Marathoning.

I've run, successfully, a dozen marathons. You wouldn't know it by looking at me now but there was a time I was slim, trim and, even, sinewy.

I was never an "elite" runner. I naturally big-boned and even at my slimmest had a hard time getting below 190. However, I was good--a top 10% kind of guy--capable of running a marathon in the low 3s. That's a 7:15 mile pace for 26 miles.

Ah, but that's many years and many pounds ago.

And not the point of this post.

The point of this post is a metaphor.

A marathon is what we run at work.

The start of an assignment is often like the start of a race.

You're off with speed and enthusiasm.

The end of an assignment is often like the end of a race.

You stand tall, marshall your innate strength and resolve and finish strong.

It's the middle miles, the middle of an assignment that separate the men from the boys (in a non-gender specific way.)

These are the gnarly, painful miles where everything hurts and crowds are thin. Your initial burst of enthusiasm has vanished. And your end-of-race adrenaline is still fallow.

This is the territory where your head has to emerge.

It has to calm you down.

It has to remove your pain.

It has to tell you that you don't have 20 miles left, you have one.

And when you're done with that one, you have one more.

And so on, until you finish.

There are a lot of vicissitudes we face in life.

Panickers, second-guessers, wind-bags.

The trick is out-lasting them.

Black Dog Tuesday.

We are living in an alternate Kafkaesque universe.

This is a universe in which decks take longer to complete than creative presentations.

Where briefs are allotted four weeks and creative is allotted four days.

It's a world where people who talk about work are more valued than people who do the work.

We live in a world where 90% of our effort is expended on media tactics that have never proven their worth.

Where you're "hot" based on your ability to do fake ads.

Maybe someday there will be a substance resurgence.

And smart work that works will rise again.

But I'm not holding my breath.

Lightbulbs.

After the frenzy of my last few days at work, the sturm und drang of preparing for a pitch, sleep did not come gently to me. She did not tiptoe in like the fog on little cat feet. She did not drop by at all. In fact, my only nocturnal visitor was my old nemesis, Dame Insomnia. She forced me out of bed and into a gloomy wakefulness.

I shuffled from my bedroom into the living room, hopping on one foot as I slid on my blue jeans and tied my shoes. Whiskey was obedient and waiting. She bowed her head with the grace of a Royal and calmly accepted her collar and leash. We were out the door in minutes and heading uptown to a bar we frequent called the Tempus Fugit.

I hadn't been to the Tempus Fugit but once in the month since I had returned from New Zealand. Work was crying too loudly and my sleep, for whatever reason, was coming too soundly. But tonight the Tempus Fugit was both inexorable and ineffable. It was the place that had to be visited.

We arrived as we always do in a shroud of silence. There are groups of people in front of other bars, smoking cigarettes and laughing too loudly at things that are not funny. But there is none of that near the Tempus.

There is just the silent mute and muted brick of an old warehouse and no sign anywhere announcing its presence. Whiskey and I made our way down the labyrinth of stairways and hallways and industrial metal doors, until we saw the dull incandescence of a single 100-watt. We eyed the joint front to back, left to right, up and down but, as usual, no one was there save the bartender who runs and owns the place.

Before I was even planted in my favorite stool, one in from the end, he had placed a wooden water bowl next to where Whiskey lazes and a Pike's Ale (the ALE that won for YALE!) in front of me. He then slid over a small bowl of Spanish peanuts, which I pushed away as I always do with my usual legumey epithet--"a pound in every nut," I said. He laughed and placed the bowl under the bar.

"'Tain't a fit night out for man nor beast," he began, with more than a slight dosage of W.C. Fields in his delivery. He was quoting from one of Fields' best movies, "The Fatal Glass of Beer," and I laughed along with him.

"Have ya got your dulcimer here?" I asked him, feeding him a line from the film. "I don't even mind if you play with your mitts on," I continued.

"You are a fan of the great man," the bartender asked.

"From Bissonette to Snavely," I replied.

"And Sou-say, I assume. "(In "The Bank Dick," Fields played Egbert Souse. Which everyone pronounced sowse.)

The bartender drew me another Pike's.

"I've missed you around here," he said. "I haven't seen you in quite some time."

I drank a long gulp of Pike's. I've been around the world, and there is no beer like it. Especially the way the serve it at the Tempus Fugit, in  eight-ounce juice glasses so it does not run flat or warm.

He took my glass as I drained it and pulled me another amber.

