Working Stiff

This was supposed to be a blog about Orange County living but it turns out there is precious little Orange County living going on because my temporary part-time job has completely eaten my life.  And yesterday I just about reached my breaking point.

My boss is utterly convinced that everything I do I can do off a laptop, and technically, he's right.  In practice however, it's nearly impossible for countless reasons.  Let's start with the obvious:  at home my monitor is 30 inches, my laptop is only 13.  Once I open any of the software I normally use, there are so many palettes and control panels taking up real estate that I'm left with a work area smaller than my phone.  Now, I'll admit that our months living here in Tinytown have taught me how to work creatively in small spaces, but this is beyond my abilities.  I've repeatedly pointed this and other complications out to the boss, who could give a shit.  He still expects me in the office every Monday for our pointless staff meetings.

The meeting is at 11am, so to make it on-time I need to leave by 9:30 at the very latest.  Knowing there were various projects out in various stages of the approval process, around 8:30 I sent out an email to everyone ( we'll use marketing bullshit and refer to them as "stakeholders" ) explaining that I would be leaving in an hour and if anything needed revisions they should speak now or forever hold their peace.  Or at least hold their peace until later that afternoon.

I heard nothing from no one.

At 9:30 I left for L.A.

At 10am, somewhere near Norwalk, my cell phone rang.

There were revisions.

Many revisions.

Due by 11am.

"Do you have the files with you?" my boss asked.

Even if I did, which I didn't, how exactly did he think I would accomplish this while driving  on the fucking 105?

"Do you want me to turn around?" I offered.  I wasn't yet even halfway into the office.

"No" he said.  "We'll sort it out when you get here."

I arrived at the office at 10:55.

I poked my head into the boss's office to say hello and he returned the favor by saying...

"You need to turn around and go back."

Didn't even stay long enough to get one of the complimentary danish.

I finally got home around 1:15

Nearly four hours wasted, half the day gone.

This morning I'm looking for a new job.

Circle Jerk

 
Un.  Fucking.  Believable.

I have glimpsed our digital "New Media" future and all I can say is... we're screwed.

I drove in for the corporate wankfest, a brisk 90 minute ride.  Each way.  The meeting itself lasted 55 minutes, which was about 50 too long. I was introduced to our new Holding Company Overlords.  They all seemed pleasant enough in a fake, insincere way.  They all talked in big, booming marketing voices, the type of voice that will fill a room, brimming with self-confidence, a voice that says to the world you're not to be trusted.

There were about 15 of us total and we made our way to the glass enclosed conference room.  Everyone took their places around the round conference table with their laptops perched in front of them.  I, wisely, had left the laptop at home, working instead off my new iPad.  Had I brought my laptop in, I would be expected to work and I had no intention of doing that.

The laptop screens formed a circular wall around the table, which everyone hid behind.  It looked more like Mission Control, and in a way it was because while we wouldn't be launching a man to the moon, we would be launching a viral campaign for a snack food.  More on that later.

The oddest thing about the meeting was that no matter who was speaking, no one ever made eye contact.  Everyone just sat intently gazing at their computers.  What they were looking at or what they were doing I couldn't say.  I was taking notes on mine, or at least I was at first, but after about 20 minutes I found myself composing a suicide note.

We quickly dispensed with Old Business, or at least I think we did; I really wasn't paying too close attention.  Then came New Business.... a new client, a snack food.  At this point the floor was seized by Brian, a Marketing VP from New York.  Brian is a dick.

The goal, he informed us, was to launch a viral campaign for this new snack food.  In particular, he said, the client had asked us to reference work that had been done for one of the competitors.  At that point he pulled up the website of the agency that had created the original viral videos on the massive conference room flatscreen and for the first time, everyone looked up from their laptops.

