When we ended the previous segment in this series dedicated to my first real writing job—a tangent inspired by the demolition of the building that contained my employer, William Eisner and Associates—a Creative Director had been brought aboard, circa 1991.
It seems that the growing agency, which had up to that point a bit of a “nonstandard” hierarchy and workflow, wanted—needed—to normalize a bit. A Creative Director named John was hired, and with him came a much more traditional view of roles in an ad agency. During my initial one-on-one get-to-know-me meeting with John, he was visibly flabbergasted by my list of responsibilities—and the farthest thing from poker-faced (one of the many things I liked about him).
His mouth dropped open and stayed open for the duration of my recitation—which covered layout and design, copywriting, concept development, equipment maintenance, software updates and recommendations, occasional client interactions—to name a few areas in which I dabbled.
After a pregnant pause, John said, exasperated: “You cannot be asked to do all of that effectively. No way.” And he began writing furiously on his note pad.
This was, it must be noted, early in his “onboarding” process. He was going to hear the same sorts of “cross-discipline” job roles (to a lesser degree) from others as well.
And he wasn’t wrong. John proclaimed that things would change, and that there would be much tighter focus on a set of clear-cut responsibilities in each position. He seemed to look at me with a hint of pity, frankly. He saw me as a “Jack of all trades; master of none.”
“By the way,” he then said as he clicked his pen. “What is your job title? I just have your name and the fact that you’re in the Creative Department. That’s all.”
At the agency in those days, there were “Suits” (account executives, accounting, etc.) and “Creatives” (people who thought up and created promotional plans, marketing material, and ads). The Suits were pretty well defined in their roles, but the Creative Department was all over the place—in particular, me. I did concepts and design, a bit of writing, attended the occasional client meeting, made sure everyone’s Macs and software were working, and came up with our softball team’s moniker and t-shirt/uniform logo.1
But—what was I?
I was depressed, is what I was.
What was I?
Alive
I remember leaving work one particular evening during that period and, just as I started the car, a raw, monster guitar riff hit me right in the face. Songs rarely start on cue when you turn over the engine, so—being a believer in fate—I kept the car in park, turned it up loud, and waited for the words….
“Son,” she said. “Have I got a little story for you…
What you thought was your daddy was nothing but a...
While you were sittin’ home alone at age thirteen
Your real daddy was dyin’
Sorry you didn't see him, but I'm glad we talked…”
Wow.
Wow.
The band wasted no time getting to the refrain…
Oh, I… I’m still alive
Hey, I… I’m still alive
Hey, I… I’M STILL ALIVE!
Hey, oh …
This was 1991, and—Smashing Pumpkins and Nirvana aside—majestic, non-ironic riffs like the one tearing out of the intro to Pearl Jam’s “Alive” were not common. The vocalist made me feel like this was absolutely real and coming from his gut.2
I felt energized. My job was teetering, but I WAS ALIVE!
For the moment.
Coming in Part 6: Saved by a blue rodent …
The intensity of competition between teams in the agency softball league was remarkable. Some agencies took it very, very seriously, to say the least.
Now that I think about it—when I did my “sample project” before being hired, I was invited to stick around and play ball that evening against an Eisner agency rival. It’s not impossible that the three long-ball home runs I hit made as much or more of an impression than my creative skills…
Not long afterward, I would bump into and chat with Eddie Vedder in a West Allis, Wisconsin comic shop. I’m not kidding.