Two Zero One Two - Here We Go!

I have been in the television advertising industry for nearly 22 years. I have been a data entry clerk and a VP of Operations. I have supervised a staff of 12-15 at my peak.

Half of my career has been spent in a managerial capacity during which time I spearheaded efforts to streamline agency operations. I know how to find ways to greatly improve efficiency resulting in a more pleasant "user experience." I have been the liaison between IT programmers and other departments in helping develop systems which allow more work to be done, and with greater accuracy, with the same staffing levels, and at the risk of sounding Romneyesque, sometimes with less staffing levels. And yes, I derived pleasure from it.

When I started in this business the amount of paper being used was unbelievable. The business of getting a broadcast-quality tape of an advertisement out to a cable network and on the air, as well as the subsequent tracking of effectiveness and reporting data to the clients, required a mountain of paper.

Back in the early 90s, media buyers (those who negotiate rates and arrange a schedule with national networks and local broadcast affiliates) would write up the schedules on paper forms. In a large agency with 10-15 buyers, these schedules would quickly become stacks of paper.

Buyers or their assistants would fax these orders out and then place the paper in bins. Data entry people would come and gather these stacks, take them back to their workstations and begin inputting the data on their DOS-based computers.

Requests for tapes to be sent would also be written up on forms and given to the traffic department. The traffic people would prepare a request, on paper of course, and fax it to the tape duplication facility.

In my branch of the industry, we were more about selling products immediately (think food dehydrators, miracle knife sets, or inflatable beds) rather than merely providing brand awareness for a client. This involved a need for toll-free phone numbers to appear in the ads which involved a need for large telemarketing facilities to handle the call volume. This meant more paperwork.

Media schedules would be faxed to telemarketers so they could plan their staffing levels based on when they would anticipate an influx of calls. Every morning the telemarketing company would return the favor by faxing over a shitload of call activity from the previous day.

The agency also had a staff to comb through this data and accurately attribute the calls to a specific airing of an ad on a specific station or network. My first job in the industry was to manually input this call center data from faxed pages which had been marked up with a pen by analysts. Media buyers and account managers would then print out stacks of reports in order to analyze the effectiveness of the media and make adjustments to future media as needed. Some even had weekly scheduled meetings to sit around a desk and read through these books together.

The process evolved to a point where the telemarketers would begin sending over data files rather than faxing the data. I worked with the IT department to design an efficient flow which enabled our system to take these data files and match up with our own data to automatically assign clusters to calls to specific ad placements. This was pretty cool in an era when we didn't even have email in our company, and if a fax machine broke down you were well and truly screwed. Imagine 3 or 4 people waiting their turn to fax out a stack. I've seen it and lived it.

[My sincere apologies to all the folks in accounting who have had their own mountains of paperwork. I didn't intentionally leave you out of this; I just think people reading this get the idea by now.]

The availability of email and office software began to flip this world upside down. From 1995 until around 2003 -- mind you, that's just 8 short years -- I witnessed my paper usage decline by at least 98% while efficiency increased by the same rate. In recent years I realized that many times I was still printing documents which really didn't need to be printed at all. It was habit coupled with the comfort of holding something tangible in my hand which would quickly become clutter on my desk. This clutter necessitated making file labels to keep things organized and neat, and insure that I would never see those particularly pieces of paper ever again.

Since 2008 I've made a conscious effort to stop all that. Files can be organized and stored on a hard drive. They can be easily retrieved when needed and I've never seen a brown ring stain from a coffee mug on any of these documents.

In the latter half of my career I have transitioned away from all the operations and management responsibilities to focus on what I love most: media buying and campaign management. It is far more satisfying for me than having to supervise the work of others, performing the dreaded annual reviews, being handed resignation letters because the employee's music career was taking off, having to begin the arduous interview process, or reprimanding an employee for pulling out a knife threatening a pregnant co-worker. Thanks but no thanks!

I get incredible satisfaction from making a few keystrokes and a minute or two later I've placed a $100,000 ad buy on a cable network. No assistant needed. No paper used. (At least not by me; I cannot vouch for what happens on the receiving end.)

I am extremely versatile or I never would have made it as far as I have. My experience is wide and varied. My career has taken me to several agencies with vastly different environments. The smallest had 2 employees when I started; the largest had over 500. Technology has allowed me to leave the cubicle environment, drop the commute, and work from my home which I have done for 11 of the past 12 years.

Thanks to so many similarities between the agencies (let's face it: after 20 years everyone eventually settles in to a similar set of procedures for doing the same work) I've never had trouble adapting to a new job. The longest was about 5 weeks at the aforementioned 500+ employee agency. I absolutely hated it during those initial weeks and then everything started to click. It was the peak of my career in so many ways.

After 2 decades in this industry, I'm pretty good at seeing trends and knowing when the waters are about to get choppy. I saw it in 2007 at the 500-employee agency when a large client (if you had an iPhone, you were signed up with that telecommunications giant!) announced they would be "reviewing" the agency at the end of the year. I expected the worst and had 6 months to prepare myself financially. In the end it was the bloodbath I imagined.

By the summer of 2008 I was fortunate enough to be rehired by an agency where I had worked at the beginning of the decade. Going back there was so easy because I knew the people, the systems, and the procedures. I told myself going in that it would be the last job I'd have before retirement. Well, assuming a steady course of business without any drama. You know what they say about assumptions.

