Two years, two months and two weeks

Sorry I will start by saying this is poorly written because it came out in a gush.

It’s hard to believe it was over two years ago that I first wrote about what a twilight zone I work in. It’s amazing what you become accustomed to and what you will take as normal because it becomes your entire life. I don’t see it as bad that I let it be my entire life. 2009 was the best year of my life. I got promoted a couple of times and demoted once before the first promotion. I struggled and learned and was praised for great worked and cussed at for mistakes. My job was my entire social life, and I think that’s pretty lucky.

There were some pretty hilarious and entertaining times. There was the time my boss burst into the other executive’s office singing “Bake Sale Betty!” and asked his assistant to book a charter bus to take us to have fried chicken sandwiches at Bake Sale Betty in Oakland in the middle of the work day. The was the huge chrome dome buses with the vinyl floor, amps, bucket of booze and absolutely no seats, just a dance floor. There were the jello shots and summer beer before the bus ride that took us to a ranch in the hills of Marin where I reigned as the all-agency mechanical bull riding champion. The executives passed us blunts as we listened to the live band commissioned just for us. On the way back we turned the bus into the sweatiest, loudest dance club I’ve been in. As we barreled down through the hills on the curvy road, our night club music blared and we rolled from side to side, holding the roof to keep from falling over. Once we crossed back over the Golden Gate bridge and into the financial district, we kept our dancing going, the music just as loud as we stuck our sweaty faces out the window to smile at the grim expressions on office-workers’ faces as they lined up for their bus ride home. There was the Christmas party, climbing a statue with my boss Mike and setting off the alarms, dancing until five in the morning, thinking it was a good idea to put a cupcake in my jacket pocket to eat later. There was the next morning when Google sent us breakfast burritos and we sat around the kitchen table, eating, laughing, gossiping like college students hung-over, ashamed of each other but never ashamed to tell every juicy detail. Michelle passed around pictures of her making out with the French caterer who was later found on the internet in a sex scandal law suit. She even showed these pictures to the creative executive Jim, who it’s her job to assist. The executives languished over the details of the ex-model Lindsey making out with the female bartender that was licking spilled liquor off the bar, crying because someone called her “Jersey Shore” and dick grabbing every man with a wedding band. The new digital planner, (the guy who gets paid to tweet and blog and foursquare and facebook for our brands) told us all about the married, swinging finance woman and her bold inquiry to fuck in the photo booth. With all his shock and modesty, I reminded him how he tried to suck vodka out of my hair when he’d spilled it on me the night before. Then there were the late nights drinking wine and eating chocolate in the all-glass executive office, sprawling on the couches as the sun turned the sky over the bay pink, and the water deepened it’s blue. There was Peter, the president, making my day every morning when he sung “here’s to you Lindsay Robinson!” or telling me I had a smile as bright as the day, that no one in the world was as sweet and as good as Torts. His Linzer Torts. There were the dance nights with Adriana and her friends, the nights arm in arm with Melissa, where she was shocked that a man was peeing in the urinal in what she thought was the women’s bathroom. There was her explaining to us all the drinking games you can play with a turkey baster. There were brandy shots, limo rides from bars to expensive dinners on the agency, steak and endless wine and appetizers. There was cutting VIP lines, there were concerts at the Fox in Oakland watching from the VIP section. There was sitting between Mindy and Amy, two of the sweetest girls I know, and all three of us so happy, calling ourselves Love Row as we gushed about the men we were in love with and supported each other, laughed with each other, drank wine at our desks, watched YouTube together, played chat roulette on the work computers and blasting Peter’s favorite songs as he praised his three wonderful girls and went singing down the halls. Then Mindy quit and got engaged and Amy went to live with her boyfriend in LA. Dominique quit to move in with her boyfriend in New Orleans and Melissa quit and moved to Pittsburgh. Kate quit to move in with her boyfriend in Chicago. Lizeth and Megan quit. Courtney got laid off, Peter got promoted to BBDO Europe and occasionally sends emails from Moscow, Paris, Venice, Vienna and London.. Alexa quit because it stressed her out. Sarah got laid off. The other Sarah got laid off too. Danielle got laid off. Allie got laid off. Bernice quit after crying every day for four months. Marcus and Elizabeth got laid off. Jon Soto, the one who told me I was going to become a voice over actress and got me on regional television got laid off. In four months, I am the 28^th person gone. Our office was 70 people. It hasn’t been all bad, but there’s been a lot of bad.

