Archive for 7 February, 2009
Because life’s too f*****g short
I ended up on Creative Director Dave Trott’s blog today. His latest post recounted him bollocking (his words) an account handler’s boss because the account man hadn’t found out why the client wouldn’t buy some ads he’d presented. As I understand it, the discussion mostly consisted of him shouting and swearing at the account handler’s boss. This was apparently OK because ‘it’s worthwhile having a row with her because she’s got a brain and she cares’.
Dave, you really care about the work your produce. I get that. But is there any chance you could communicate this without all the aggression?
I’ve been working in this industry for ten years and I keep coming up against people (men and women, agency and client side) who think its fine to lose it because they’re just being passionate about the work.
I thought we were supposed to be great communicators?
Life’s too short to spend it getting angry – and too short to spend it making other people upset. We use up far too much of our time on earth at work for it to be an aggressive, confrontational environment.
And just because shouting and swearing runs off your back like water, the people you’re dishing it out to might not take it the same way.
I really think as an industry we have to start consistently behaving more professionally (by which I mean politely and with mutual respect) – it’s good for recruitment, for staff retention, for better client relationships and because dishing out that kind of aggressive behaviour on a regular basis is an open invitation to a constructive dismissal claim…