Things began to slow down. I could see the writing on the wall and I knew some kind of instability was on the horizon.

During my career I have obviously known a lot of people. Almost all of my close personal friendships developed with people from my work. So when I started being coaxed to bail out and join a Dallas-based agency, I was reluctant at first. Despite the fact that I knew and had worked with 5 current employees of that agency during the course of my career, a number representing about 25% of the entire staff, it still was a difficult decision to make. Another job change, particularly one initiated by me, was not my preference.

However, the warning signs at my agency continued to grow and my workload had diminished significantly. After several phone conversations over two months with the Dallas-based agency, I finally made the decision to take the leap and I started there on March 28, 2011.

It felt right, and I thought it was a pretty cool testament to my reputation that I was hired without ever having an in-person interview thanks in no small part to the word-of-mouth recommendations from other employees there who had personal knowledge of my work experience and ethics. I still haven't set a foot in the Dallas office.

After my first week, I had already been handed a number of projects, mainly building media proposals for perspective clients, in addition to my media buying responsibilities. Frankly, I was startled by the volume of work being throw my way. Suddenly I was feeling utilized and needed again, and I was being stretched professionally in ways I never thought possible. But I thrive on that and enjoy developing efficiency procedures for myself which enable me to turn projects around more quickly and hand them off upon completion.

It was not an easy transition though. Six weeks passed and my personal adjustments to this agency were still a work in progress. I had surpassed the previous record five weeks of love-hate squirming before the waters calmed. By the time 3 months had passed, I was seriously wondering if I hadn't made a huge mistake in leaving the prior agency. Maybe job insecurity was something I could have lived with in exchange for having clear workplace communication and logical, familiar procedures.

Shortly thereafter, Hurricane Reality hit the shoreline at the ex-agency and 16 people lost their jobs. My instinct was still intact apparently. Any fantasy I'd harbored of returning, or kicking myself for leaving in the first place, quickly evaporated. To be fair and honest, there is no such thing as the perfect job environment. When I would sit down and imagine everything I didn't like about the ex-agency, it suddenly made the current agency look pretty good. (Big perk: no electronic time sheets to fill out.)

I still struggled for months. At the end of August I had received a job offer with a more generous salary and compensation package, and I agonized over that decision for days before rejecting it. Despite the passing of 5 months and still feeling a sense of being blindfolded while working, I didn't feel right in giving up and moving on again to the perception of another greener pasture. This situation would either improve or I would figure out a way to adapt.

It seems ludicrous that I was even having this adjustment dilemma. I have always thrived best in a smaller agency environment. Being one of two media buyers in my department makes things pretty simple. Business was heavy and brisk. New clients were coming on board. What more could you ask for?

The volume of work was such that we needed a third buyer. It wasn't essential, in my opinion, but helpful. In the event that one of us was out, the entire burden fell on one person. It wasn't impossible but it was a load for sure.

For me, the idea of adding this 3rd buyer was equally important in that it would force the opening of communication a bit more in addition to spreading out the workload. After all, if two of us are raising the same issues, that has to get someone's attention!

Barely a week or two had passed before I started to see warning signs flying about like arrows on fire.

Communication did not improve. Basic standard operating procedures did not suddenly materialize. Questions and suggestions continued to vaporize into the electronic ether. My workload and responsibilities started to disappear. The almost daily calls with requests for media proposals just abruptly stopped. It wasn't because things had slowed down so much. The work simply shifted to the new buyer. For all my years of experience and highly developed intuition, I didn't need a shitload of perception to notice I was suddenly being phased out passed over.

The rationale for adding a 3rd buyer was supposedly to lighten the load from the two of us doing the work. Another of those "arrows on fire" was when I realized the 60/40 workload split between the two of us evolved into more of a 60/30/10 split after the new addition. Gee, thanks! I no longer had an excuse for waiting until 5:30 to scoop cat shit out of the litter box.

It was quite clear that my issues and concerns were mine and mine alone. I could either drive myself crazy with the notion that maybe someday this agency would perform at the basic operational level as every other agency, providing clear directives, and create a sense of teamwork and camaraderie, or I could adapt and just learn to work within the framework of what was given.

As 2012 neared and finally rolled around, I made a conscious effort to stop feeling a sense of personal failure whenever I was given directive on a Friday to get something on-air or worse, off-air, the following Monday. Under such circumstances you do the best you can do and some factors are out of your control. But I was getting there. I had accepted the fact that suggestions at improving communication and streamlining processes were not likely to be entertained, that even basic minimal operational enhancements would be an uphill struggle, even if they made perfect sense in my mind. The lights would remain off and I could adapt to working in the dark, or not. So, darkness it was.

Earlier this week we finally got the long-awaited server upgrade. I was happy with any flicker of light at the end of any long tunnel. On Thursday I worked exclusively from my home PC while connected to their server -- checking email, managing my Excel documents, and placing media buys. I no longer needed the company-supplied PC to comfortably do my work efficiently.

I got all my work documents transferred from that PC to a public folder on the server and by Friday I never even needed to turn on the company-supplied PC. It was a rare breath of fresh air, a sense of moving forward into a new year with a newer way to work. Cleaner. Less clutter on my desk. I was even wondering whether I should box up the company PC and send it back or hang on to it as a backup just in case anything happened to my PC down the road.