We then proceeded to spin through half a dozen short videos.  They were obviously lavishly produced, yet done in that fake amateurish way.  Market research has shown that people distrust slickly produced videos, but tend to be more open to work that looks "authentic", so now most agency work is done in a practiced "fake authentic" style.  Did I mention all the videos involved a puppet?  Can't leave that out.

I thought all the videos were stupid but the rest of the room seemed captivated. Once we were done with the screening Brian moved to front of the room and proudly announced that the entire series had been done for under $500,000!  Imagine that!  Half a million dollars!  With a puppet!  Brian dramatically ended his presentation by noting that after the videos aired, the competing snack food registered 20,000 additional "likes" on their Facebook page!

Let me see... 20,000 people in a country of 400,000,000... It would appear this brilliant viral video campaign reached about .00005% of the population.  And they're the type of people who hang out on the Facebook page for a snack food.  Money well spent!

There was more, much more, but I simply can't go on.  Just typing this out, I've lost the will to live.  Maybe one day I'll write about the asinine ideas that were bandied about, ideas so stupid they make LOL cats seem like the height of urban sophistication.

Perhaps the worst part about the meeting was news of the next one.  Monday.

looks like I might get to finish that suicide note after all.

Hell: The PowerPoint

How ever did this Grand Republic survive for nearly two hundred years without Middle Management? Surely that has to rank with the building of the pyramids and the carvings on Easter Island as one of the great mysteries of life.  To think there was even a functioning economy without PowerPoint... Boggles the mind.

Even today, the world's last Superpower seems to get along just fine with only one Vice President. That's just crazy talk!

We have 12!

And that's just in Marketing!

And I get to meet them all tomorrow, as our Benevolent Overlords have flown in for a "Meet 'n Greet"...

..."Dog and Pony Show"...

..."Bread and Circuses"...

Choose your metaphor.  Whatever it is, I'm driving in for it, like it or not.

You have to forgive my child-like wonderment of the ways of corporate America.  I come from the Entertainment Industry, which operates more like a whorehouse.  Deals are made with a handshake and a drinking binge, and there's no misunderstanding that can't be smoothed over with hookers and blow.  Especially if you work for Disney.

So this should prove to be interesting.  And informative.

And everyone who knows me knows I live to learn!

To Have And To Hold

147.

That's how many e-mails I received yesterday from work.

Let's assume I spend one minute reading and responding to each e-mail.  It's a rough average; some were simply ignored while others required lengthy replies, even more time-consuming if you factor in having to edit out all the F-bombs before hitting "send".  That's over two hours spent on fucking e-mail!

How the hell did it get to this?

Well...

Two years ago I was desperate for work and a former colleague put me in touch with a friend who needed some help.  He owned a "new media" company.  What is that?  I still ask that question today.  "New Media" evidently means whatever you need it mean to at any given moment.  We were introduced through e-mail and never actually met.  In fact it would be months before we even spoke on the phone.  The projects were sporadic at first and all over the map, but by the summer of 2011 business had picked up to the point that he was my main client, accounting for half of my billings and most of my time.  Last December we finally met for the first time at the company Christmas party.  The company was all of five people.

At the time we were still living in exile and I was desperate to find a way to move back into civilization and thought that at the rate the company was moving this could turn into a real, full-time job.  As late as last January my client disabused me of that idea; he said it would be at least another year before they could consider hiring someone full-time.  Two weeks later, the boyfriend landed the job in Orange County, and since I work virtually we made the move.  I continued to work for my client from our new home base in the OC.

But then in February, the client got "the call".

Here's the thing:  most  people aren't aware of this, but every ad agency, PR firm or "new media" company of any note is owned by one of four mammoth, global Holding Companies.  Two are based in New York, one in Paris and the last in Dublin.  They own... EVERYTHING.  Once a company, of any size, through reputation or work, lands on the radar of one of these companies, it will get "the call".

