My crazy life

I can try and plead some sort of amendment regarding my lack of posts on the blog as of late, but I’m not entirely sure which one would help in my current situation. So I’ll just plead the fifth and move on.
Two days ago I finished up my internship. One week ago my partner and I presented our intern project to out bosses, middle and senior management, the COO, and the CCO. I wish I could say more about my project, but to be honest I have a feeling that our projects actually did some good to the point that they may use some of it. As such, I’m going to have to remain tight lipped about it. Yet I will say a few things about it:
1) Seriously, when the COO and CCO are staring you down, you really, really, really feel nervous. I’m not one for getting butterflies in my stomach (I do enjoy speaking in public), however in this instance I had to hide my hands so no one could see how much they were shaking.
2) After the presentation the CCO came over and talked to me about how much he enjoyed my artwork on our plans book (which, by the way, were made completely by hand. From design, to print, to even putting the staples in). That’s a damn good feeling.
My last two weeks at Campbell-Ewald were amazing: the presentation, a Nerf war (I’m still nursing my injuries from falling off of a cubicle), my birthday (I got some free cupcakes, amazing gifts, and bowling in downtown Detroit), and sharing one of my new friend’s 21st birthdays.

There is a point to my rambling: when you look for an ad agency, make sure you’re happy for god-sake. Remember, you’re going to be working there. A lot. I was an intern and I still had to put in some late nights. To be completely frank, I didn’t mind doing that because I not only liked what I did, but I liked who I did it for (does that sound dodgy? I think it does.)
Of course, this is a very lofty thing to say when you’re trying to break into an ad agency. Refusing any offer leaves you to wonder if you just threw away the best (or only) job offer you’ll get. But you have to realize that chances are in a year (if you stand it that long) you will either be looking for another job, or hating every minute in your career.
All in all, my summer at Campbell-Ewald was amazing. I was given work for some damn cool clients (U.S. Mint, Navy, Carhartt, GM, and some others), worked with some damn cool people, and got paid pretty well for an internship. Most of all, I wasn’t given what I like to call ‘bitch work’. Sure, some stuff was less than desirable, however my only assignment wasn’t mopping floors, clean out the fridge, or making binders. People trusted me and I was given actual work.
Among everything I learned, it wasn’t simply advertising, but rather things to help me function in a day to day life in an office: getting along with others, speaking my mind, how to lead someone else, etc.
I could go on and on, but I won’t because I’m babbling now. All I can say is that my internship was SO awesome, and I was genuinely sorry I had to leave early.
As for Japan – I am now in Shinjuku’s skyscraper district getting ready for the JET orientation. For the next year I’ll be living in Japan as a High School teach teaching English.

Right now I would like to take a moment to sing the praises of Continental. I was sitting in coach, and yet the chair was quite comfortable, the food was good, and I watched watched Horton Hears a Who, The Incredibles, Batman Begins, Densha Otoko, The Simpsons, a TV special about Saatchi’s Lovemarks (very interesting if you can find it online), and Monsters Inc. All of this is free – FREE! Does this sound like a shill? Perhaps, but I just think of the last time I flew to Japan on Delta (hissss). I got a choice of Little Mermaid, Chicken Little, or Die Hard.
That’s. All.

Here? 300+ moves. ALL the HP movies, ALL of Pixar – everything.
Ok, so Japan. Umm, to be honest, I have no idea what I’m feeling. I keep thinking I’ll be back in a few months just in time for school to start. But I’m not, I’m living here. I AM LIVING IN A FOREIGN COUNTRY. I’m not being taken care of (I am, in a way, but no one is here to wipe my butt and pay my bills for me). I have to set up my internet on my own – in Japanese!
It’s difficult to explain what I’m feeling. Excitement? Trepidation?
I don’t know. All I know is my Japanese is rusty as hell, which is why I’m watching the news and repeating every other word like some kind of Rainman copycat.

Why you comin' home, five in the morn'?

Lately I have been coming back from the agency around 10:30 p.m. -11:00 p.m.. You have to understand how very weird it is to walk out to the parking lot only to see that my car is the only one left in the (very large) parking lot.

