Rules. Sometimes I feel as if they are ruining my life. I’m sure any creative person would agree. I’m sure they’d also agree that it’s difficult for non-creative people to be the ones making the rules and running the red tape circus that is corporate life.
Agency life is different. It’s a little more loosey-goosey, in that you pretty much do whatever it takes to get the work done in order to get your paycheck. The hours are long, the work is mostly thankless, the tasks get distributed evenly in a very egalitarian style (or at least they should – I’ve experienced some Divas who thought that because they had a Blackberry, they could be absent from work and never help out – they got the boot eventually). Agencies thrive on individualism, on a ‘battle of the wills’ mentality that you want to prove everyone wrong and turn out spectacular work that ‘Wows’ everyone.
Corporate life is a bureaucratic oddity. The number of people handling any given task is ridiculous, but it’s all about processes, streamlining and running efficiently. I can appreciate that goal, but sometimes the cure is worse than the disease. Companies in the past year have seen that they were overstaffed, overcomplicated in the layering of processes and relying heavily on human ability vs automation which means there’s plenty of room for error. And that individualism I was talking about before? Nah, they can do without that. Please just fall in line and conform. Thank you for your cooperation.
It’s not all bad. Corporate has its perks over agency. Pay is better. Benefits are better because there’s so many more people. Sometimes it pays to have the slowness of corporate decision making, saving you from error and humiliation (sometimes not – remind me to tell you about a goof with an annual report…yipe!).
Sometimes it can feel stifling. Not being able to just run with ideas or experiment and try new things but instead being relegated to doing the same old, same old for years on end just because “that’s what’s been done” as if that’s a good reason for doing anything in the first place.
Ho-hum. It’s all work, though isn’t it? That’s why it’s not called ‘play.’ But if you can find a job that allows you to play and get paid for it, then you need to call me immediately and share the wealth. In the meantime, I’ll toil away and keeping rocking the boat, pushing buttons, giving unsolicited ideas and pressing my luck.
What else would I be doing anyways?
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