Are you proud of yourself?
Proud of what you do for a living?
Not me. I’m feeling pretty ashamed of myself today. Let me tell you why.
Firstly, what do I do for a living? Well, it depends who’s asking.
An art director I used to work with would just tell people, “I work in an office.” He couldn’t be bothered trying to explain the ephemeral nature of how he earned his moolah.
And I can understand that: I was born in North Yorkshire, son of a farmer’s son. From a background of people who worked for a living, basically. And fought in wars.
One of their nieces is a policewoman. They’re very proud of her, understandably. But me? I could no more make them proud of what I do for a living than I could explain traffic jams to a Maldivian. It just doesn’t make any sense to them.
So, if I’m feeling self-deprecating, I might tell people “I write junk mail”. Which, since I don’t do that much writing any more, and we work in a much wider range of media than mail, isn’t particularly true. In fact the ‘junk’ bit isn’t true at all. Everything we create is excellent. I’m sure the people I write to put velvet cushions under their letterboxes, to cosset my falling post.
If I want to seem arty / pretentious I might say, “I’m the creative director of an advertising and marketing agency”.
And if I’m trying to impress a chickpea warrior, I might say “I help raise thousands of pounds for some of the UK’s biggest and best-known charities”.
So, three different things I can say to feel proud of what I do for a living. With “I work in an office” as a useful back-up if I get a blank stare.
However. Sometimes other people make it impossible for me to feel proud of what I do. By association, they make me feel grubby and shameful.
The people behind the ‘Feed my people’ junk mail for example. Which really is junk.
A copywriter at our place has received, in subsequent mailpacks of exploitative, manipulative, haranguing copy: a pair of socks, two rosary bracelets, a travel clock, a tea towel, and a pricey rollerball with her name printed on it.
What’s the reason for these gifts, which deduct god knows how much from the money raised?
Well, the tea towel pictured is enclosed “as a sign of hope and a point of contact for you and the struggling people of Africa”.
Yes, nothing says “hope” like a tea towel. Nothing makes me feel closer to the people of Africa than a tea towel.
Actually, the deluge of tat that Lizzie (the copywriter) has been getting purports to come from several different charities. None of which we’ve heard of. And all of which seem have the same Crawley PO Box as a return address.
So I’m not telling people I write direct mail for charities at the moment. If they’d seen the ‘Feed my people’ stuff they might tar me with the same disgusting brush.
No, for a week or two I’ll pretend to be something slightly less shameful. Like an England footballer, perhaps.
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