I have boxed it up, along with the printer they supplied which I never have needed to use thanks to being 100% paperless in my work. What a contrast to the old days when I'd go through a friggin' case of paper every few months! This equipment sits in my kitchen ready to be carted off to Fed-Ex on Monday.

I marvel at the sleek and minimalist appearance of my workspace now. Emphasis on "space" rather than "work" because on Friday the 13th at around 5:05 in the afternoon, I was dismissed from my job.

At that moment, my access to the long-awaited awesome new server was permanently disabled. But hey, it was rockin' my world for a day!

The only reasons cited in my termination were "bad fit" and a "cultural" differences. Oh, the irony.

I can only hope when they sent out the email announcing my departure they utilized the industry-standard closing line of "we wish him well in his future endeavors."

Work used to happen here.

Questions having immediate answers:

Do I need to toggle my monitor back and forth between work and personal PCs? No.

Should I de-clutter and send back the company equipment I don't need? Yes.

Do I need to use a personal day to honor Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. on Monday? No.

Do I need to worry if my lunch breaks run longer than an hour? No.

Should I alert someone in the office if I'm running late? No.

Do I need to scan my internet bill as a PDF and email to anyone for reimbursement? No.

Should I fret over dysfunctionality? Give that a rest.

Will I need to visit the Dallas office? Not in the foreseeable future.

Do I have any excuse for not resuming my Rosetta Stone Spanish lessons? No.

When will I be able to take some extended vacation time? Now would be ideal.

Hello Limbo! I Really Haven't Missed You!

Despite holding jobs at 7 different advertising agencies since 1999, I still forget how stressful it can be when you voluntarily leave one for another. I'm not saying that getting fired and/or laid off and subsequently being unemployed for a spell isn't stressful, but it's a different kind of stress. Being laid off or fired is rather immediate. Here today, gone tomorrow.

Resigning from a position and giving two weeks' notice is a different animal. In many instances, particularly when leaving one to take a job with a competitor, it is very common to be dismissed on the day you give your notice. And that's great. Especially if they pay you for your 2 weeks. I just happen to be one of the lucky few who always seems to be kept on for the full 2 weeks.

I had been toying with the idea of leaving agency A for agency B for a couple of months. Leaving agency A just never made much sense though. If you are enjoying your work, and love the people with whom you work, and you make an adequate income and have excellent benefits, including a month of paid vacation each year, why leave?

That is the question I kept asking myself and the answer was always easy: I don't leave. There's no point.

Sometimes it's just not that simple. Sometimes you may feel you are not being adequately challenged. Perhaps there is no perceived growth opportunity, or one is lacking all the tools needed to excel in work. And then there is the mother of all excuses: job insecurity.

On Friday, the 11th of March, I found myself on the receiving end of a verbal employment offer. And this started a frenzied whirlwind of emotions as I analyzed and compared the status quo to the new adventure. I believe I had immediately made the decision to accept, but wanted to give it a night to sink in. Ironically, while I was on the phone discussing the new employment offer, my boss was trying to call me with a proposition involving a change in my work responsibilities which I interpreted as not ideal.

Saturday morning I spoke to my future boss and accepted. Earlier that morning I had already composed my resignation letter. But it really wasn't a relaxing weekend, and those two events kicked off an anxiety storm I haven't experienced in a long while.

I did not resign right away on Monday. I had a hunch there was drama brewing based on the Friday call with my boss. Sure enough, here came the "organizational announcement" email announcing some layoffs. Soon to follow would be some restructuring announcement.

At the end of the day I somehow harnessed the strength within me to call my boss and announce my resignation. She took the news rather hard and tried to convince me to reconsider. In the end I told her to keep the resignation email she was hoping to delete, treat it as real, and I'd call her Tuesday morning and let her know the final decision. I already knew the decision but that did not stop me from waffling again and wrestling with various factors for the 53rd time.

On Tuesday I had the call. That, of course, set off a chain reaction. First, there was the call from HR asking questions about my motivations and whether or not I'd reconsider. Then came the call from the VP with a similar set of questions.

By early afternoon I was mentally exhausted and decided to take a lunch break at 1:45 to go rest on the bed for an hour. Unfortunately, at around the same time, another "organizational announcement" email appeared which informed the staff that I was leaving the company on March 25. And then my phone began to ring. Needless to say, there was no lunch break that day! Nor would there be the typical immediate dismissal which would have provided me a sense of relief!

Wednesday and Thursday were brutally busy as I spent time on the phone with co-workers who would be taking on my responsibilities. Thankfully, by Friday, things began to calm down and I was able to leave the house for a nice relaxing lunch at a restaurant. I got some of my non-essential equipment and office supplies boxed up ready to ship back to the office.

Next week I'll be available for support as needed and I'm hoping it will be a quiet week. However, this limbo is a strange sensation and I now remember why I dislike changing jobs. It is a form of agonizing torture and emotionally disruptive.

March 25 seems so very far away.

Career Opportunities

I'm always curious about how people land in their lifelong career, for those lucky enough to have one, and assuming you would consider it lucky.

Many follow in the footsteps of a parent. Doctors begat doctors; lawyers begat lawyers, etc. Others follow some childhood dream. Some just stumble into something that makes sense for them. I fall into the latter category.

