Crash. Landing.

I was angry on Wednesday.

Angry at how my life sucks.

I'm good at anger. 

I've had 67-years of practice.

When you grew up with a mother who beat you and a father too drunk to notice, you specialize in rage.

And if you're not going to repeat the pattern, you specialize at repressing that rage.

At least as much as you can.

Under the circumstances of being human.

And living with humans.

I was especially angry on Wednesday because though it had been a short week, it was a long week. With client deliverables and meetings crowding me like rush-hour on the Lexington line. Get yer f-in elbow outta my rib cage.

When I was done with an arduous hour with a far-away client--it was one of those calls where they loved everything, but...I wasn't done for the day. 

Days are seldom done when they ought to be.

Not only did I have Sparkle, my sixteen-month golden retriever,  chomping at my hands in hopes of going to the beach, I had an amorphous demand from my first, my longest-running client--an amorphous demand with no clear direction, brief or information.

The problem with the agency schema is there are ways when you're in a situation as I described above to weasel out of the situation. You can blame the planners, or account, or the client for being dicks. You can blame your bosses for leaving you, once again, with a steaming turd. There are so many ways at which you can howl at the moon and not do what needs to be done.

When you have your own agency though, there's no moon to howl at. 

There's you.

Two engines are out, you have no fuel, the landing gear is busted and you have to bring the plane in.

There's no one to point at. 

No manual to read.

No heavens to curse.

It's just you and your will. 

My client had asked for a long piece. Five-hundred words, a thousand, whatever it took. Describing what it is he sells and does and hopes to do in a way he couldn't describe it. In a way that could sell it to his internal organization, investors and customers. So he himself would know.

This sucks.

Angry, I stared at my keyboard.

I looked for clues.

I thunkerated and thunked some more.

I have a meeting every Thursday morning at 9 with this client. The joys of a retainer business. 

There was no way I could say, I'll have it for you next week rather than this week.

You don't keep clients you treat like that.

Damn.

I wished I could write one of my funny ads. Or twenty of them. 

It's a damn sight easier writing an ad than figuring out who someone is. It's the difference between depicting a scene and telling the story of a life.

Fuck. 

I hate this fucking job, I self-fumed. Or immolated.

Why ain't I working at _____________? Where someone tells me what to do and I can bitch that I don't have the means to do it?

But then I walked Sparks and worked out an opening. Later, I worked out a middle. A punctuation--a joke, a promise, hope. I worked out a point of view.

There's a difference between the modern constitution of a giant holding company and an agency that works. 

Most businesses if you ask for help you get a shoulder shrug from the staff--if you can find any staff. They won't make more money if they work harder or serve someone well.  

So why bother?

No wonder 92-percent of life is spent on hold.

Agencies today are staffed like the Stop N Shop. Workers clock in and out. They don't take great pride in stacking cans of beans. There's really no incentive to do a good job. As holding companies have turned workers into interchangeable parts workers have turned jobs into interchangeable blahs. 

They don't care. So the people employed don't care.

The imprecation, the pressure, the "or else" is gone. So is the bonus, the rapid rise, the promotion, even the handshake and the encouraging word.

There are no heroes in a world run by auto-pilot.

Yeah, there are times I wish mine was. Run by auto-pilot, I mean. It'd be nice to go through the motions so long as your motions led you to a chaise lounge by the beach at the end of the day.

I could make a mediocre living just strapping in and punching the clock. Maybe the anger and angst I was born with would dissipate along with my muscle tone.

But we'll never know. 

Will we?