In this corporate life, all the world’s a stage and we are supposed to be team players.
But what happens when the music is still playing and you’re the only left in the game?
I recently spent my Saturday (yes, big whoop I know, heaps of people work on Saturdays) working on a marketing campaign alone. We had (what I have now deemed) hours of useless brainstorming sessions only to settle on my original brainwave (if I may say so, myself) of an idea. Interestingly enough, after the last brainstorming sessions, everyone disappeared. Not even a follow-up email on plan of attack of proposal, elements to be included, summary, etc…
So, there I was on Saturday, crafting out an entire marketing campaign from environmental graphics to viral advertising. This included design, artwork, execution, copywriting of extended taglines, rationale and research. Needless to say, this took me almost 7 hours. So, I emailed it out to the “team” and waited for inevitable.
The Feedback.
God help me, my blood pressure skyrockets every time I receive The Feedback. They are completely malignant emails which always start off with brilliantly vague, inclusive liners like:
- “Can we include something about budget?”
- “Should we say something about xxx?”
- “Do you think it’s necessary to show that picture?”
- “Can we find a better picture for this?”
- “Can we put a one liner to say the pictures are dummies?”
And here would be my replies.
- No. You could write the liner, have already included it in this email and I could put it in.
- I don’t know. Should we? Maybe you could write it, include it in this email, giving me more to consider than just your random, hiccup of a thought.
- Yes. That’s why I put it in. If you question its presence, please say why instead of questioning why the sky is blue.
- Well, I couldn’t – but I’m sure you could – which is why you bothered to search for it and attach it to this email. Oh wait, you didn’t.
- No, that makes all of us look like idiots.
And after all that, what I had done was deemed “good enough” – nary a word of “good job”. Oh, you cruel, unforgiving world.