But, things have to get done, after all. You see, we have this intern project which requires us, for all intensive purposes, to do a business pitch to the heads of the company. I'm not so much worried about pitching to them, but rather to have my bosses that I work with, as well as my fellow interns in the room.

Also, I have decided to bring in some Flash into the presentation. While it looks great, Flash always seems to leave me working up to hour 0 and wondering "Really, was it REALLY worth it?'
Overall, I feel like I can now appreciate the difficulty of new business pitches now, more so because our presentation was "moved up" a couple days. The use of quotes was because I believe that there really wasn't any emergency which caused them to change it. (After all, the presentations will be attended by some high level people. It doesn't seem like they would have the schedules that permit sudden three hour blocks of presentations to crop up.)

Yesterday was the second installment of 'Lot Rock' -- the agency's way of welcoming in summer. Every week the agency features a band (usually made up of people in the agency) and a type of beer (with wine and Miller as well). Work stops at 5:00 and everyone gathers -- CEOs and peons alike -- to enjoy some music and a beautiful blue Michigan sky. While I could only stay for half of this week's lot rock, I managed to see the rest from my window on the third floor. I could swear that someone must have looked up at my hangdog expression and thought "Thank god I'm not a damn intern."

Next week is something called 'Creativity For Kids'. I don't know what that entails, but the Chevy and Navy experience vans are now parked outside the office. Anything that kids like can ONLY mean fun.

At least, fun for me. (Oh dear, that sounded creepy)

Work goes well, yet each day I realized how everything is becoming less about surviving in an ad agency and more about preparing for my journey across the sea. Currently it stands at 15 days until I find myself living in the land of Hello Kitty for at least a year.

First thing is first -- worry about this presentation, then I can worry about Japan.

Oh...and kicking some rear in our floor-wide Nerf war next week.

So much to learn

One thing I always noticed about those in advertising is that they seemed to know everything -- and I mean everything in that sense that they knew EVERYTHING. It seemed only natural that you would pick up some things here and there when you work with a client. But I never suspected that working for the U.S. Mint for a week and a half would now leave me with more information than I ever expected to know about it (to be fair, I expected to know very little about the U.S. Mint in my lifetime).

Lately, I have realized that working on social media has allowed me to see the internet differently. Before I simply utilized the most basic of Google's offerings (search, gmail, maps, and street view when I was bored), and now I can't help but poke and prod around every site I know simply to see more of what they have to offer.
We all know that the internet is an insanley vast resources (rule 34 anyone?). Yet many people don't realize just how much there really is out there. It seems that only recently with a lot of developments in RSS and the wide use of blogs and tags that we can finally utilize the awesome storage which lies dormant within the internet.

Anyway! Agency life is still very nice. My take on things is slightly skewed since, as an intern, they're treating us a bit differently with a lunch and learn tomorrow, and a road rally on Thursday. I have no idea what this 'rally' is, but I like to think that anything which encourages drinking at the end is sure to have some kind of fun attached to it.

We also have an 'intern project' which we are required to do. While I'm not sure if I can talk about it (I'm not kidding when I say all those papers and handbooks they give you REALLY do well in scaring you to shut the fuck up about work), I'm sure that I can disclose that the project has taught me a lot of shit. And that shit goes as follows:

1) Account people and Creatives aren't that different. A lot of times people just set themselves up to thinking they are due to fear/laziness
2) When everyone is talking, talking loudly doesn't help to get your point across.
3) Unless you are the boss, you can't choose who you work with. Deal with it.
4) Don't be afraid to go out there. Go big or go home -- advertising isn't for second best.
5) If you shoot down and idea, be sure to offer another one up. It's so easy to condemn, but when you're at hour 0 you have to put all aside.
6) Seriously -- account people. Don't be afraid to be creative! I mean, as long as you aren't a dick about it, any Creative is more than happy to hear some ideas (if simply so that they can feel better about their own ideas).

Yes, there are stories and lessons behind all of these -- which I managed to experience within the last two weeks. Looking back at this list, I sort of wonder what the entire list will look like at the end of this internship.
My partner and I had some...err...head butting? But, you know, at the end of the day if I managed to convince him, I knew that I had convinced the toughest person. And convincing him would ensure that we could take on anything that the client would ask of us.

