Efficiency.

 

I read in Ad Age, the trade press I prefer to call the traitor press, because they suss out no truths about the despoiling of the advertising industry by the Holding Company malefactors of great wealth, yesterday a surprisingly damning article about what's really going on on pothole-pocked Madison Avenue.

You can read it here. 

But warning, it's NSFW. 

But then again, work is NSFW.

The entire ad industry is NSFW.

Back in 2020, when I was fired by WPP-mangled agency Ogilvy & Dontmatter, Mark Read, CEO of WPP defamed me by saying I harkened back to the 80s. The 80s was a time ads mattered, clients valued their agencies, and agencies were profitable. So sue my harkening ass.

I don't like Mark Read.

I don't like unprincipled rich people destroying literally thousands of livelihoods. I don't like a holding company that's fired 45% of its workforce since 2017. They've gone from 200,000 employees to 105,000 employees while granting themselves private-jets and multi-million dollar bonuses and compensation.

I don't like that.

Most of all, I don't like lies. And Orwellian Newspeak. As a person who grew up during the lies of the Vietnam war and Nixonian autocracy, I hate lies like these. And I hate lying liars.

And I hate people who have the inhumanity to call firing masses of people "efficiency opportunities." Or saying things like "there will unfortunately be some redundancies."

"Mark Read. Making Snidely Whiplash sound like Mr. Rogers since 2018.™"

I thought about sending this to 50 efficiency opportunities I know and collecting their statements. 

Mine is:

Mr. Read, 

I am not an 'efficiency opportunity.'
I am a brain that for 40 years made clients, shareholders and you, rich.

I wanted to get dozens of actual humans to tell Mr. Read that they're people, humans, not cells on a spreadsheet to be eliminated so you can despoil an industry and deposit your mammon.

But I don't have time to send out notes to people. And people are generally afraid to poke billionaire-bears. So, I did it alone.

In other words,

I took the opportunity to be efficient.

It's gonna take a lot of bagel Wednesdays to wash that phrase out of my gullet.