When you look at the way we live nowadays, George Orwell seems to be looking more like Nostradamus than well Nostradamus. Yes his fiction might have been dystopian in nature, but the sheer reality is that much of what he wrote in his magnus opus is as relevant today as ever. Our language is truncated to the point of utilizing acronyms and abbreviations in regular speech. Seriously, if you are not in the know, you definitely don’t know what the hell people are talking about... actually you can barely tell what they’re saying.
Going back to 1984, two topics very present in that work of literature are the control of information and the quality of information. Having worked for quite a few years now, I can’t help but feel as if Human Resources personnel and supervisors alike are given transcripts of selected parts of this novel to implement said practices. In the book, there are various ministries in charge of maintaining order… one is the Ministry of Love which contains the Thought Police, another is the Ministry of Truth.
For example -
Scenario 1: Someone gets fired. In 1984, when someone is black bagged and taken by the Thought Police, the Ministry of Truth do their best to basically eradicate any trace of the existence of that person. Records are edited, photos are manipulated, and everyone stops talking about the person in question, quickly becoming the faint ghost of a memory. Recently a co-worker got black bagged by the Ministry of Love AKA Human Resources, and the supervising team of my department has acted as the Ministry of Truth, basically omitting him from all records. This type of behavior is not atypical… actually, in an economic climate as the one we live in, it’ll actually become more common. That’s because even if people get fired, we the company are doing well, even if people are left with no options, we the company must prevail, that’s because even if you give your 110%, you don’t matter, WE matter… as in the company matters. Don’t get me wrong, I understand the whole commentary on the greater good, but sometimes it’s just a bitter pill to swallow. The topic of information control is pushed to the forefront especially when it comes to someone you’ve worked with and come to appreciate for their genuine sense of duty and now you’re being told that they weren’t that good or worthwhile.
Scenario 2: When you break down the communications you receive from your company, there’s never any bad news. That's all the work of The Ministry of Truth, a combination of Human Resources and PR. They show that numbers are up, sales are better than last year and God has us in his good graces… but people keep getting fired. When you ask what’s going on, you get half answers, limericks or meeting rescheduling because the fact of the matter is that a group of people is deciding what you should be told. I know this sounds like either a conspiracy theory or the most logical thing ever written, but the fact is that a lot of people forget this. They think they’re being told the truth instead of the lines of information that will assuage any feelings of discontent so they keep being productive. By the way, this is also the time when a company starts holding raffles, giving bonus free days off and letting you wear jeans every day to work. They’re looking for cost efficient ways to make you complacent and people bite and are content to be reeled in by the illusion.
It’s been a couple of tough weeks of seeing good people losing their jobs. You feel morale sinking further and no matter the amount of corporate trickery, resentment runs high among most strata. The most curious part is that what is happening in this corporate nation I currently reside in is happening throughout most other companies.
In 1984, one of the central mottos was:
WAR IS PEACE, FREEDOM IS SLAVERY, and IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH
Their mission was control of the masses.
In most companies however, the motto goes something more on the lines of:
RECESSION IS SUCCESS, PAY RAISES ARE PAY CUTS, and SUBSERVIENCE IS STABILITY
Interestingly, though the mottos are different, their objective is the same.
Aug 31, 2011
Aug 29, 2011
New Era Campaign IS THE BEST EVER! EVER!!!
THIS IS GENIUS - AND I CAN'T STAND BASEBALL! CANNOT HANDLE IT, MUST HAVE MORE!
I feel like Tony Montana
No matter where you work, if at any time you have been a go-to person or simply stubborn to get all your tasks done, odds are that at least once in your life, you’ve felt like Tony Montana at the end of Scarface. I’m not talking about being coked up out of your mind. I’m talking about taking bullet, after bullet, after bullet and asking for more.
That’s what I feel like.
My job inbox is maxed, the emails keep coming in, the word rush has been permanently burned into my cornea and I still insist on maintaining quality… also at the bequest of a hack supervisor whom I don’t respect, but hey, that’s apparently par for the course.
Can I do it for today? Sure. You need that by 10? No problem. Do you have to revamp an entire copy deck for a website? Bring it. I can take it. I’ve got the stones, I’ve got the will power, I’ve got the energy. And while you’re at it, feel free to concoct an additional four projects for shit that doesn’t need to be done for this month so I can finish by the end of the day.
Bang.
Give me your best shot.
Bang. Bang.
Is that all you got?
Bang. Bang. Bang.
I can take it.
Bang. Bang. Bang. Bang.
Pussy.
Bang. Bang. Bang. Bang. Bang.
