Advertising: My Job History and FU Money

I first decided I was interested in advertising in college, before Mad Men became a runaway success and brought the profession into the light of pop culture. Originally I was looking for a fun, less stuffy profession compared to my mother’s 30 years working for various Fortune 500 companies full of pants suits and colorless, cubicle filled offices. Through job fairs and speaking with the lovely Alums in my college’s alumni network I first became interested in advertising and thought it would be a wonderful way to explore the creativity I was looking for in an office environment while using my main set of skills: organization and persistence.

I actually hadn’t watched too many commercials in the years leading up to this decision since the invention of the DVR, which my family quickly adopted and allowed us to watch new television shows ad free. My computers always had a full ad block suite so I really wasn’t privy to advertising or its power. I’d never bought anything (consciously) as a result of seeing an ad and after middle school usually didn’t buy new products at all or have brand loyalty. I just bought the items that were the lowest priced (most importantly) and that also had good reviews.

So when it was time to go further down this chosen career path and get an internship at an ad agency (a requirement for full time advertising employment at the time) I had to do research to find examples of my favorite ads so I could respond properly to interview questions. When speaking with alums, reading about their companies and interviewing for positions they confirmed all of my hopes: that agency life is less stuffy than normal work environments and tries to foster creativity and culture instead of squashing it, that advertising is fast paced and never dull, that you will meet some of the most intelligent and interesting people around.

With that confirmation I forged onward. I was accepted into the summer internship program at a top ad agency, which I’ll call Company 1. I ended up having to interview while I was studying abroad in Italy and then again while visiting my friend in London. Unfortunately I wasn’t able to attend at the last minute due to my grandmother falling ill and needing to care for her, but I negotiated my own version of the summer internship that could happen during my college’s winter break.

Unfortunately this caused me to miss the introductory events and seminars that Company 1 provides for interns (but not entry level employees interestingly) as well as my college’s extremely fun Winter Study courses. But I was in the door!

During the internship I was honestly pretty bored and unhappy. It might have been staying with a distant relative (who remained distant while I was living with him) in Brooklyn or the depressing, sunless and freezing New York winter – I wasn’t sure. But surprisingly I didn’t think it was advertising. I understood that interns were usually given really simple and usually repetitive work and that was fine. But I was overall unsatisfied.

A few months later I was running around New York City trying to navigate the subway and staying in a friend’s apartment on the Upper West Side. No one was hiring it seemed and after wearing my interview outfit to what turned out to be a pre-interview after a pre-pre-interview that happened over the phone I had to return for my real interview in my only other outfit, which was unfortunately a lot more casual…but I got a call when I was about to leave that I got the job! And quickly accepted it since it was my only offer and I needed a job before graduation so I wouldn’t have to move with all my stuff back home and become one of the many graduates who live at home for years with few prospects. Phew!

So this fear driven decision led to a few very interesting years filled with late nights, specks of glamour and a lesson about the modern American workplace. The first thing that struck me about advertising is that when clients are involved we lived like kings – usually to impress them. We ate at fancy restaurants, took cabs and sipped on fancy overpriced cocktails. Our bosses flew around the world in First Class and wore ridiculously expensive sunglasses and jewelry. This is what I learned showed success in this industry and in New York.

The late nights were one of the reasons I quit my first job because they were always unnecessary. Most of the latest nights were a result of us waiting for something from someone else. In this digital age there was absolutely no reason why we had to be there in person, but Company 1 is a relatively traditional agency where face time is important – as is looking busy and appearing to work late nights.

Working at least 12 hour days became completely normal and my life barely existed outside of work. If I wasn’t there, I was answering work emails or trying to de-stress from work. I hated the lack of work/life balance, but I didn’t realize that it wasn’t necessary. I thought all this hard work was what was what I had to do to get out of the trenches and get promoted. I was about to learn a very valuable lesson.

They announced that basically everyone but me was promoted including people that worked less hard and were told (to their face) that they were not as good at their jobs. Wow. My Boss suggested that I go speak to the SVP. Big Mistake. She basically told me I wasn’t going to be promoted, that I didn’t deserve it and that it wasn’t a checklist (aka something I could argue with the facts I had brought with me). Her response was so hurtful – that was the first and last time I’ve cried in the office. Luckily it was after hours, no one was around, and I had time to put myself back together before getting on the subway because (shock) I had more work to do.

So I quit. With no plan of where to go. I realized I had saved a lot in my 401K and my emergency fund. HR advised me to not tell my SVP that I was leaving without another job because she would grill me about why I was leaving since the only explanation could be trouble within our team. And if she thought I was just leaving for a better job she would leave me alone. Despite me telling her what HR told me to she still wanted to schedule time to talk so for two weeks I lived in partial fear that she would ask me to come into her office. Luckily she never did. I walked out of Company 1 forever with a spring in my step.

During the last two weeks at Company 1 I actually interviewed at Company 2 as a result of my relationship with a mentor my cousin connected me with who worked there. I remember vividly that it was my first Monday without work – I had walked out of Company 1 on Friday. I was at the gym climbing onto the elliptical when a call came in from a local number. I got the job!

