The Hangover

I'm hung over...

From Ad Congress.


Not from the usual effects of alcohol during the parties at the venue. It would take a lot of free alcohol to get me wasted... and i know a lot about free alcohol. I guess I also know a lot about being wasted, but that's just another blog entry waiting to happen.

Seventeen years after I told my future first boss that I'll be pursuing a career in advertising, I'm still outside looking in. Back then when i was working part time as a cub writer, he never showed any inclination in hiring me full time. When i finally asked why, he told me he was expecting me to follow my declaration of going into agency work. When i told him I'm not really in a hurry, he hired me on the spot. Seventeen years of work involving writing followed. Macs, mainframe software, advocacy, company profiles, real estate, mechanical engineering, drugs, and now beer and all its trappings.

On top of my regular job at PR and whatever the hell is it i'm supposed to be doing for the betterment of the company, everything that a good ad man can do, i did. Just out of the setting, away from the arena, away from fellow practitioners of the dark arts of advertising that live and die by the word of a client. I'm doing that, but in the safety and comfort zone of a patriarchal company that would not let me fail. Which i guess doesn't make it the same.


Seventeen years later, the itch is still there, but not the irrepressible desire to scratch it. With seventeen years come a number of reasons: I think I lost my edge, I have a real job now, I have a family to look after, and I have access to beer - free, discounted, bartered, paid in full or whatever.


The Ad Congress probably opened my eyes with what i could do, with what i could be. And in the proper context. With like-minded individuals all after the same prize of being known with a cleverly-made approach that delighted clients, made competitor agencies green, and delighted noobs just happy to be there.

That in essence, is what i guess i'm hung over for. The company of peers who rebel at every instance of order, of people obssessed with the perfect copy, of individuals who are paid to think outside not just the box but the planet. The security of my present job reflects the security of the established norms and mores that the company has nurtured over the century. You can be trailblazing, yes, but let the others catch up. You can be creative, but stay the course. You can think out of the box, but come back inside as soon as you finish.


Is now a good time to rethink my career path? I have no idea. I don't even know if anybody would be dumb enough to get my services. I've been job-hopping the last decade before i settled here at the Escudo, and i'm here long enough to establish a record in tenure. And i have some sort of reputation when it comes to applying creativity where there was none before.


Let's let it simmer a few more years i guess. Unless i happen to reread this blog and pick out all the denials i wrote. For now, i loathe moving to Makati. That's good enough.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Crisis of confidence

Image
prologue: I hedged against writing this entry but i guess transparency won over everything else. If i continued writing about just the good things, it wouldn't make much sense 10 years from now, as any offspring might see this and conclude that was a cheery person my entire life. --- We lost a game we should have won last night by 3 points. Led the entire game except the last 2 minutes. And what's worse, i spent the whole game chained to the bench. I do realize i may not be as good as the rest of the players, but i try to do my share whenever asked. I really felt bad knowing i could have helped one way or the other, but i guess the coach was afraid i'd do more harm than good. So despite being the earliest to arrive for the game, my jersey hardly worked up a sweat, and it was so bad that my water bottle got home untouched. I even forgot to bring home my shoes. A teammate took it home with him and joked later that it was lucky it didnt fit him. If it did, i would have given
Read more

Day Two: Diary of a Starfish

Image
i hate Holy Week. Talk about invasion of privacy. What's so holy about that? One week a year and tourists go ape shit. I wish to God they'd be content to watch you in your natural habitat. But nooo. They pick you up, turn you around, and take stupid videos of you doing what comes naturally. Here i am, minding my own fucking business -- mind you, the harmless business of burying myself halfway in the sand, and feeding on plankton. For God's sake, plankton! microscopic organisms nobody would miss. And i do my part in keeping the ocean clean. Then these bastards come in droves during Holy Week. They crowd the shores, and they have the nerve to pick on wildlife. Harmless fucking wildlife that survived millions of years of evolution, only to be picked up by a 30-year old in an outdated Kings jersey for the sole reason he doesn't know what starfish do when they flip over. The nerve of the retro-loving bastard. I do what i do, what nature taught me to do. Survive. I flip over
Read more

Here's to a thousand hits

Image
i wanted to write a couple of entries, but somehow the spirit is willing but the fingers are fat and tired. must be from doing all that weboggle. it's seriously addicting, and trying to reach the top 10 is somewhat of an unending challenge. try it yourself by visiting here . anyway, the celebration of the 1000th hit to my blog is too good to pass up so here i am at 1 in the morning writing an entry. I know it's not much compared to hits from google or yahoo, but having my blog viewed a thousand times is more than an achievement for me. it's been a crazy week at work with all the activities going on that i surprise myself for not being burned out yet. i do admit i'm having too much fun to derive some sense of fatigue out of it. Muziklaban is over finally, and it was a blast for yours truly to have attended his first concert with a special all-access ID around his neck. That means i can eat all the food i want and go to all the restricted areas without some bouncer handl
Read more