Between the Briefs

When I was in college, I once attended this seminar on advertising and marketing. I attended it really because Prasoon Joshi was supposed to be there and, at that point, I was in awe of him. Yes… it’s pathetic, but it’s true.

Anyway, as luck would have it, Prasoon Joshi couldn’t make it due to “unforeseen circumstances”. But we had Prahlad Kakkar there in all his glory and that wasn’t so bad either. So then we have this Q&A session where someone asks Kakkar what he looks for in someone when hiring them. I remember Kakkar’s specifically using these words: “I look for someone with a fire in their belly”, followed by other such stuff as they need to get up in the morning with a passion to conquer the world or something like that. All very pretty.

Almost a year and a half after taking up my first job, I revisit this episode in my mind and learn one of the most important lessons ever – NEVER TAKE ANYTHING FOR GRANTED.

And I say this now with a conviction you can’t dispute. And I have two good reasons that stem from the same episode, other than a whole lot of other reasons. But here’s what I’m talking about:

• If you believe whatever is printed on an invite, you’re in for a disappointment. The person who sold the show to you in all probability just lent his name. Don’t get me wrong. He will teach you something about advertising even in his absence; but most importantly he will teach you a little something about deceptive advertising.
• If you take for granted that you will be one of the many with the” fire in the belly”, you’ll go through many days feeling like absolute crap just because you cannot keep up the pretence of being passionate about your job all the time.  Again, I’d ask you to wait before you judge me. I’ll explain myself with a few situations:
  • A month or so back, my boss had signed us up for some classes on Entrepreneurship Development where a lot of this inspirational rubbish was being flung around for free. And someone said, “If your job or whatever it is that you’re doing doesn’t make you laugh any more, you need to quit.”
  • And then someone who used to be my client asked me whether my job makes me happy and it took me a while before I could answer this question honestly.

Statements and questions such as those above really make you think twice about what you’re doing and why you’re doing it. Now you’d think I’m someone who hates their job. But I don’t. In fact, I find it hard to imagine myself doing anything else, is how much I think my job and I meant to be together. But I just think being passionate about it every day is too much to ask for, realistically speaking. Because the things you’re really passionate about will come by just once in a while. For the most part, you’ll be stuck doing things you’d rather not do. For instance, as a copywriter you want to be creating ads – big, brilliant ads that people love and will discuss over coffee or beer in the same breath as Obama’s winning the Peace Nobel. Perhaps the day will come when you will create such ads, but before that there will be years of brochures, flyers, posters and whatnot that just won’t inspire a cell in your body even after you spend days and weeks trying to perfect it.

And then there will be days when something you really do care about will come along and you are really impassioned about it. But by the time you’re done creating your work, either your team doesn’t get it or the client doesn’t want it or the budgets suddenly get scrapped and you end up with something mediocre at the end of it all. Now if you’re telling me that you’ve been through this all and you still wake up feeling kicked about your job then, there’s got to be something wrong with you. Because when you are churning out something mediocre, you bloody well feel miserable about it. Of course you could say “Just stop creating mediocre stuff” but that will initiate a whole new debate.

What I’m trying to say is, don’t take for granted that your job will kick ass or that you’ll always do what you set out to do. The good days will come… but not without a slew of horrible ones. And it’s being able to work through the sludge early mornings, late nights and pretty much every weekend in anticipation of the good days that’s more important than walking around wearing a “I *Heart* My Job” t-shirt all the time.