………………………………………
Why do I, along with hordes of people, take this macho attitude towards work instead of saying I need more time, stop or offer a simple no once in a while? That’s an easy question to answer… because I’m stupid and for a moment there I forgot that this wasn’t worth it.
Cheers
Aug 28, 2011
A very interesting point in creativity: It's all been done BEFORE.
YOU HAVE TO WATCH THIS!
Part 4 is coming soon, keep checking their Vimeo Channel.
Everything is a Remix Part 1 from Kirby Ferguson on Vimeo.
Everything is a Remix Part 2 from Kirby Ferguson on Vimeo.
Everything is a Remix Part 3 from Kirby Ferguson on Vimeo.
Part 4 is coming soon, keep checking their Vimeo Channel.
Aug 25, 2011
Aug 21, 2011
What the Fuck Lunchable: Gelatin Sushi?
Let's say it together. One. Two. Three!
EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEWWWWWWWWW!
Aug 18, 2011
Aug 17, 2011
Why I don't get Christians: God is doing a new thang.
How come I don't believe in God? Here's your answer: he doesn't stop this crap from happening.
The Wonderful World of Insomnia
Part two of Me's Wild ride drama series. In this episode: "Your body can take so much".
To recap, in our last episode you all had read - and I had written with lots of pain - the story about me losing my pregnancy. You may have thought - and so did I - that it was going to be easy and in no time I would get back to normal. Well, seems that my body and my mind had other plans and decided to make my life... interesting. Now, you are witnessing a miracle. You see, I cannot sleep. Yes, I am the human who doesn't sleep. Call the movie directors and sell my story, people. I can be awake for days, not sleep and actually am able to work, talk, engage with others in conversation... it's fucking amazing. And I'm tired...
Ok so I know I have it easy, people in the rest of the world are dying of hunger, are losing their homes, got robbed, have no civil liberties... I cannot compete and don't even want to with others who have worst problems than myself. But I can maybe just write about it, in hopes that I examine what's happening in order to get myself back in track...
Not sleeping is very weird. At first you think it's temporary. You can fight the couple of first days without a decent night of sleep with no problem. You can even go a week and not feel a lot tired. At least, that's what it felt at the beginning.
But after all that has happened to me and the mental exhaustion it has taken to overcome the loss of the pregnancy mixed with the usual advertising stress - my body is refusing to play along. Maybe it's because I think that advertising people are wired differently I found myself fighting the idea of feeling tired or stress - are not all ad people stressed out? I honestly think we are, but not 100%. I found that at least I have a breaking point.
But this post is not about touching the void. It's about all the weird stuff that happens when you lose your sleep. It's so weird... You feel like you are floating. You're not there altogether, you think that you might be, but you are not. Night can come and go and you don't notice it that much. I find it weird that there are no dreams, no nightmares. In this state of restlessness, when your mind cannot let go because it's overthinking everything, you find an empty space where all your usual weird dreams or fucked up nightmares would be. I can only describe as dark and light. When your body needs to sort of shut down, you just go on sort of crappy computer sleep mode, and just temporarily disconnect without properly shutting down. And like any other computer, when it's time to wake up, you just open your eyes, adjust and keep on doing whatever you left off...
The other weird thing is light. You notice light - as in the sun. Night, not so much. Maybe it's because you notice when it comes up more than the usual person. I mean... how much of you people out there have your eyes open when the sun is starting to come out each morning? Not much. Insomnia makes you notice the little things in very weird ways. I do not recommend it, but hey, if you suffer from it, at least by reading this you are not alone...
No, I don't enjoy this phase in my life right now, but I am embracing it like any other in life because if you don't acknowledge fully what life gives you - how do you learn, right? I am currently working on getting better, focusing on going to the doctors and slowly getting back to normal in many ways. Yes, I still hurt from the loss, very much so - and like any other person, in time I will understand that this process is natural.
Maybe I'm writing this because I just want to let you ad people know that in some moment we do have to take a time out and breathe. I am a walking example of what not to do, how much stress a person can handle before they break and lose something of value. Maybe I'm writing this so you think about where you are in your life and take my experience as a warning.
Maybe I'm writing, just to write.
Any way... thanks for reading.
Much love. A very tired Me.
To recap, in our last episode you all had read - and I had written with lots of pain - the story about me losing my pregnancy. You may have thought - and so did I - that it was going to be easy and in no time I would get back to normal. Well, seems that my body and my mind had other plans and decided to make my life... interesting. Now, you are witnessing a miracle. You see, I cannot sleep. Yes, I am the human who doesn't sleep. Call the movie directors and sell my story, people. I can be awake for days, not sleep and actually am able to work, talk, engage with others in conversation... it's fucking amazing. And I'm tired...
