A Thankless Industry!

It's Friday and it happens to be my favourite time of the week, cos tomorrow is the weekend :) Yes, yes, I look forward to weekends. Anyone who doesn't would have to have their head examined I think ... hehehe ... well, unless of course you do work a 5 1/2 day week. Gosh, I can't see myself working a 5 1/2 day week anymore. I say 'anymore' because at one time I used to work on Saturdays too.

I really hated having to work on Saturdays. I'd have to drag myself out of bed to get ready for work. Somehow getting up for work on Saturdays was always all that much harder. Practically half the weekend would be gone cos by the time I get home. It would be late afternoon and I'd take a nap (yes, yes, sleep is still precious to me ... LOL!) and by the time I wake up from my nap it would be around 6-7pm. (See, I told you half the weekend would be gone!)

I'm just glad that I work a 5 day week now though there are times when I do have to work on Saturdays or even Sundays sometimes when the workload is pretty hectic. And in my line of work one can't really estimate when the workload will get crazy. There are times when we'd be free for weeks on end shaking our legs and doing just about nothing in the office and then there are times when just taking a breath is so difficult! The thing is I thrive on days like that.

Ok, since I'm on the subject of work, let me tell you a little about what I do. Most of you would probably know from reading some of my earlier post that I do some form of advertising, well, you're right. I do work in the advertising industry and it really is not at all as glamorous as some people make it out to be. I should know, I've been in this industry for close to 16 years or so! And I'm seriously sick of it but unfortunately I don't really know how to do any other kind of work.

I've always had this interest in advertising and drawing ever since I was a kid. I still remember back when I was young, if anyone had asked me or my cousins what we wanted to be, the usual answers from them would be 'I wanna be a policeman' or 'I'm gonna be a doctor' or 'I'm gonna be an air-steward' (don't ask me why air-steward, probably cos you could travel and see the world for free, I guess) but I'd always answer with 'I wanna be in advertising'. The weird thing is I didn't even know what advertising meant back then. All my cousins would look at me with this blank look on their faces ... hehehe ...

As a kid I was always doodling or drawing stuff. I even produced my own comic book ala Roy of the Rovers which I called, The Kid from Germany ... hehehe ... It was a football comic that had this on going saga of a young talented football player from Germany who played for this fictitious English team called Tynefield Rovers in this equally fictitious English League I made up. Once I finished an issue (it was single publication thing ... hehehe ...), I would mail the original drawing, bound and all like a real comic book to another cousin who lived in another state. He used to eagerly wait for it every month :) We were both around 8 years or so and he was my number one fan ... LOL!

I can't really remember for how long I drew this comic book, maybe about two years or so and I'd even have a six month colour special thrown in. Now that took me longer to do ... hehehe ... The sad thing is he lost the original drawings that I sent him (not that there were any good, mind you) but it would be great to actually see what nonsense of a storyline I created as an 8 year old boy ... hehehe ...

So, when I finally finished my education, at first I really didn't know what to do, yes, I know I was interested in advertising but back then there was really not many options to get into it. So for 2 years or so I wasted my mom's money taking a course in Stamford College (that's where I met my 2 best buddies) and after that I finally found a place that was offering a Graphic design course. I enrolled, took another 3 years to complete and upon completing it and getting my diploma, I was lucky enough to get a job immediately in a small design house.

I was ecstatic. Working in an actual design house, I felt I was finally realizing my dreams of getting into advertising. I still remember the day I first started work. It was the day the US invaded Iraq, by the way. I was so overjoyed to actually be setting foot in a real agency, though in true fact it was a small design house, but to me it felt like I was finally making it big time! I started on the lowest rung of the advertising industry back then, a lowly FA (finished art) artist earning a measly sum but I didn't mind and didn't care. I was in the industry I've always dreamed of and money didn't matter to me at that time (LOL!)

I was new and everything was an experience but then I learned the ugly truth of advertising. It was sooooo bloody demanding and stressful. That's when the late nights started. Right from the very first week I had to to call home and let my mom know I'd be late again. And apparently it was a normal thing to be staying back! But it was something I've always want to do, so I stuck with it. I worked as hard as I could to get the experienced I needed to go further in this industry.

And through time I did rake up enough of experience to move up the ranks, from an FA artist to a visualizer to an art director. It was hard work, the numerous late nights and with clients who always thought of their work as urgent, I decided to switch from the graphic department to the client servicing department thinking it would be easier and the late nights would be a thing of the past cos when I was in the graphic department I used to always see the client servicing people always heading home at normal hours. How I wrong I was in that assumption!

Client servicing, I later discovered was hell on earth. Now, instead of just doing my work in the comfort of my office, I had to face the clients in person and some of them were pretty nasty. And when anything goes wrong, who else would the clients call and scream at but the poor client service people? And worse yet, I had to do presentations. I am a very shy person by nature and public speaking was never on my list of things I could do. The first time I ever did a presentation to a group of big shot company directors (I was still new with servicing) I was sweating so profusely that if you collected my sweat, you could irrigate the whole Sahara Desert for 12 months. LOL! My shirt was soaked to the skin, my voice broke and trembled and it didn't help that they asked so many questions during the presentation.

Over time, I did become a little less nervous about doing presentations (yes, even till today I'm still always nervous before any presentation). And my days of going back late didn't end. I'm a stickler for getting things done properly. I always practice the hands-on approach. I can't stand people who work so bloody slow so most of the time back then, even though I was in client service, I stayed back and bugged the hell out of the creative people to get my work done fast. I was in the creative department before and I know how long it will take to complete something so when I see them taking so long, I get pissed off that I would actually ask them to move aside and let me do the work myself. Trust me, I wasn't very popular with the creative department back then ... hehehe ...

Eventually (though I still practice the hands-on approach) I backed off and let the designated people do what they were paid to do even though it bugs the hell out of me at the way some of them work! I'm no longer that young gung-ho person who adored the world of advertising. I'm much saner nowadays and and when I meet people who ask me what I do for a living and I say 'I work in the advertising industry' and they go 'wah, so cool and glamorous. You must be real lucky to be in advertising', I smile, grind my teeth and keep both my hands in my pockets for fear of smacking them silly!

The thing is my son loves to draw and doodle every chance he gets and he reminds me of myself when I was young. He's pretty good at it and I am so afraid he'll go into advertising. I want him to grow up and be Prime Minister or something ... LOL!