Basically, they make you an offer you can't refuse.  They offer to buy your company at an exorbitant price making you set for life.  Not only will they buy your company for millions of dollars, they will pump untold riches into it.  I know this from experience from my last agency.  Once the owners of that company received "the call", the company went from 30 people to 140, we moved into swanky new offices and I got a 30% raise.  What's not to love?

At any rate, my client received "the call" in February and the first week in April I was summoned to a meeting in his office.  I didn't even know he had an office.  And that's when I first learned he had been bought.

He offerend me a full-time position, which was thoughtful.  It actually paid less than I was billing him at the time, which was not.  The Holding Company was insisting that he take up residence in an office building they own in Westwood where they warehouse all their acquisitions.  So not only was he offering me a cut in pay, he was insisting on four hours of gridlock a day to boot.  I politely declined.

Ultimately, we hashed out a temporary deal where I'm not an "official" employee and can still work from home and keep my other work and teaching commitments and I only occasionally have to schlep into the office.

The big difference now is that we are but a tiny cog in a global machine.  Our global overlords own 330 companies and have 66,000 employees.  66,001 if you include me.  And I'm not so sure I want to be included.  They way our benevolent rulers have structured the company, we are now a "subsidiary" of one of their other companies in Milwaukee, while at the same time we are "partners" with a firm in New York.  Suddenly I don't have one temperamental client to answer to, I have 20.  And they LOVE to chime in with -email.  About everything.

I know it's selfish, but I'm sitting here hoping for some sort of electro-magnetic pulse or solar flare or anything to knock out the e-mail.  Just for a little bit, just so I can get some work done.

It's only 11am and I'm already up to 62.

And So It Goes

No good deed goes unpunished and no good time doesn't get immediately swamped by bad news.  Or so it's seemed these past four years.

No sooner had I posted about out wonderful, magical day at the beach than we got word that the boyfriend's father had suffered a heart attack.  He's scheduled for quadruple bypass surgery later in the week and we've been scrambling to make arrangements to send the boyfriend east for a week, maybe more.

Luckily we'd had some money saved up.

Sadly, it had been set aside to do something special for our tenth anniversary in September.

...To The Sea

I hadn't seen the ocean in three years.

That was kind of a big deal to me since for all of my adult life, the beach had been therapy. I'd always lived a short distance away and for most of the 90's I lived in Venice Beach, just feet from the sand.  Whenever life or work or love became stressful or overwhelming, I just headed to the beach and watched the sun set or moon rise and all seemed right with the world.

But for nearly three years, we lived in exile hours from the coast.  A few times, in the evening out walking the dogs, a breeze would blow in from the west and I could swear I could smell the salt air, but it was only an illusion and as soon as I realized it I sunk into deep funk.

We've been back near the beach now for nearly four months and I'd yet to see the ocean again.  I had mentioned that last week to the boyfriend and had forgotten about it.

We had decided to stay in town for the weekend and the boyfriend and I had some errands to run.  It was edging up on 11am and I suggested we stop somewhere for breakfast since we were out.  He turned to me and said "we are" and he hopped on the freeway headed west.

We ended up in Sunset Beach which is where the boyfriend had grown up.  It was one of the first sunny days at the coast and we rolled down the windows and opened the sun roof and drank in the sea air and the beautiful day.  He seemed excited to point out all his old haunts and we made our way to the Pantry for brunch.

Afterwards we just aimlessly cruised around.  Sunset Beach, Surfside, Seal beach, into Long Beach.  At one point the boyfriend turned to me and said "let's go to the beach".  I looked at him and said "we already are" and he looked back at me and said "no, REALLY go to the beach... go in the water, lay in the sand."

That sounded crazy.

So I agreed.

We weren't really dressed for it so we stopped at a small surf shop and picked up a couple of cheap towels and trunks.  We drove back to his old neighborhood and parked not far from his old house and walked the half a block to the beach.