Ok so I know I have it easy, people in the rest of the world are dying of hunger, are losing their homes, got robbed, have no civil liberties... I cannot compete and don't even want to with others who have worst problems than myself. But I can maybe just write about it, in hopes that I examine what's happening in order to get myself back in track...
Not sleeping is very weird. At first you think it's temporary. You can fight the couple of first days without a decent night of sleep with no problem. You can even go a week and not feel a lot tired. At least, that's what it felt at the beginning.
But after all that has happened to me and the mental exhaustion it has taken to overcome the loss of the pregnancy mixed with the usual advertising stress - my body is refusing to play along. Maybe it's because I think that advertising people are wired differently I found myself fighting the idea of feeling tired or stress - are not all ad people stressed out? I honestly think we are, but not 100%. I found that at least I have a breaking point.
But this post is not about touching the void. It's about all the weird stuff that happens when you lose your sleep. It's so weird... You feel like you are floating. You're not there altogether, you think that you might be, but you are not. Night can come and go and you don't notice it that much. I find it weird that there are no dreams, no nightmares. In this state of restlessness, when your mind cannot let go because it's overthinking everything, you find an empty space where all your usual weird dreams or fucked up nightmares would be. I can only describe as dark and light. When your body needs to sort of shut down, you just go on sort of crappy computer sleep mode, and just temporarily disconnect without properly shutting down. And like any other computer, when it's time to wake up, you just open your eyes, adjust and keep on doing whatever you left off...
The other weird thing is light. You notice light - as in the sun. Night, not so much. Maybe it's because you notice when it comes up more than the usual person. I mean... how much of you people out there have your eyes open when the sun is starting to come out each morning? Not much. Insomnia makes you notice the little things in very weird ways. I do not recommend it, but hey, if you suffer from it, at least by reading this you are not alone...
No, I don't enjoy this phase in my life right now, but I am embracing it like any other in life because if you don't acknowledge fully what life gives you - how do you learn, right? I am currently working on getting better, focusing on going to the doctors and slowly getting back to normal in many ways. Yes, I still hurt from the loss, very much so - and like any other person, in time I will understand that this process is natural.
Maybe I'm writing this because I just want to let you ad people know that in some moment we do have to take a time out and breathe. I am a walking example of what not to do, how much stress a person can handle before they break and lose something of value. Maybe I'm writing this so you think about where you are in your life and take my experience as a warning.
Maybe I'm writing, just to write.
Any way... thanks for reading.
Much love. A very tired Me.
Aug 16, 2011
Attention iGoogle Shoppers: now you can TALK your searches!
Call Sarah Connor and tell her it's D day. If this isn't the beginning of the end, I don't know shit: you can now talk to your computer and tell her what it is you are searching. We already tried it a couple of times and it sort of works. Granted, the first entry we got after saying New York was F*** (trust me, I am not joking, it thought I said fuck york), but it was awesome anyway.
Try it and tell us what you think.
You sunk my: Battleship Trailer
I insist. It will be an awesome movie if they cheat a move. If not... Blegh.
Use this video the next time your dudette tells you that the condom will break.
Apart from that, there is no other use for this crap. But at least you shut her up. Booyaka.
Aug 15, 2011
Dear Eminem. No, it's not Stan again.
Hey Shady.
Funny that I picked that name, right? Nope. I picked it for a very special reason, my friend. Wait. Let's start from the beginning.
I consider myself very lucky. I took one of my bucket list items off a couple of weekends ago, I trekked down to Chicago to attend Lollapalooza. Em, it was magic. Best time I've ever had in quite a while. Lolla was sheer perfection, everything was going just great.
Then it was time to see you. Marshall, I sat down at a corner of the field from 4pm in the afternoon and waited for your white ass until 8pm. I even endured Cee Lo Green's disaster of a show before you (nah, let's just not go there, it was awful), because I didn't want to lose my spot. I had faith that your show was going to be fucking epic...
Can you explain to me, in very simple terms, what is it that you are doing? Yeah. I wanna know. Are you attempting to have a career after your recovery? Ok dude, if you really survived therapy, you must be aware that there is a time when people sit down and tell it as it is, so you understand what bad things YOU are doing. Consider this MY hard core truth moment with you.
Rapping over hit songs IS NOT original talent, dude. Really.
What gives, man? If I did that, I would too make it to the top of the charts! WHAT WAS THAT SHOW??? You mean to tell me that almost 80% of your songs now are just rap over other successful tunes? WHAT THE FUCK? How does that require talent? Oh cool, Bruno Mars got a hit with Light full of lighters, let's just rappityrap over it and bingo, a new song? WHAT HAPPENED TO YOU?