My dad was an inactive farmer, meaning that he owned farmland but someone else farmed it and we got a cut. He had various and sundry other jobs -- worked for the postal service I think, for awhile, did some housemoving, whatever. He could do just about anything. But I never remember him having anything like a traditional "career."

Nevertheless, I followed in his footsteps until I was 30, doing this and that, or nothing at all in many cases. My college studies impacted me more in my political philosophy than anything else. College certainly didn't have much of an influence at all in my current career.

I finally got into television and radio advertising and it was a perfect fit for me. As a child and a teenager, I was obsessed with geography, numbers, and broadcasting. It didn't take long after I got a job with an ad agency back in 1990 to realize that I had landed at a place where I could plant my feet and be happy.

What do you do for a living? Is it a match made in heaven? And what made you choose it, or did it just happen?

If I hadn't been fortunate enough to end up doing what I do, I can't imagine what the alternative would have been. The only other thing I would have wanted to do is something like this:

Jobs I Wouldn't Want

As much as I complain about my job and my workload, at least I'm not responsible for hoisting a jet out of the Hudson River. All 80 tons of it.

I am content to simply observe.

The engines could be 30 to 50 feet down, obscured in thick sediment. Conditions are so murky that police and fire department divers will have to feel about by hand.

Christianity Running Rampant

txrad, who has been unemployed now for 13 months, saw a job posted he really wanted to do. It involved feeding raw foods to people trying to cleanse themselves. Christians specifically.

Raw food for Christians. Is anyone else allowed to cleanse?

txrad told me tonight that he didn't apply because of a faith statement about The One which was required.

I said, "fuck, that's easy."

I continued, "Well, just say He (the One -- not Keanu) would have been appalled about Guantanamo Bay, waterboarding, the war in Iraq, and any number of other things, and see where that gets you."

If they are really Christian and they are trying to heal, they won't hold it against you that you aren't a Christian and that you are more Christ-like than 90% of Christians.

We just won't say that part. And maybe you won't get to serve raw food for cleansing to anyone except yourself.

Go for it. Nothing to lose reallly.

There's gotta be a raw-food vegan atheist joint around here somewhere that's hiring queers.

Buckle Up

Get ready for what may be a wild ride.

Message to GM: File For Bankruptcy. I Dare Ya.

It's funny how the last two election cycles have been all about the gains of Democrats and yet Republicans still seem to have control. The auto industry bailout may be dead.

The prospects of a $14 billion government rescue of the American auto industry seemed to vaporize Thursday morning as the Senate Republican leader, Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, spoke out forcefully against the bill, effectively dooming its chances despite the urgings of the White House.

Gee, only $14 billion? That's only $5 billion more than what we'd spend to continue production of those unnecessary F-22s I caught hell for trying to kill off yesterday.

I have differing degrees of disgust with bailouts, even when they might be necessary, or worth the risk. The banking industry? That pissed me off. The auto industry? I'm wishy-washy. I'd be strongly in support if there were an ironclad guarantee the bailout money would be used to completely restructure the industry, and not just maintain the status quo for another year. Still not thrilled with bailouts, but if the doom & gloom predictions by some are correct, this could get ugly and we'd find out pretty quick. And maybe the Republicans have taken us a step closer to finding out for sure.

“A lot of struggling Americans are wondering where their bailout is,” Mr. McConnell declared.

Yeah, Mr. McConnell, where is it?

If I wasn't just taking a quick break from work to post this, I'd do some research and find out how many times Mr. McConnell has voted against increases in the minimum wage, and other support for those struggling.

If any readers have data, drop it in the comments. (Kelly might be able to pull that number off the top of her head.)

Tip of the Day

And it IS job related:

If you want quality, you've got to accommodate eccentric (and logic, and genuine compassion).

And that's all I'll say except that I'm not flying anywhere. For any reason.


Gotta go now. All burned out from work and all.

Are Old Jewish Hippies All Crazy?

txrad and I just had an interesting conversation out on the Deck of Smokes.

I was talking about an account manager (ex-Jew, ex-Hippie, (well, sorta)) who is on vacation and I was thankful. She's crazy as shit.

And then I mentioned that this person reminded me of our boss at the jobbie last year. A Jew, maybe practicing, ex-Hippie (well, sorta) maybe practicing.

Then txrad proceeds to go on a rant about how she would send him confusing and convoluted email requests which ALWAYS resulted in the need to ask for clarification. And SHE'S crazy as shit.

Same here.

And I had a boss back several years ago with whom I am still friends. And she was Jewish (ex- sort of), and a Hippie, and cool as shit.

I left the position at that company five years ago to which I have now returned, and feeling a bit like an ex-non-Jew and a Hippie... not Ex-.

And I'M crazy as shit. It's all work-related.

Life Could Be Worse | At Least I Don't Wear a Tie

But I am sooooo wanting to behave badly. My job is making me insane. Need humor... fast.

My Job: It's a Reptile House

I haven't had any time to post lately and I was just telling txrad it's like being in a pit of snakes and having to multi-task. You kinda just have to get out of it, do something else, and then ease back into what you were doing.

Random Saturdayness

Just a few updates. Although I miss my old job downtown, being in the hustle and bustle of the city, and working in the shadows of these overpriced condos....