My immediate boss Crystal openly admits to having “No moral scruples” and just wants to have fun. She cusses at me, slams doors and huffs and puffs and gloats at misfortune and gloats about her newly embellished title of “Deputy Head”. She tells people to fuck off if they schedule a meeting with me because they have to “fucking go through HER if they want use of my time”. She calls me on the weekends to scream at me and she comes to my house and follows me around, telling me what to do. She takes credit for all my work so that the new president thinks I am incompetent. She’s been setting that up for a long while. She and her sister are poison. When I got laid off she pulled me into her office, and with a mean smirk on her face she told me “Life’s a bitch my friend. Do you have any questions?” I didn’t. All I wanted to say was, “You should have written me a thank you note for the expensive wedding present I got you.” That and “You shouldn’t have made me clean up your cat’s shit and begged me at all hours of the night to come cat sit.” But mainly I’m mad at myself for getting taken advantage of like that. In my own house she told me I had a squirrelly face, a rodent face. She told me I had a mean spirit. She told me I "fucking sucked" at my job. Interesting that she steals my work then. Interesting that she is mean-spirited.

Some of my friends say I’m losing it. Some say my life is falling apart. Some say they are worried about me. Everyone wants to know what I’m doing, and frankly I have no clue. And I won’t know for a while. For right now I’m trying to pick up the pieces of this life that’s fallen apart and glue it back together into a totally different shape that is a better reflection of me. I try to remind myself that it’s better to be dangling naked in the wind, like underwear on a clothesline, freezing, and liable to fall, (end metaphor) but with a million possibilities in front of me, than it is to be safe and secure but unhappy every day and stagnant and know what every single day of your life will be like along that given path.

When I first took the promotion, I mentioned sinking or swimming. I don’t feel like I sank. Excuse the continuation of a cheesy metaphor, but I feel like I swam lap after lap after lap and then realized I was just in a pond and not the ocean and decided to jump out of the water altogether. No wonder I’ve spent so much time in the ocean these past two weeks…

I emailed my old boss Peter to tell him I was done at BBDO. He didn’t have to see this place turn sour when he left. He didn’t see the crying and deceit and carrying on, the rounds and rounds of lay offs, the quitting, the mass exodus and the crawling and scratching up the corporate ladder.

His email to me was incredibly nice. In it he ended by saying, “Lindsay Robinson you have the light. Burn Brightly my friend.” I will try to do that.

This chapter ends

Dominique and I in wigs. She just quit and is about to move to Louisana. We used to get drinks after work and talk about quitting.

The team of people who work on Heritage, the client I brought in with my research and strategy. The two executives Mike and Peter told me "fucking awesome job" and said I had a lot of fucking confidence and knowledge in this meeting.

On the way back from a Rodeo Wednesday at Rancho Nicasio. Lizeth quit shortly after this was taken.

Typical shotgunning. This happens in the office two. Alli in the middle was just laid off a couple months and Barti in the middle quit.

Some simple dance moves as the bus swayed down through the hills of Marine County blasting, "Tonight's gonna be a good good night!"

After I beat the Turk as the all-agency bull-riding champion, we had a truce and did a ride together.
Some of my favorite people getting on the bus. Kate quit and moved to Chicago. Melissa quit and moved to Pittsburgh and Mindy quit and told me to do the same.

You are a fish.

"Everything you want is just outside your comfort zone." A quote Jaime told me this morning.
Great opportunities often seem to come wrapped up in great risk. I've been offered a promotion to the job I really REALLY want. Have wanted for about a year now. The only thing is it's only a six week temporary position and if they don't want to hire me on full time after that I can't have my old job back because it will be filled. So I have to leave the comfort of my secure job to go to a temporary job in a state with almost 12% unemployment and rising.
I discussed this at length with various people that I love and trust (and that I knew would be awake at preposterous hours) and they all said this sounded too risky and unwise. I listened and then found myself convincing them of the reasons that I should do it. That's the wonderful thing about advice. It's not so much in following the advice given, as realizing what you are trying to convince the other person of, and from there understanding what you already know you want to do.
I might not have a job at the end of September. I didn't sleep at all last night. I took the offer. I like high risk-high gain situations. I could continue to wade around in the comfort and boredom of my job or I could jump in and see what happens. If I fail then at least I can move on to something else and not be shilly-shallying around.
I felt the same way when I moved in with Connor. I could continue the relationship along it's path or move in with him and figure out whether this was a potential lifelong commitment or right away that he wasn't. Since it didn't work, some people say that was a rash mistake. But for me, finding out anything faster and then making course changes from there is always better. If this job is not for me and I find myself jobless, on to the next.
This job requires 14-16 hour days seven days a week. I won't get hired unless I "make it my number one priority in my life and put my entire heart and soul into it" as my boss told me. The three other people in the position before have quit or been laid off because it was too much. Too much as in they were leaving at 10pm instead of 2 am like the senior planners, and hence were not "performing well" or "commited enough".
I emailed my parents to say I was going to stop wading around in the kiddy pool and jump in the big waves to see if I sink or swim.

My dad wrote back. "Sink or swim? You are a fish."