"I have been snowed under at work," I began. "The shit hit the fan when I was away and the client placed my account under review. I got back and immediately had to jump in to help 'save it.'"

He wiped the high-gloss of the teak bar-top in a vigorous circular motion. The wood was as shiny as it was going to get, but he kept at it, staring into the grain. He stopped wiping then stood up straight.

"Like you, Fields was at war with the world."

"There's a lot to war against," I said.

"You are stacking lightbulbs in front of a blind man with a cane. No matter what you do, those bulbs will be obliterated."

"What's the alternative?" I asked. "I can't just sit there and let it happen."

He laughed and said nothing. He said nothing for a long-time. So long that I feared I had pissed him off.

"Let the lightbulbs break," he whispered. "It's not your job to hermetically seal the world. You can't fix everything. Shit is going to happen."

I polished off the remainder of my Pike's and readied myself and Whiskey to leave.

"Let the lightbulbs break," I repeated.

I shoved two twenties over the bar--I had had after all three beers. He ritually pushed the money back my way, "On me," he said.

We walked home in the rain.

Pitch update.

One of the things I've noticed through the years, and it's only gotten worse, is that talkers beat doers. In fact, in the modern workplace, doers are so few that senior management is afraid to laud or promote them, lest getting ahead goes to their head and they stop doing.

The processors win. And they keep the performers down.

I can't go into much detail here without getting in trouble. But on the pitch I was just engaged in, many people from all departments had the temerity to show up empty-handed. As in without work.
As in without work they were assigned to do.

There's always something more pressing. Another assignment. Another pitch. PTO. The dentist.

As Yogi Berra might of said, "you can always count on them showing up missing."

I've always been a doer. Always been hands on.

And I'm treated and appreciated less than I was 20 years ago.

A late night before an early morning.

I worked late last night in preparation for a pitch to save a piece of business. I won't go into the details here, they would only get me in trouble. There's no use talking about the hair-trigger panic responses, the puffed up pomposity and the ill-tempered ingratitude that got us here, the fact is we are here, and now's the time to do something about it.

Besides, as un-called for as I think this effort was--I look at is as akin to being asked to take a "loyalty oath," there's something fulfilling and rewarding about a pitch.

At their best, they're about people working hard together for a common goal. There's a goodness in that--akin, I suppose, to when we hunted in groups wooly mammoths.

Last night surrounded by cheap Chinese food, bad powerpoint and reams of color xeroxes, the good people emerged from the group.

Those on the periphery wished us luck. Others had the great good manners to remove themselves from the fray and not interfere. Fewer still sweat in the non-air-conditioned office on a warm Spring evening, working into the night, tweaking, printing, collating and collecting thoughts.

Of course, I want to prevail in all this.

I want to "win."

But regardless of the outcome, I know we have done our best.

And if our best isn't enough to carry the day, well then, they didn't deserve us in the first place.

Pitches.

Going into a pitch can teach you a lot about people. I suppose it's as close as we in advertising get to sharing a fox-hole during an artillery attack.

A pitch leaves you vulnerable, exposed. If you accept the challenge of the pitch, there's no place to hide. You have to step up and do the work.

But, back to fox-holes.

My guess would be there are basically three types of behaviors--maybe four--when the shelling starts. Three or four types of behaviors when it comes to pitches.

First, there are those who are driving crazy by the nearness of death, by the noise and concussion. In short, there are the panickers.

Second, there are those who are shut down and immobilized by the terror they feel. They are the catatonics.

Third, and I guess the rarest, there are those who understand the dangers around them, and accept them. They use the tension and fear around them to rally their personal resources and fight back.

Finally, there are those who are miles away from the fox-hole. They're up in Company HQ, plotting grand strategies and moves and counter-moves. They usually have no real grasp of what's happening on the ground.

Years ago I had a brilliant boss who didn't believe in the new-age bushwa concerning employee evaluations. 

He believed there was one way to assess the value of someone in an ad agency. Do you want them in a pitch, or not? When it's Friday and the work is due on Monday, do you want them in the room?

This might be harsh. But it makes sense to me.

Mistakes happen.

There's a story in today's "Times" about one of my favorite places on the planet, Katz's Deli. When people say Katz's pastrami is "to die for," they mean it literally and figuratively. It will kill you. But it might be worth it.

In any event there's a bit in the article about the sign you see above.

The story goes that the sign painter asked Katz's owner what he wanted on the sign. The owner said, ‘Katz’s Deli. That’s all.’” The sign arrived with those four words on it, and has been in the front window ever since.