...I'm still glad I made the job change. I have completed week #2 of the job at home and it hardly seems possible that two weeks have passed. It's pretty obvious I haven't had the time during the day to blog like I had hoped I would. I'm sure there will be days here and there when I can squeeze one in, and I can always get one up before I start work at 8:30.

Today I haven't been able to sit still long enough to post about anything. I used my energy to get the kitchen cleaned up a bit, and cleaned off a ton of crap which had accumulated under various magnets on the side of the refrigerator. Why do people do that? The death penalty should only apply to people who use magnets for marketing gimmicks. Realtors especially. I will grant an exception to the ones sent out by the Mens Underwear Store.

I also got a lot of overdue personal business done today, shuffled some paperwork, etc. What's really clawing at me is my home office. I have never seen such clutter. It looks like a junk room because basically.... it is. And now that it has become my real office, I need to change some things. I have to feel comfortable in here. I also need things organized. And I think I want to swap places with txrad... move his desk where mine is and move mine to the back of the room. It'll be enough of a change to make me feel rejuvenated.

Some of these home improvement projects need to get wrapped up so I can move on. It was a year ago last week when our house had some minor flooding which required carpets to be ripped up. I started painting and then we had new carpet put in. After a break of several months we resumed with the exterior work on the house: roof, windows, and painting. That's 99% finished but we are waiting on a representative from the window manufacturer to come check on a window in the bedroom which isn't properly fitted.

There's also some unfinished sealing around the windows which needs to be done and I'm going to be doing some touching up here and there on the painting, both the interior and the exterior. I just want this finished and not have the feeling that any workers are still coming over. This has been going on since May and I need closure.

We love the windows so much that we haven't even put the window shades back up yet. However, the fact that the window shades are sitting around on the floor is starting to weigh on my nerves a bit. They are screaming "unfinished business" and I've heard just about enough of that one.

But back to the job situation. I'm enjoying it far more than I expected and feeling pretty good about my decision. It's quite nice to shut down for the day and realize I'm already home. It'll be nicer when home doesn't resemble chaos.

I need to get back to my minimalist vibe. Less is more.

God, I Love Texas

Before you think I'm drunk, or that I've flipped out and joined the Republican Party, let me assure you neither scenario is true. It's just that I've been doing some research.

Those of you who have followed this blog closely for the past year or so probably remember a post here and there about credit card debts which happen to be delinquent and have tarnished my once stellar credit rating. Since I am embarking upon another post on the subject, I want to review a few facts so nobody thinks I'm one of the people who ran out and bought too many shoes, or a Ferrari, and now refuses to face the music.

Prior to starting my own company in 2004, my credit was impeccable. Back in the 80s I did clearly live beyond my means which wasn't hard to do considering my means at the time were a string of unsteady cashier jobs in university bookstores, or whatever. By the time I "grew up" and got a job as a data entry clerk in 1991 at an advertising agency, I was probably swimming in $30,000 credit card debt. I wasn't behind on payments, but I was certainly struggling. I'm sure my mother was helping fill in any financial gaps which is why I was able to make minimum payments.

My data entry job in advertising quickly turned into a career after a few shorts months and soon I was making a $22,000 salary instead of $18,000, and not long after that, it climbed by another few thousand. It seemed to take forever but I eventually paid off that credit card debt.

For the sake of brevity, I'm leaving out a few details -- like the time I had nearly paid everything off and then fell off the wagon and started spending again. But with a higher salary it was easier to pay it off quicker.

I still cursed myself by buying things I didn't necessarily need. And even though I got the credit card spending under control, that didn't stop me from buying a BMW 330i in 2001, nor did it stop me from trading it in for a 2003 model because I didn't like the sound system in the 2001 model!

What's important here is that I accepted my problem, my taste for quality goods and services, and I paid my debts. They were my personal obligation.

Things were great in 2004 when I started my own agency after being approached by a client who wanted to do business with me. It was a busy year and I was happy I had finally done the ultimate. I utilized my experiences in the ad biz and went out solo. By 2005 I had paid off the car loan and my only credit card bills were being paid in full each month.

Unfortunately, this great big-spending client was starting to spend less and less. I had essentially taught them what they needed to know (or so they thought) for them to begin easing the purchase of television advertising time into their own business, thus cutting me out of the picture.

They were not my only client, but they were the only one that made the venture remotely profitable. And I use the term profitable very loosely. It paid a meager salary for myself and txrad which combined was probably not much above the average household income in Austin.

This other client was a chronic late payer. I was having to purchase the media for him, and wait sometimes 6 weeks or longer to be paid for it. This goes against the mantra in this business which is CASH IN ADVANCE. Anyone who deviates from that policy will sooner or later face a calamity. But he wasn't the actual client; he was just a middleman between me and the client who was advertising the product. And his arrangement with the client was 30-day net terms, not CIA. And that's all he could offer me, and because I was desperate to keep any business, I went along with it, all the while hoping another big piece of business would come through the door. There were a lot of decent leads over the course of a year but none of them came to fruition.

