office. This should have occured to this brain trust weeks ago. This reveals the contempt the powers that be here have for my team and our discipline, but OK. Pitches are always a pain in the ass, but it's the nature of the beast. My complaining about spending Thursday night, Friday night, Saturday night and Sunday night at the office would be like an accountant complaining about long hours at tax time. Plus, given four days and four nights, we could put together a presentation we would be proud of.

If we had four days and four nights. It's now Friday morning, and the Cool Kids have yet to give us any real input, any real explanation of the parameters of the project, so that we can get started. I called Mr. Primo Cool Kid every two hours yesterday, leaving voice mail messages explaining what we need to get started. He not only never returned my calls, he was gone by 5:30, when I walked over to his office to speak to him directly.

Prick.

So my team and I get to spend all night tonight, and Saturday, and Sunday, doing work that is destined to suck. Creating new concepts is like cooking a Lean Cuisine; it takes as long as it takes. If you're supposed to cook a Lean Cuisine at 7 minutes but you only have 5, it will be barely edible. That's the professional situation we're in now.

I'm frustrated. Upset. Pissed.

Oh well. I've vented here. Now I have to suck it up and be all enthusiastic in front of the team.