Pissed and Bitchy

This week has been my first week spending half the day at reception. And as it turns out, I can be a huge huge bitch. I may have to revise my viewpoint of myself as a mostly nice human being, into, nice when things are good, horrendous when things are bad. It starts off by getting in at 8:30 AM, a half hour before the office opens and lining up bags of M and Ms and twix and trail mix in neat little rows for all the spoiled coworkers to enjoy. Then I make decaf and full caf coffee, take down the chairs in the kitchen, settle into my large glass perch in the big yellow reception room among shelves of awards and the flat screen TV. I find the candy part unbelievably demoralizing.
By the time people start showing up I have ceased to smile. By the time people start making fedex requests, conference room requests and stupid ass phone calls I have a full blown scary bitch scowl on my face and have stopped saying hi to friends who attempt to talk to me.
I am torn between wanting to do a terrible job at everything to show them how pissed off I am to be doing this, and the knowledge that that won't get me anywhere, and that my main boss was not responsible for this so I should still work hard to impress him. It's frustrating when people have been coming up to me and saying they heard I did incredibly well on my first brand strategy project. They say the SVP and EVP say I am a "kick ass strategist" The copy writing director told me I have great ideas and that everyone knows that, so don't worry about a couple months at reception. So if they all think I did a great job on the project above me, why are they putting me in a postion below me? The very men that have been praising me to my face and to others when I'm not there walk by nonchalantly as I answer the phone and do menial tasks. Can't they see that this is a waste of money and resources to have me doing such simple tasks? It drives me insane.
And here I am, supposed to present a strategy project to my boss in two hours. But why do a good job? I'm not going to get promoted to planner (strategist) if they can't even afford to hire a high school level receptionist, let alone a new executive assistant. I've seen what happens to people who work hard for this company; who sacrifice their family time and free time to put in long long hours of loyalty. They get laid off. So I'm torn. Should I be a good person and continue to work very hard, even as I see people who work incredibly hard getting laid off, and I hear about people who were laid off saying it was a blessing in disguise because now they have jobs that pay more, have fewer hours and more appreciation- or do I slack off and say FUCK YOU, FUCK THIS I can't BELIEVE I am lining up shitty, transfatty candy for a living after working 14 hour days and being promised I would get promoted.
Most people here are telling me to job search my butt off and screw this job; this isn't what I signed up for...my conscious tells me to keep working hard..
Could use some advice....
-The bitch at reception.

In my element, sort of...

Tuesday night I slogged through the rain to go to my coworker’s concert. When I got there the only other person I knew was Alper, the Turkish art director who is scary at first with his long dark curls in his face and somber accent, but who is actually incredibly sweet and thoughtful. I was sitting at the bar talking to him and it suddenly dawned on me how incredibly comfortable I was here. Even in Boulder, the night life often feels like something where I must rise to the occasion, bolster my spirit against the music and the noise and all the people. I have to tone down my senses so that I don’t get overwhelmed. And sometimes when I was kayak guiding or rowing I felt like the girly one; always trying to prove to people that I was tough enough and had enough character and grit. But here I was talking to this Turkish guy who I don’t really know and feeling completely at home. I didn’t call anyone in advance to make sure friends were going or that I didn’t arrive too early, I just started walking across town; able to look up the street names and know the way to a place I’d never been.
I’m not overwhelmed by the city anymore. My senses aren’t being overloaded; I’m not emitting stress signals. Its so funny thinking back to when all of this seemed like the twilight zone. I felt like the fly on the wall observing a strange alternate universe; or a journalist, let in only in order to write satirical articles and snicker contemptuously. And I always wondered when I’d be spotted; the freak in the room; the outsider that crept in and was trying to hide in the crowd. But I didn’t really want to hide or acclimate, I just wanted to watch in disbelief and stand apart. But here I am, and this is my world.
In San Francisco’s night life I feel the way I do in water. My insides and the outside surroundings are fluid, interchangeable so I don’t feel any friction on my skin when I bump up against the world.
My other friends/ coworkers arrived and Candy gave us all hugs and kissed before going on stage. She was wearing sequined jewels and dark makeup around her eyes, a huge feathered mask on the back of her head, a shiny dress, short moon boots and shiny black leggings. They were high energy, dancing and singing. I’ve been to her concerts before and they are down right hilarious. It’s really as much a stage act as it is a “band” One of their songs goes on about just wanted to “uh uh uh dance”, not wanting to know about the guy’s day job, his five year plan, his future, his past, his dog or his mom. “I just wanna know if you can uh uh uh Dance, you and me, on the dance floor. Uh.”We bounced and bobbed around and stayed for an after-show of Guinness book world records. One of them was Candy’s boyfriend, a creative producer at another agency (I don’t know anyone who knows anyone who isn’t in advertising) who was going to set a record for naming a band for every letter of the alphabet. He was in his mid forties with a thin mustache. During his stage time he stripped down to a white wife beater, pulled of his belt and started beating a box on center stage with his belt whenever he couldn’t think of a band quickly enough. Very strange and funny.
The kitchen conversation was the same as it is any given Tuesday or Wednesday. Who’s hung over, who got tagged in the chest with a donut in the street, who went where after the concert. And this isn’t the irresponsible young-ens. There is a direct correlation with age, prestige in the company and hung over-ness and staying out the late-ness.