I was also engaging in some highly risky behavior involving what is known in the business as a "pay per inquiry." It was important to have a variety of media inventory on hand for the current client(s) but they were not obligated to approve it. And often, they might approve it and then disapprove it just a few days before it was scheduled to go on air. In that scenario, I have two choices: let it air and not be paid by the client, or tell the station I can't air it and therefore will not be paying for it. Neither option is very good if you plan to keep a viable agency up and running. The stations could get pissed off if this becomes a trend and they won't agree to work with you in the future. Because they have to resell the time, close-in, usually at a loss because it's what's known as a "firesale."

I didn't want to turn this post into an advertising seminar so let me just say I was between a rock and a hard place very often. My way out was to keep the time period and offer it to another agency as a "pay per inquiry." They agree to pay me a fixed amount for each lead generated and I have to hope like hell it's enough to cover what I paid for the time period. Sometimes they would pay out quite well. It's too bad I wasn't keeping closer tabs on this because the majority of the time they weren't paying shit.

Now you may be wondering how I was funding all of this, paying our salaries (which I had now cut about 30%) coupled with a client's increasingly delinquent payment schedule. My agency was a class C corporation. I specifically formed it as a corporation to protect my personal interests against any number of nasty things that might happen when you are in a business situation with other clients. Again, sooner or later, somebody gets sued for something. It happens all the time in this business.

My solution to funding my business was to apply for company credit cards, and you can imagine I was getting a lot of offers in the mail. $20,000 credit limits were being dangled in my face by various banks and I took them up on the offer, often applying for the cards online. One of my big mistakes was assuming that the corporation was solely responsible for those debts since the corporation is a legal separate entity from konagod. A big hint to those still reading: read the fine print. And who reads fine print, especially when doing something online? I needed money and fast.

This went on for many months and by 2006 I had not only cash advanced every dime I could get from the "company" credit cards, I had begun getting large cash advances on my own credit cards (and one of txrad's) to loan the company. Once in awhile, we'd have a good spurt of luck, the client would send a check for $5,000, maybe another $5,000 the following week, and I was able to make some minimum payments on the cards and still fund the company. During the last quarter of 2006 I think I could see the writing on the wall and I began having the company pay back as much as it could afford on the loans I had made on my personal credit cards, but there simply wasn't enough coming in.

From November through December of 2006 not a penny came through the doors of our agency. And I had stopped paying our salary as of mid-November. The client told me his partner had disappeared and cleaned out their joint business bank account. This did not bode well for us. I was in denial through the holidays and into New Year's Day. But I distinctly remember waking up on the morning of January 2, 2007 and saying to myself, "this company is done and we are fucked."

I had not been able to make payments on the corporate credit cards, and any amount I had been able to pay was probably at the expense of another. And here I was holding about $40,000 in debt on my personal cards which I had to stop paying because we had no income.

The next two weeks were spent trying to piece things together and wondering what to do next. By the middle of the month, I had received a tip from a friend who worked at a large ad agency in town that they were looking for someone to work on an account, basically doing what I had been doing on my own, except I wouldn't need to worry about the accounting nightmares, I wouldn't be paying the bills, and they would pay my salary! So off I went to interview.

As you might suspect, this is the job I had from January 29 until I was laid off on December 21, placing advertising for that large telecommunications giant which I shall not name. It paid well and I thought I could at least make payments on my personal credit cards which had piled up so much debt from my loans to my agency.

It was a "temporary" position, not a permanent job, so I had no benefits, vacation accrual, or any of the regular perks. Just a great hourly wage. I didn't know if it would last 3 months or 3 years but I was thankful to have it.

I made minimum payments on those credit cards for 2 or 3 months until I got a call one day from a representative of a bank which had issued one of the corporate cards. She wanted to know when I was going to pay it and I informed her the company had basically had to shut down and I wasn't sure when or if it would be up and running again. I told her it could end up in bankruptcy if I could not collect the past-due funds from the deadbeat client.

Then she dropped a bomb on me. She said, "you are personally responsible for this debt" as indicated in the cardholder agreement....fine print...blah blah blah....

I was going into a daze. Here I was thinking my personal debt was "only" around $40,000 when in fact, if what she was saying was true, it was far worse. And this time I would not be able to pay my way out of it. I contacted another financial expert ex-colleague who confirmed that was probably the situation with each of the "company" credit cards.

So here I was, a guy who had always paid his debts in order to maintain a trophy credit rating, facing the obvious. I wasn't sure what I was going to do but in the meantime I decided to stop paying the minimum payments on those personal card balances. I figured if I'm liable for all of them, I have to look at it as one massive debt that I cannot pay right now. No sense in trying. I made this decision last August. We are approaching the one year anniversary of our delinquency.

Something else happened last August to cement that decision. That's when I learned the telecommunications giant put the media account up for review, meaning it was probably going to depart by the end of 2007. Money that would have gone to the credit cards began going into my savings account. And honestly, I do not feel guilty for doing this. I have to look after konagod and txrad first.

Shit hit the fan at the end of the year. txrad (who had also become employed at the same agency with full benefits in March of 2007) was laid off in November. I was laid off in December. I was hoping this was all just a big misunderstanding and the client would come back with their tail between their legs and we'd get hired back again.

I had saved up enough money in those 5 months to not be concerned about the immediate future. We could coast for awhile until we found the right jobs, and we were collecting unemployment. I began hearing rumors in February that I might get hired back to work on a different media campaign if it came to fruition as expected in March. But this kept getting delayed. March became April, April became May, and then maybe it would happen in June or July. Or not at all.