Have some dignity, man. Create your own mediocre shit and present it to the world! Jesus! As a true hard core rap fan, it pisses me off that people still consider you a big deal with the shit you are doing right now. Yeah, some rappers do sampling, you are right. That's NOT what you are doing. You are taking a fucking complete song and doing rap intermissions, for God's sake.
Come on, even Eazy-E had original material! I just pray to something holy that your last work isn't produced by Dr. Dre, or I will burn my computer with all his work in it.
And yeah. I gave you less than an hour and left. A last thought: maybe a good part of the people who stayed there were so freaked out on drugs that they didn't notice that your show sucked. No worries, some of us did.
Shady, man. Shady.
Funny that I picked that name, right? Nope. I picked it for a very special reason, my friend. Wait. Let's start from the beginning.
I consider myself very lucky. I took one of my bucket list items off a couple of weekends ago, I trekked down to Chicago to attend Lollapalooza. Em, it was magic. Best time I've ever had in quite a while. Lolla was sheer perfection, everything was going just great.
Then it was time to see you. Marshall, I sat down at a corner of the field from 4pm in the afternoon and waited for your white ass until 8pm. I even endured Cee Lo Green's disaster of a show before you (nah, let's just not go there, it was awful), because I didn't want to lose my spot. I had faith that your show was going to be fucking epic...
Can you explain to me, in very simple terms, what is it that you are doing? Yeah. I wanna know. Are you attempting to have a career after your recovery? Ok dude, if you really survived therapy, you must be aware that there is a time when people sit down and tell it as it is, so you understand what bad things YOU are doing. Consider this MY hard core truth moment with you.
Rapping over hit songs IS NOT original talent, dude. Really.
What gives, man? If I did that, I would too make it to the top of the charts! WHAT WAS THAT SHOW??? You mean to tell me that almost 80% of your songs now are just rap over other successful tunes? WHAT THE FUCK? How does that require talent? Oh cool, Bruno Mars got a hit with Light full of lighters, let's just rappityrap over it and bingo, a new song? WHAT HAPPENED TO YOU?
Have some dignity, man. Create your own mediocre shit and present it to the world! Jesus! As a true hard core rap fan, it pisses me off that people still consider you a big deal with the shit you are doing right now. Yeah, some rappers do sampling, you are right. That's NOT what you are doing. You are taking a fucking complete song and doing rap intermissions, for God's sake.
Come on, even Eazy-E had original material! I just pray to something holy that your last work isn't produced by Dr. Dre, or I will burn my computer with all his work in it.
And yeah. I gave you less than an hour and left. A last thought: maybe a good part of the people who stayed there were so freaked out on drugs that they didn't notice that your show sucked. No worries, some of us did.
Shady, man. Shady.
Aug 10, 2011
It's the end of the world as we know it: Operation Facebook, November 5 2011
Fuck that, Google knows WAY more information than Facebook!
Um.
Shit.
Already moved to Google Plus.
Dammit.
This is brilliant: A document corruptor!
Click at the name of the post and destroy that document for some extra time. Awesome.
Aug 9, 2011
This is a Shitty Business… Literally!
Ad agencies are often seen as adult playgrounds. There aren’t many corporate environments that actually encourage toys in your cubicle, smoking pot in the bathroom, and fornication among employees at the office Christmas party. In fact, agencies are more like college frat houses. This brings me to the childlike behavior that characterizes many an office.
A very official company-wide email from Human Resources was sent this morning. The subject line was in all caps, which implied something of the utmost importance. Is the office shutting down? Did we lose another client? Will the world come to an end?
None of the above.
The issue: Shit on the bathroom wall. Let me repeat: Shit (as in human fecal matter/excrement) on the bathroom wall. The WOMEN’S bathroom wall.
Apparently, a disgruntled female employee walked into the bathroom, dropped a deuce, took a piece and put it up on the wall. Reports confirm that it was actual human shit carefully placed on the wall four feet from the floor. This and the fact that it wasn’t smeared ruled out the possibility that someone accidentally brushed their dirty ass on the wall while reaching for some toilet paper.
Of course, this set off a tide of giggles and snickering across the agency. Who did it? Why? What’s the intended message? How is it possible that a woman (well all know that women don’t shit or fart) would do something of the sort? The serious castigating tone of HR’s message made the situation all the more hilarious. I mean, here we are, a group of seriously over-educated and overpaid professionals, talking about the Issue of the Shit on the Girl’s Bathroom Wall. Of course, this is intended to be the topic of conversation for the next few months.
It just goes to show that 99.9% of the things we do and discuss in ad agencies is nothing but bull – ahem – I mean, girl shit.
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