Late last year I nearly lost my mind. Now before you pipe up all - girl you done lost your mind already, let me clear. I. ALMOST. LOST. EVERYTHING to the life-changing world of advertising
Aside: you know you live and die by ad campaigns right? No? Well shit.
I worked with the most horrifically awful client ever. Nasty, undermining and passive-aggressive - day in and day out. Couple that with long hours, an uninvolved boss, an unhelpful producer and the fastest timeline on a project the likes of which I have never worked on in my entire life.
Look people have real problems - they don't have jobs, can't pay their mortgage and are trying to feed their kids - I totally get that. And I am in no way comparing my problems to anyone else's. All I can talk about is what I know.
Got it? Great. Now where was I? Oh right. Losing it.
I was working late nights for an ungrateful client. I was traveling to the West Coast for shoots. I was updating page after page of scripts with legal changes, client changes and creative changes. My producer bitched at me hourly. I scheduled meetings, changing them, deleting them and then fucked up everyone's Outlook. I came home every night and ruined my husband's T-shirts with my snotty sobs.
I know. FIRST WORLD PROBLEMS.
I was in a hole. This HUGE SINKING hole. Every email, every snide comment, every gentle reproach became another boulder on the mountain of FAILURE.
My jeans don't fit? Add it to FAILURE.
I didn't decorate the house for Christmas? Pile that on to FAILURE.
I forgot your birthday? FAILURE's got a new rock!
It was a huge, overwhelming, looming shadow of YOU SUCK. I stepped into an anxiety-ridden, sleepless, dark & twisty place. And yeah, try backing out of that shit.
I didn't enjoy anything. Nothing. Not books. Not running. Not Thanksgiving dinner. Not the beach. Not sex. NOTHING. All I wanted to do was be alone and listen to NPR. Cheery!
I trudged into my shrink's office in sweats and a stained black T-shirt to cry all over his couch. He took one look at me and was all "Quit your job." He recommended meds STAT and steered me to my GP who also got the whole crying-stained-T-shirt treatment before loading me up Lexapro. Can you blame these poor people?
Then I got two weeks of vacation. And things were better. Then they moved me to another account. And things got much better. Then the meds kicked in. And things got HOLY FUCK THIS IS AWESOME better.
But you know what? I still need to quit my job. Only now I can do it with insouciance instead of blind-screaming rage. Helpful when recommendation-time comes along, yes?
Frankly, I started this post with completely different intentions - wah wah hate my boss, wah wah never promoted, wah wah advertising is hard. But then this happened. And now I forget my original point, but it wasn't nearly as serious as this post.
Tangents are a funny thing.