It gave me enough hope for the future that I felt comfortable spending our nest egg on home improvements: the new roof, windows, and painting. Because if the job didn't materialize, we'd probably need to sell the house and move. And yes, I could have split that money up and paid each of the credit cards a fraction of what I owed them. However, a new roof was essential and honestly the windows were maybe a year away from essential, and who knows if I would qualify for credit to borrow the money to pay for that project. Logic dictated I spend the cash and get it done.

Meanwhile a different position opened up at the agency in May -- the one I took and started on May 12. The pay was far less than I have usually made when in the employment of others. It barely covered the most basic monthly expenses we have. And txrad is still unemployed. Needless to say, this is why I felt I had no choice but to take the job I accepted and started on Monday of this week. It covers all our overhead (which is a HUGE relief) but very little more.

Could I afford now to start paying $500 a month on the credit debt? Probably.

But here are a few reasons why I'm not (yet anyway). It would take 25 years to pay off the debt at that rate. I'd be paying it off when I'm 73. And something about that idea makes me extremely angry. Angry enough to write a blog post this fucking long.

This is all tied in with a corporation and a lot of bad stupid decisions by a corporate executive and a bad decision by konagod to loan the corporation money. This is far different from me personally going out and racking up a $10,000 credit card debt on a much-needed vacation and a few trips to the Crate & Barrel.

Besides, why should I pay through the nose for bad corporate decisions when I see corporate executives at many Fortune 500 companies basically getting by with bloody murder and often getting dismissed with a nice severance package. They get in their 750il and cruise on home to their mansion in Westchester County.

So, I may have digressed a bit from the title of this post. Why is it exactly that I suddenly love Texas?

One of my biggest concerns is that one of these banks is going to sue me and garnish my wages. And instead of having a job that covers my overhead, I'm back in the same leaky boat I've been in for the past 3 years. I suppose I can cast aside that worry.

The Texas Constitution prohibits garnishment of wages for payment of debts. Certain property in Texas is also exempt from collection in an effort to satisfy debt. Our house cannot be taken, my car cannot be taken as long as I only have one, my IRA account cannot be seized. I'm sure there's not much else of value around here that could be seized. No diamond necklaces, no speed boats or yachts that I can see, they can't seize the four shirts I bought today from Goodwill for $21.61 nor can they seize my cats. And as long as I don't have more than 120 chickens, they can't touch those either.

And this does not make me a bad person. If I had an extra $170,000 sitting around here in a shoebox perhaps, I'd more than gladly pay those debts, and take the tax-deduction for my personal losses on the loans to my company. It'd be worth it to get these annoying fucks to stop calling my cellphone 18 times a day. Which, by the way, I could put a stop to when I'm so inclined.

And they have started calling the phone I had put in just barely a week ago for business. That IS going to stop.

I could put a stop to them mailing me letters as well. But I don't care about that. And really I don't care if they keep pinging my cellphone. I don't want them to feel like I'm completely unreachable because that's when they might decide to speed up the legal action.

In the meantime, I also learned today that Texas has a 4 year statute of limitations on legal action related to such debt. After four years of delinquency, they can't sue you. I have three left.

Unfortunately, you can bet your ass those banks are aware of Texas law. Whether they want to incur the cost to sue me remains to be seen. They are more than welcome to have these 4 four-drawer filing cabinets filled with old agency paperwork.

If they are wise, they'll just wait until (and if) I have the means to pay them. The last three years have been tough. The next three might be tougher for all of us, and them.

Gonna Make a Mistake, Gonna Do It On Purpose

Day #4 of a new job has just ended. It was a better day than yesterday. It HAD to be. Otherwise I was on the verge of doing something which would probably have been a huge mistake.

I awoke around 1:30 this morning after horrible anxiety dreams involving media software and Excel (not uncommon for me) and then had trouble sleeping the rest of the night. When I did there were even more anxiety dreams. Horrible stuff.

It's probably natural to have anxiety when changing jobs, but I think it's probably more acute when you are leaving a job you love for something you think you'll just like, if you're lucky. But I'm coming around. I actually got a lot more comfortable today dealing with the subject matter of yesterday's post. It's just a matter of memorizing when to hit F4, F1, B for one function, R for another, and the all-important Q for Quit.

I was about ready hit Q when I rolled out of bed this morning. It's getting better though. And tomorrow is Friday.

The reality is that, despite the technology hurdles, there's a real opportunity in my new position for growth and that is something that isn't always guaranteed for someone who has been at it in the same industry for as long as I have. New learning experiences are also on the horizon.

I just need to calm the fuck down and get through the first week or two of adjustment. That's always hard and throwing in the towel seems like an easy way out. Last night I was so frustrated I was ready to waltz back into my old job. That would have been a mistake. And I've made enough of those already. It's not so much the job I miss as the software. (Yes, I'm a software snob!) I need to get over it. I'm among old friends and simply need to adapt.

10.75 Hours

That's what I logged on my first day at the new jobbie. Hence, no posting. I don't even have a fucking clue what's going on out there in the world today.

Busted!

What a relief it is to know I don't have to get dressed and drive to the office on Monday morning. The office is now here.

I got my work PC set up on Thursday evening and this afternoon I decided to set up the "all-in-one" printer, fax, scanner, copier.