Sometimes the mistakes we make, or the mistakes or misinterpretations others make, improve and perfect. As the sign painter's error did for Katz's.

Sometimes it's our job as creative people to see and embrace the wonderful accidents that make work that would otherwise be merely functional, special.

Hero worship.

One of my favorite lines in all of literature comes from the great (and unknown) Mark Harris. If this sentence intrigues you and you want to read a bit of Harris, I'd suggest you pick up either "Bang the Drum Slowly," his most famous work, or "Wake Up, Stupid," his funniest.

In any event, the line I love is from the aforementioned "Bang the Drum Slowly." It is "the only hero is the man without heroes." (As an aside, my favorite line of all is from another 'baseball writer,' Ring Lardner. It is: "'Shut up,' he explained.")

I think about Harris' line in the wake of the stupidity from the CEO of Abercrombie & Fitch who does his best to discriminate against customers who might be "adipose endowed."

I don't really give a rat's ass about the CEO of Abercrombie. What absolutely baffles me is people who are emblazoned with brand names like walking billboards.

This, to me, is the marketing equivalent of hero worship. A dangerous practice, because most heroes have feet of clay.

When I was 11, the New York Mets, after a decade of fumbling mediocrity emerged as the winner of the World Series. Somehow my father got tickets to the game in which the Mets clinched the pennant by beating the Atlanta Braves.

At the end of the game, some large portion of the 50,000 people in attendance stormed the field at Shea Stadium and ripped the turf as souvenirs. I ran onto the field and was taking it all in and somehow in my youthful oblivion, wandered almost directly into the Braves' dugout.

There sat, a hero, Hank Aaron sitting dejectedly and taking long drags on a cigarette.

I remember thinking "How could a great like Aaron smoke cigarettes."

That was my first lesson in seeing "heroes" as just people with superior skills.

I think the same can be applied to Abercrombie & Fitch.

They're just clothes, people. They're sold by pricks here. And made by near-slaves in Asia.

If you use them to define you, you're a tool.

Old Man Strength, II.

About a month ago I wrote a post called "Old Man Strength." Without getting all literaturey on you it was about the strength that comes from age and maturity.

Lately a shit-storm has gathered over my head in the agency.

Hysterics and Messiah-complexes are fighting for control.

Panic is the order of the day.

In other words, this is yet another moment for Old Man Strength to emerge.

What will allay the panic, calm the seas, silence the quackers and so on, is not more sturm und drang.

No, what will prevail is doing it.

Putting aside the bullshit and the hysteria and the nonsense.

Putting your head down.

And working.

It's easy to get swept up in the on-rushing waves of fear-mongerers.

It's easy to second-guess your second guesses.

It's easy to perseverate and posture and point fingers.

But if a client is worth having, what will carry the day is the work.

Have the old man strength to block out the noise.

And do the job that needs to be done.

Or as Rudyard said it:

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too:
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or, being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or being hated don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise;

If you can dream---and not make dreams your master;
If you can think---and not make thoughts your aim,
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same:.
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build'em up with worn-out tools;

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings,
And never breathe a word about your loss:
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on!"

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with Kings---nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much:
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And---which is more---you'll be a Man, my son! 

Getting a job.

When I was a young kid in the business I was very shy.

I suppose my shyness had to do with my insecurities.

I wasn't sure if I was very good at coming up with ads.

I wasn't sure if my portfolio was very good, or was good enough.

I wasn't sure if I had any worth as a human being.

All that made it nearly impossible for me to call the people I was hoping would give me a job.

How could someone so unworthy possible ask for the favor of being hired.

I had dug such a big psychological ditch for myself that I was virtually paralyzed.

This was a problem I had to teach myself to overcome.

So here's what I did.

I wrote a list of every compliment I ever got about my work.

From teachers. From peers. From people in the industry.

I slowly came to realize that my insecurities were unfounded.

I was seeing myself in ways other people weren't seeing me.

In other words, a lot of my own personal shit was just in my head.

Then I had to overcome my hesitancy about asking for a favor.

(Something I'm still not good at.)

It came to me that with all the good things people had said about me,
I wasn't asking a prospective employee for a favor. I was trying to do him one.

That is, hiring me would be my favor to him.

Because where else could he get someone who could do all the things I could do?

Once I learned all this, my life became easier.

I overcame my shyness.

I learned to keep my insecurities in their place.

I became much more assertive when it came to making calls.

Getting a job is never easy.

But you can make it easier on yourself.