Agency

In Which Another Mediocre Idea is Born

about six months ago

The large white-faced clock watched over the creative team room, its long black arms clicking over every 60 seconds, cutting the foggy silence with an audible reminder of time's heavy passage.

Click.

Martin, the Copywriter, tapped his capped sharpie against the gnarled, reclaimed barn board that was their working table. He was keenly aware that of all the creative minds around the table, it was most important that the one belonging to HIM came up with an idea. Not only because he was batting 0 for 12 when it came to successful idea generation on the team's leaderboard, but also because he'd been late arriving this morning, smelling like weed and looking like the extra rumpled reincarnation of Hunter S. Thompson (a personal hero of his which, actually, was a big part of the problem and probably worth dissecting at a later date, he thought).

He could feel David's eyes on him. Greedy for his failure. Open to a win. Whatever ideas the team came up with in the end, David would present as his own. He was Creative Director, and that was his right.

Click.

Margot, the Art Director, exhaled loudly and put her hands over her ears so she could think better. She wanted Martin to come up with something great. She didn't want her name on that leaderboard again. The whole art department would hate her. More than they probably do already, she thought.

The team leaderboard was David's idea, a way to pit the creatives against each other — presumably meant to encourage them to come up with better ideas. Every pitch started with a 'big idea,' and whichever team member came up with the winning concept earned a spot on the leaderboard. At the end of the year, the name that appeared most often on the board would win an extra week off around Christmas time. Undeniably, it was a luxury that anyone who worked in this (or any) agency would yearn for with the same intensity that a sleep torture victim yearns for a nap.

Margot's name was on that board six times already and, as much as she'd like the extra week off, she knew her teammates would hate her for it. She was also certain, deep inside herself, that she didn't deserve any of those wins. In her mind, her ideas were mediocre at best. No more than derivatives of the much better work she'd seen in AdAge and StrategyMag. She waited anxiously to be exposed as a hack who knows nothing about real design, but month after month, nobody seemed to notice.

Anyway, she'd be damned if she was going to come up with something better than Marty this time. He was going to win this one if it killed them both — although, from the look of him, he might be half-dead already. He sat, still tapping that sharpie, looking less like the overpaid copywriter he was and more like a spaced-out pothead at Laser Floyd. She grimaced. He'd probably smoked up right before coming in here. Ugh. She was going to have to generate the ideas, or they'd never get out of this room. Maybe she could lead him into something and let it come out like his idea.

Click.

David watched them both, his ace team, eyes scanning between them but otherwise motionless. Everything about David was immaculate: shirt crisp, trousers pressed, sneakers exactly the correct brand. Like his attire, his body was similarly executed — lean, appropriately exercised but nothing showy, just what was needed and nothing more. Everything about him was laced up, considered and edited.

His polished iPhone sat in front of him at a perfect 90-degree angle. Evenly spaced beside it, a black fine line pen and matching black Moleskine notepad, opened to reveal the artfully printed points he'd just read aloud to the team in front of him. Not that they were even capable of understanding the nuances, he thought. How could these practical children be depended on to come up with a winning idea for a product they had almost certainly never considered in their lifetime?