It was a promotion, but they offered me $2,000 less than the lower end of my requested salary range and wouldn’t budge so when asked when I could start I said a month from then 🙂 . If I’m not getting my money I will be getting my money’s worth in vacation! It worked and we settled on 3 weeks off before I started. When I returned they had sent me to a small offshoot they had created specifically for the technology client I would be working with, which fulfilled my not wanting to be a part of big agency culture. They also asked me to handle a few consumer brands, which helped me branch out from B2B like I wanted.

Six months into enjoying Company 2 and its smaller, nimbler feel, my boss: the reason I had accepted the job and my closest friend in the place, quit. I completely understood his reasons. He had been promoted 6 months before, but his pay was never changed despite it being a quick fix with HR by his boss – it was an Office Space situation.

Without him our less than kind client started to grate at me. I became tired of wasting my life energy for no reason – we worked hard for months on end only for projects to be scrapped. Time and time again. I was once asked to count how many formal presentations we had give for one project. At the time it was 63. There’s nothing like knowing that what you’re doing is useless to sap motivation. A few months after he left I was ready to hit the road, but wanted to stick it out since I didn’t want to be seen as someone that hops around jobs (my silly thought at the time…).

However, my friend who was a recruiter approached me and asked if I would be interested in interviewing for a position she had. It sounded perfect. It was a small shop based in Europe. At this point our small satellite office had turned into an empty satellite. We were instead sitting at the main, huge, industrial office that only had views into other buildings and no sunlight.

So I interviewed and was thinking about quitting at my 1 year anniversary in a few months when something amazing happened: I was laid off. I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone be as confused as my coworkers and the HR department when I cheerfully accepted the news and happily bounced out of the building with a tiny severance amount (I was expecting nothing in the volatile ad industry). Company 2 had lost their largest client and as a result laid off hundreds of people, even outside of that account. I was told it was the last in/first out rule since I was the newest member of the team.

It didn’t matter to me, but I did find it to be another interesting view into advertising. Throughout the day people were getting news that they were let go: mostly in the morning on the last day of the pay period (a Wednesday) so they had time to pack their stuff. My SVP pulled me aside at 4:30pm after I had been helping my friend pack his stuff and giving him words of encouragement to tell me that I was laid off. He was apologizing profusely and saying that it wasn’t his choice. The fact that someone like this could be so many steps above me and be so bad at his job made me even more happy that I was leaving. This lack of talent high up the food chain seems to be surprisingly prevalent in large agencies. So I picked up my bag and walked out. The next morning I had an interview.

I only realize now that the reason I was so willing to quit Company 1 when I was unhappy and the reason I was cheerful to be laid off (much to the surprise of everyone) was because I had FU money. I had built an emergency fund at my first job while contributing 25% of my entry-level salary to my 401K and helping my partner get on his feet in a new city.

I knew that I could last at least 6 months without a job – most likely 9. In the beginning I did not know that I would easily find other jobs, but that fact has just given me more confidence in my FU money and its power. Despite the fact that I was about to move every time these job changes happened I was not at all worried. I had unknowingly found the power of FU money.

I ended up getting the job at the small European shop I’ll call Company 3 that my friend found for me. It was another promotion and I loved the woman who would be my boss and was excited to be part of a smaller team and able to do more than grunt work. I was there for about three weeks and had rented a new apartment within walking distance when I was told the client I had been hired for had not signed their agreement for the next year and was leaving. So for the second time in a summer I was unemployed. This one was less welcome, but still not worrisome. I was just sick of interviewing at this point. So I interviewed a bit, didn’t find any whole teams I liked and then decided to just relax for the summer and fire up the search again in the fall.

That’s when I was contacted by my mentor from Company 2 — she had also quit and was at a new shop I’ll call Company 4. She asked if I would be interested in a contract role below my current title. I said sure – contract work sounded ideal since I could leave if things took a turn for the worst. A few weeks into the contract they heard that I was talking to my old boss at Company 3 because she wanted me back and they asked me to stay full-time. My heart started racing and once again I accepted on the spot at the promotion level I achieve at Company 3 and the same salary. It was a good deal. I liked the other woman on my team, the clients were nice and the employees were fun.

But as always, the good things came to an end. The best client I’d had turned into the worst client when the team was reorganized and I was confronted with the most incompetent human being I had ever met. So incompetent that his entire team (of women) changed everything and worked around his incompetence, but didn’t fire him. Fascinating. So a great situation turned into a less than great situation because of the client and once again I wanted to leave.

Luckily the experience at Company 1 and my mom’s career gave me the idea to talk to someone before simply quitting. So I spoke to my mentor who was high up in the organization. I told her I wanted to switch clients despite me being hired to work with this specific once and it worked! About three months later the transition began.

And I’m happy I stayed. I was moved to the team of my choice with new subject matter I found interesting. The fact that I was temporarily free from back to back meetings, completing work only after work hours, and screaming clients meant that I had time to think about myself and explore who I am and what I want. That’s how I had time to dive into financial independence and begin this journey.

2018 UPDATE: Re-reading this story 3 years later I realize 2 interesting things are missing: