4. Ideas Illustrated;

Originally published in the Relocated issue of Ideas Illustrated, this piece written by Gordon Comstock, offers up some invaluable words of wisdom for those of us who have trouble finding our place in a new working environment. Illustrations by Martin Nicolausson.

Luring you into a career in advertising is easy; a stable income, an office with beanbags and shiny prizes for you win will do that. Keeping you interested though, is trickier.

Of all the techniques that the industry deploys to prevent you from leaving and setting up an armed cult, dangling the idea that there’s another agency where you’d be happier is the most pernicious.

Because, if you’ve got beef with your job, it’s not like life at another shop will be all that different. Even the best ad agencies are still ad agencies. There are a finite number of clients and the pool of creative personnel is even smaller. This means that you inevitably arrive at a new place only to be greeted by the same bastards you left the last place to get away from. American studies show that, above about 50K a year, there’s no correlation between wealth and happiness. So more money doesn’t really cut it as a good reason for moving on. And, as creative directors all over the world routinely demonstrate, power will not make you happy, responsibility being simply another word for stress. Yet moving remains part of a career in advertising, as inevitable as the Christmas parties, and almost as tedious.

Maybe we’re cursed to wander. Perhaps the idea that happiness exists somewhere else is a just  punishment, a version of the same myth that we peddle to the general public – ‘you would be happy, if only you had this product.’ Whatever the reason, we all board the merry-go-round, moving, on average, every three years. That means that, if it takes about six months to adapt to a new agency, we spend at least a sixth of our working lives in a state of frank disorientation.

This has deeper implications, beyond its depressing futility, because to be a good creative you have to take risks. This is hard enough at the best of times, but even more difficult with the words ‘three month probationary period’ still echoing in your ears.

Over the course of my careers I’ve had to move more than I would have chosen to, and I’ve always found the process of settling in difficult and traumatic. I don’t know if that qualifies me as an expert, but hey, I’m happy to set myself up as one. 



Here are my five tips that will help you assimilate to any new work environment.
 

1. Normalise yourself

By which I do not mean, pretend that you’re not weird. There’s no point. The chances are that, beyond the rabid narcissism common to most creatives, you’re probably absolutely on fire with weird behaviours that you can’t even see. Do you pick your ears with a pencil? Strut around wearing a brightly coloured belt, thrusting out your pelvis at female colleagues and asking them repeatedly ‘do you like my belt’? Are you constantly either drunk or hungover? Are you so downright rude that you will board a lift before the passengers have got off it? These are all things that successful creative directors I’ve worked with have done, and, so far as I know, continue to do, without anyone batting an eyelid. So don’t hide your light under a bushel. Go in florid. The important thing is not to be normal, but consistent. You’ll be amazed what you can get away with.
 

2. Make the tea

So, you’re trying to be as natural as possible. Totally unaffected and cool and relaxed. But has it occurred to you that you’re a terrible poser? That everything you do is contrived deliberately to create an effect in the minds of others? Are you really unaffected and cool or merely attempting to appear as though you are? Can a person try to be relaxed? After all, you have a natural predisposition to shallow forms of display. What are you even doing reading an article about fitting in? Isn’t there a kind of an infinitely regressive paradox that says that the harder you’re trying to be authentic, the more fraudulent you will appear? Ironically enough no demographic is more alive 
to this kind of behaviour than the people that 
work in advertising, because no demographic is more familiar with it. Your colleagues are bound 
to see right through you. They will see that you 
have no soul.
 

3. Just because you're paranoid...

Remembering everyone’s name will probably keep your front-brain busy for the first couple of weeks, but after that the paranoia will move-in like squatters gleefully taking over Guy Ritchie’s house. You’ll probably imagine your new colleagues discussing everything from your performance, to your hairstyle, to your weird belt-fixation, in detail and behind your back. There are at least two techniques I find helpful under these conditions. The first is to consider that the only person to whom your performance is absolutely central is you. Your workmates have their own jobs, lives, and families to think about. What you’re actually suffering from is egotism. The second is to think that yeah, they probably are talking about you. You’re weird and you’re new. There isn’t a damn thing you can do about it though. I refer you to my previous point.
 

4. Trust no one

Well, for the first three months anyway. I’m not 
of the opinion that advertising is an industry populated entirely by shits who are scarcely better than estate agents. But I do think there are some people who have what could generously be described as a kind of reverse integrity, whereby if you tell them something in confidence they will tell a lot of other people, immediately, as a matter of course. The best thing about them, it turns out, is that in this respect they are totally reliable. So don’t go talking about your sex addiction, your bulimia or that you’ve been in therapy for the last two years, unless you’re really comfortable with that becoming part of your work-brand. If you need to talk to someone, talk to your friends outside advertising. You have friends outside advertising right?
 

5. Thank God you work in advertising

Consider that, for all its drawbacks, advertising is at least a relatively sympathetic environment for people like you. The reasons that you find settling in so unpleasant are also the reasons that you’re good at your job. Advertising is the only industry where your peculiar cultural sensitivity (which is no more than a further manifestation of your hopeless longing for acceptance) can be put to the use of commerce. Be thankful that brands are prepared to pay people to whom fitting in does not come naturally, to teach them how to stand out. And remember that, if it doesn’t work out, there’s always some other agency you can go and work for. I think you’d definitely be happier there. Definitely.

Gordon Comstock is a copywriter at a London agency. He also pens a column for Creative Review magazine.
Martin Nicolausson is a freelance illustrator and graphic designer.

↑ Back to top