Bad Excuses

We have all worked with crazy people. And we've all worked with slackers. Identifying them - initially - isn't always that easy. But rest assure, it always comes out, somehow, someway. And usually by their own doing.

Today's example? The eternal crazy-slacker who, at first would tell people she couldn't be at work because "I threw my back out." That was followed by weekly doctor appointments. Likely followed by a cat death & funeral. She never worked a full week in over 6 months of employment at one agency.

My favorite excuse for going home early is seen below....

From: Name removed
To: ALL
Subject: who ever ate my salad lunch and took the container too....

Not only am I allergic to EVERYTHING but the salad dressing was mixed with several liquid antibiotics. Nice.

You may want to fess up as you will most likely need to see your GP because of the meds. Hold the humor, as this could potentially be serious to someone.

I will be leaving shortly as I need to go home to take my meds. Mystery person, call me on my MOBILE if you don't find me.

Thank you.

Name removed
Sr. Project Manager

The price of success (or at least one fun night).

My friends at a substantially large San Francisco agency have found the best way to get anything out of their COO is pretty simple: top shelf vodka, Prada, Gucci or, really, any designer shoe. The bigger the ask, the bigger combination of those. But it's pretty much guaranteed.

It got me thinking - is it REALLY guaranteed? Could we test these waters a little? What would be the right combo for a salary raise? A promotion? What if you just really want to take out the team for a good time which may or may not involve lots of vodka for yourselves and, possibly, strippers but absolutely no hard core drugs because that was such an early 90s agencies thing to do (or so I keep telling myself as I look the other way).

Funny thing is - I asked this question about a week ago and just last night I got the answer. How? Well, my friends took the COO out, got her completely drunk, made her pay for the drinks (over $2500) and proceeded to ask these very questions (talk about bold moves, Ford Motor Company, take note).

Here's what they learned:

Salary = look at the percentage you're asking for. If it's with inflation, the COO would have already likely given that to you, so make it worthwhile. A top shelf bottle of vodka and any small Gucci and/or Prada (or really any designer label in which the COO's PA could give you her latest wish list) is worth about inflation plus about 10%.

Promotion = this is pretty serious. The COO didn't deny getting buttered up for some very senior promotions BUT indicated that it would require a combination of all three OR at least one top shelf vodka plus one massive designer purchase. Jimmy Choo and Christian Louboutin are always a nice add-in, depending on what you are really pushing for.

So that lead me to ask what about the "night out on the town?

My friends just laughed. Apparently, all it truly takes is a lot of vodka and this COO will happily do it for you (as is the case from that night).


True story. Can't make up this crap.

Free Childcare

I recently heard how a lovely producer friend of mine (I'll call her N for the purposes of this story) was asked to go babysit for one of her creative leads because he had too much to work on & she was, well, a girl.

I guess the fact that she had her own workload didn't matter. Nor did the creative (or her agency) pay her anything more to do it.

Anyways, this has got me thinking - and I'm guessing some of my producer and account friends out there might agree with this - a lot of what we do IS babysit. Babysit clients. Babysit projects. Babysit people. Departments. Bosses. Blah blah blah. Now, in this case, my friend, N, was asked to babysit a 1 year old. But it probably isn't that different from her normal day. Actually, it might even be better. But I digress. You can all discuss amongst yourselves. I've given you a forum to share your thoughts....

In the meantime, I waiting to hear from an different friend, who plans on calling up that Bad Agency and inquiring about their free childcare services... rumor has it that the babysitter is pretty good with kids. Not to mention pretty cute.