Oh! And on another unrelated note -- don't steer away from people when they seem to be in a bad mood. If anything, a sour mood seems to make a lot of people more likely to open up and bestow upon you a fountain of thoughts/ideas/funny phrases.


P.S. -- Funny story which I had no idea how to fit into this: while I was looking up information on a client, I accidentally clicked on one of those web sites which lists tag after tag for every word out there. Once the page loaded I was treated to a face full of...umm...female genitalia.
Thank GOD no one was walking by my cube just then. That would have been awkward to explain.

Day 3 -- Hell yeah!

I meant to do this day one, and yet I have been caught up in this whirlwind of work that I just haven't found the time to sit down and record my thoughts.

Heck, even now I don't have the time, and yet I am so happy with what I'm doing that I just want to tell everyone.

This summer I am working at Campbell-Ewald in Detroit. Never heard of it? Ditto. However, they do Alltel (WIZARD!), Farmers, Chevy and a lot more. We have three (or four, I kind of forget) offices in the area and some offices all over the country.

So, yes, big company.

But for being such a large company (800 people in the main building alone) it feels...like a family.
I didn't believe that when I heard it. In fact, whenever someone says that their agency is like a family I roll my eyes as it seems to be the keyword for "yeah, we ride your ass hard, but then act nice to you so that you don't jump out the window or sue the pants off of us".

Yet, last summer I worked at an ad agency of 50-ish people and, at the end of the day, I felt completely invisible. My mentor was, for lack of something more eloquent, a little bat-shit crazy, and no one seemed interested in giving me work, let alone acknowledging my existence. I could understand this if they were busy or some of the biggest names in advertising, yet they were all 20-somethings fresh out of college and seemed to forget what it was like to just BE an intern.

Conversely, my boss is one of the COOLEST and most amazing people ever (not a hyperbole. This is just a fucking fact, people). If there was some sort of coolness index which ranked on coolness from 1 through 100, he would easily get a five billion in my book.
But he sat down with me to work on projects, show us interns around, and event took us out to lunch! Honestly, when your boss can laugh at your terrible urban dictionary mention, you know you have a cool boss.

And when you can SHOW it to him. You know you have the best boss ever.

The past three days have been a whirlwind of names as everyone is so happy to introduce themselves. The funny thing is that they already know who I am. The interns in this company are treated not like some kind of grunt labor, but as something really valuable.
We aren't just given out (oh, that sounds terrible, but I'll go with it) to any group randomly. Departments must apply for us, just as we apply for the company. They have to promise to give us work, experience, and not just use us as a coffee service.

Hell, at my last place I got coffee at least 15 times. Today my boss asked if he could get ME coffee.

But this rambling means nothing, so let me put it in a more tangible story format: in my cube (and my brand new G5 -- oh yes, that is jealously your are feeling, my friend) I don't have any staples, push-pins or tape. Outside of my cube is a large filing cabinet which has a sticker that said 'office supplies'.
The other intern in my department said "Why don't you just go through it?"
"No," I responded. "I don't want to mess up the system." I'm just used to being told not to touch anything and receiving a severe passive-aggressive talk if I did (sometimes I feel like I suffer from some sort of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder from my last internship).

I went back to my cube when someone from the office next to me poked his head in.
"Hey, don't be afraid to go through the stuff. You can take whatever you want!"
I couldn't believe it. He took time out of his day to help me find a stapler and some tape, then introduced me to some of the people he worked with.

Not in my department. Not responsible for me in any way. Just did it.

You know you really have a cool agency when it makes awesome work, has a room devoted to a Wii, Xbox and PS3, and the COO chats with you in the elevator.

But as much as I love the people there, I think I love my work more. I'm never sure what I'm allowed to say as, when you enter any ad agency, you sign eighty-five papers which say, in every different say possible, that you won't blab about what you're doing.
In a general sense, I look up the buzz about our clients on the internet (blogs, youtube, facebook, anywhere). I read blogs, I watch videos and just learn about anything I can learn about.

In short -- I'm getting paid to do what I would do on the weekends.

Fuck yes.