Oops. I guess I won't be doing any scanning.

In fact, I won't be using the thing at all. There's probably bits of glass in the other operational mechanisms. I didn't break it. It obviously got some rough treatment during shipping.

Oh well. At least I have another all-in-one device here I can use in the meantime. Work shall commence on schedule Monday morning.

Friday Pussy Blog: The Thank God for Rebecca Edition

I have had the most frustrating last day at work you can imagine, and the end of the most frustrating week you can imagine. I can't even type.

I present you with this week's Friday Pussy Blog, courtesy of Rebecca.

"There are two means of refuge from the miseries of life: music and cats."
--Albert Schweitzer

I'll have some of both, thank you very much. And tequila, let's not forget that means.

Yep, that was my day and my week.

konagod on keyboards!

This is getting ridiculous. I had to bring home the laptop today from the soon-to-be ex-job and do some work while waiting on the cable dude (gay! gay! GAY!) to come install the digital phone line I need for the new job. And while I was waiting and in between work, I set up the equipment for the new job. So here's the scene this afternoon:

Can you say "GEEK?"

Old job on the left, personal desktop in the middle, new job on the right, and old computer on a table I'm trying to get cleaned up for a charitable donation. Once that's done, I have another one waiting in the wings. And as if that's not enough, you can see txrad's desktop PC and monitor in the far upper right of this shot. That's five visible computers in one shot.

The phone guy was going to be here between 1 and 5 which is why I worked from home this afternoon and I joked that he'd probably get here at 4:55. Actual time of arrival was around 5:15. But I'm good to go now.

While I was sitting at my desk this afternoon alternating between the laptop on the left and the new work on the right, I was feeling like Rick Wakeman in concert, surrounded by an array of gadgets.

I made beautiful music yet again.

The "Last Day" That Wasn't

Oh, the disappointment.

Miss Communication strikes again, like Miss USA tripping over her evening gown.

Even though my "exit interview" was today at 2:30, my last day is still Friday. The notice of the exit interview came with the proper protocol of "bring your badge, laptop" etc., which led me to believe I was outta there today.

Wrong ASSumption.

They were just getting a head start.

I had a 1 1/2 hour exit interview. Who among us has ever had one that long? Consider that to be the Question of the Day. I let it all hang out, as only a konagod would.

I also was rushing to get a 2nd opinion on my March eye exam so it would be covered under my current insurance plan. That was at 10:30 this morning. And I spent another $340 on a $900 pair of glasses -- state of the art progressive lenses with a pair of frames that were actually on sale today -- closeout style.

Insurance covered the rest, including the eye exam. And the eye doctor was HOT. Like Curt Cobain. Shit, that was worth $340 right there.

$600 is just for the lenses!

Anyhoo, I got back to the office by 12:00 and did a day's worth of work between then and 2:30 when I expected all my computer access would be shut off, before I knew I was good til Friday.

This is working out OK though because txrad has another round of dental work on Friday which was going to be over $600 out of pocket for us without insurance.

So, to cut a long story longer, I'm planning to work Thursday morning only and be home in the afternoon for equipment setup and any current work emergencies, and then go to the office again on Friday as a formality for a few hours and then get the hell out.

Nobody said this was going to be an easy transition. I worked my ass off today.

But workstuff arrived today, so this must be for real.

I'm feeling jazzed. So many people at work are jealous of my arrangement that I cannot not select this as the theme song of this post. And as I was previewing it, txrad came in and said, "that's the one."

Consider it done.

I was a DJ at a college radio station in Fayetteville, Arkansas when this album came out and I added it to my playlist immediately. I think that was 1979.

And the album graphic seems to fit the television test pattern theme I have in my sidebar.

What more could one ask?

Mixed Emotions and Cosmic Shit

I hate to keep flogging a dead horse. I mean, I have resigned from my current job and have officially accepted a much higher-paying position working from home. Why so glum?

I'm not sure. Because I was motivated by money instead of happiness? Granted, I'm not the least bit concerned that I'm going to enjoy the new job, and I'm pretty excited about some of my responsibilities I've heard about. Buying national cable TV spots ain't bad; I could do a whole lot worse.

But I'm going to be very sad when I walk away from the current joint on Wednesday. Leaving behind some wonderful and fun people. But this is a strange industry. When you hook up with people, and it's meant to be, they don't easily leave your life.

Case in point: my immediate supervisor is someone I've known for 18 years and worked with at a number of other agencies. And I'm still friends with an ex-co-worker whom I've really only known for about 18 months (but feel as though I've known her my entire life) even though we had a brief encounter at the same agency about 11 years ago, and she's from the same town in Iowa as the agency which is hiring me. And so is my current supervisor. Small industry. Cosmic shit. Whatever.

I just don't want to be making very many more bad decisions at my age.

It doesn't help that Monday, July 14 marks the 4 year anniversary of me starting my own agency. And what a colossal disaster that has turned out to be. I keep putting off the obligatory visit for legal advice on that one.

Anyhow, another chapter in my book is about to unfold, and I just want to be sure it's a good one. I've had a string of not-so-good ones lately.

Working from home with a 33% pay increase is not a bad deal though, in and of itself. The rest I'll just have to get over.

At least I'm not a redshirt.