"Las cucarachas entran, pero no pueden salir."

If you were a New York City subway rider in the 1980s, you were able to learn a fair amount of Spanish by virtue of osmosis.

The title above was the Spanish translation of Roach Motel's tagline: "The roaches check in but they don't check out."

Roaches notwithstanding, I've always used that line as a way of describing agency and client infrastructure and routines that seem as pernicious and ubiquitous as roaches. The fat-ass suit who fails further upwards every eighteen months. The account team that is working so hard they never seem to go home but they never produce either a workable brief or, much less, a decent ad. The creative teams that complain, complain, complain, but either don't move on or don't show any ingenuity. Agency management that claims they want to be a hot creative shop but then wind up pitching accounts that suck out loud and have always sucked out loud.

Those are the roaches we live with. They've checked in. Unless you bring a flame-thrower, they will never check out.