We planted our towels and crashed on the sand.  We'd both grown pale over the past many months and the sun felt good.  It was so relaxing to just stare out to sea, watch the seagulls dart and dive, the pelicans slowly cruising up the coast, the waves slowly rolling in.  And then it came time to check out the surf.

What most people don't seem to realize is the the Pacific Ocean is very large... and very cold.  The water temperature usually lags the air temps by several months and I know from my years in Venice that the warmest water was usually in late September and early October.  Dive in in June or July and you were in for a rude surprise.  So I approached the waves with a certain amount of trepidation and was genuinely surprised to discover the water was actually totally bearable.

So there we were like a couple of kids, diving through the waves, drifting aimlessly, bobbing and floating between the swells.  It was bliss.  We must have been in the water an hour before we finally decided to get out.

We dried off in the sun and eventually decided to head home; we'd left the dogs alone far longer than we had planned.  We stopped for frozen yogurt on PCH and then reluctantly jumped back on the freeway.  As we drove along "Unchained Melody" came on the radio...

"Lonely rivers flow
To the sea, to the seaTo the open arms of the sea..."
It was the perfect day.

Lizardmania

It's not like we didn't have lizards at our house in LA, but back then the dogs paid them no mind.  Things are different here in the OC and I think we can chalk it up to one thing...

Detachable tails.

The dogs discovered that neat little trick on Easter Sunday.  A lizard had unwittingly wandered onto our tiny back patio and caught the attention of the dogs.  It tried to beat a hasty retreat but the dogs nearly caught it and that's when it pulled the rip cord and left it's squirming back end twisting in it's tracks as a diversion.  The dogs found that delightful.

Things haven't been the same ever since, especially with my little girl.  She has lizard on the brain.  They're smart, those dogs.  They seem to instinctively know that the lizards only come out mid-day, so the morning and evening walks are pretty sedate.  The lunchtime walk is another matter entirely.

One o'clock is the lizard witching hour.  If perhaps I'm preoccupied with work and not watching the clock, my little one will let me know it's time by frantically climbing up my leg with a manic look in her eyes.  I saddle them up and then we're off to the races.

I politely refer to my little girl as "big boned."  She's a bit on the husky side and not known for her speed.  On the morning and evening walks, she dawdles, she sniffs, she oftentimes ends up being dragged just to keep the show moving.

On the Lizardwalk, however, she turns into a pit bull.

She moves like a jackrabbit.  She remembers every single spot she has ever encountered a lizard and we visit them all like the Stations of the Cross.  She's discovered the advantage of the element of surprise, so she launches herself into the shrubs without looking.  She knows by now that the lizards like to hang out near the fences and walls, so she pounces around corners in "shock and awe".

Yesterday we hit paydirt.

We hadn't even gone 50 feet and they had already treed two fairly large lizards and now they were possessed.  They looked rabid.  Their leashes were snapped to full length and they were practically pulling my arms our of their sockets.  Now they were dragging me, zigging and zagging through the complex to all the known spots.  And then we got to the pool deck and my little girl took a flying leap at a bush near the gate, a known lizard hangout.  There was immediate pandemonium from inside the bush but I couldn't make out what was going on when suddenly the biggest rat shot out the side and rocketed across the pool deck so fast it almost fell into the pool.

The dogs have never encountered a rat.  And they wanted more.

If I thought the dogs were manic before, I hadn't seen anything yet.  The rest of the walk was a harrowing experience.  The dogs thought they saw rats everywhere and were diving into every random shrub.  Much time was spent untangling leashes from branches and as we mercifully approached the house, my little girl made one last attack, flinging herself into a juniper bush.  Jackpot!  Out flew the most frightened looking squirrel I've ever seen.  My daughter took off after it it, the leash unspooling like the fishing line in "Jaws".  When it reached the end, it snapped.

The squirrel escaped into a tree.  This time.

I picked up a new leash on the way home from school last night.  My daughter is sitting her beside me as I type this.

Watching.

She knows it's almost time.