Agency

In Which the World Wakes Up to Warrior Women Everywhere

Sunday and, importantly, also Mother's Day

The client, as one might expect, was explosively angry. Or, WERE explosively angry.

(In Agency-speak, any quantity of people involved on the client-side of an account can be referred to as, simply, 'the client.' Grammatical rules on this are much looser than, say, with groupings of geese -- which we will get back to soon.)

In this case, it will help to understand that "the client" was a high-powered, very threatening triad of men called -- you won't remember them from the pitch day, but that's okay -- Roland, Charles and Suneel. Theirry is the CEO (whose wife it was that demanded the eradication of all warrior women from the campaign on the basis of them making her feel badly about herself), and while his name was invoked many, many times during the conference call Berry was now enduring, he wasn't actually on the call, being too busy and, presumably, furious to be present.

"Berry," Charles made an attempt at a reasonable tone but quickly found himself losing control of his vocal pitch. "I am trying to understand HOW the creative we very EXPLICITLY told you THIERRY did not want any more has LITERALLY APPEARED EVERYWHERE ANYONE LOOKS THIS MORNING."

Berry, who had, it should be said, slept at the hospital in the very uncomfortable visitor's chair and was now standing in the hall beside the nurses' station getting himself fitted for a new asshole by his client, had no idea what Charles was talking about. He also had no idea what day it was or when the last time he'd brushed his teeth might have been. But he'd been an Account handler long enough to have an automatic reply at the ready:

"Charles, I understand your concern. I'll look into this right away."

Suneel made a skeptical noise on the other end. As long as Berry had been an Account handler, Suneel had been working with Account handlers and prided himself on not buying any Agency bullshit.

"Where is the new creative that we signed off on a few days ago? That's what was supposed to launch today. Not this She-Ra stuff. Theirry is going ballistic, Berry. Do you understand?" pressed Suneel.

Berry's eyes darted around the hospital hallway like a cornered animal.

"I... thought it was all sorted. We delivered the final artwork on Friday. I put the change request on Shanti's desk before I left the office. Her team should have handled the swap. I can't... explain this right now. I'll have to make some calls."

Roland, who Berry had always thought of as "the nice one" cleared his throat and took his turn at bat.

"Berry, you can make all the calls you want, but this isn't about finding who's to blame"--

Charles cut in -- "Well, it's a little about that. Theirry's going to want to know who's getting fired over there."

Roland continued. "The big issue at play here, Berry -- the thing we need you to double-click on asap -- is that we need a two-pronged approach to a resolution here. One: we need to get the proper creative out in market immediately. Before Theirry's wife sees this. And B: we need a crisis management approach for the shitstorm that's about to rain down on us for creating sizeist depictions of the female form."

Suneel made a noise of support and jumped in:

"You're bang on, Rollo. We don't want to tangle with feminists. This was supposed to be a MOTHER'S DAY campaign for god sake. We've just made mothers everywhere self-conscious of their body shape! If we get one whiff of feminine outrage, Theirry is going to shit."

As much as he's been trained by experience to side with the client, Berry found it difficult to believe that the warrior-women could really be argued to be an offensive depiction of women. They weren't skinny, mincing little things. They were strong, powerful and straightforward. One of them was in a spacesuit -- how could that be sizeist? He shook his head and chose a careful position.

"Look, guys... I hear you. I do. I think the probability of this being poorly received is extremely low, but if that happens, I assure you, our Executive Creative Director will answer to that. I just need some time to make a few calls, and we'll get it all sorted out."

Even as Berry wheedled, a sudden flash of inspiration appeared. A possible way out. He would need to speak with Berenice right away.

"I'll get back to you, gents. Hold tight."

He stabbed the phone off.

***

FIRST CALL

He called Shanti to find out why the warrior creative had run in place of the "new" creative (wooden doll with a pin in its back again).

Shanti wasn't thrilled about taking a work call on a Sunday morning.

"I'm about to join a Kava Kava meditation workshop, Berry, and you're messing with my orientation of calm," she offered in answer to his barrage of questions. "I suggest you follow up with David because he's the one that came in after you left on Friday and told me to switch out the creative AGAIN and go back to the warrior women. I'm disconnecting from this call now, Berry. I need to prepare my inner sanctum for the experience ahead."

The call clicked off, and Berry's mobile phone went dark.

***

SECOND CALL

When his polished Space Gray iPhone lit up with Berry's name, David knew the game was afoot.

"Berry, this is an unexpected pleasure," he answered wryly. He held the phone away from his ear just slightly until poor Berry wore himself out.

"Berry, I acted in the interest of the Agency when I told Shanti to pull the new creative. There is NO MONEY LEFT in the Atrabax account -- which is odd -- and the fact is, the new creative we worked on has not been paid for." David added conspiratorially, "You know how deranged Niall gets about working for free. We simply can't let unpaid work run."

That silenced Berry. David knew the Atrabax fund was at its safety limit. Did he know why? Either way, that meant David (and presumably Niall) were on his trail. Had they told Allegra?

David finished the call, adding: "Anyway, the original creative is better. The client made a bad call in that case. A wooden doll with a pin in its back was never going to achieve the brief. Trust me, they'll see."

***

Berry paced in front of his Dad's hospital room door. Think, think, he advised himself. The net was closing in, and he had to do something. Something bold. Something intentional. Something that would reverse the course of the last two months.

Of course, Berry remained willfully ignorant of the fact that any attempt at course reversal merely represents another step down the path toward the inevitable.

But some people, as you know, just can't be told.

***

THIRD CALL

Berry called Berenice, who had taken the girls home last night but promised to return this morning.

"Tell me again what the Six Nations Council people said about the festival whatsit. Where and when is it happening, exactly?"

She found his interest surprising as the first time she'd mentioned that they should go and ask forgiveness in order to quiet the spirits, he'd more or less shrugged and said it sounded like "a bunch of woo-woo baloney."

She told him: "It's in 2 weeks. Near Brantford. It's called a Seed Ceremony. Basically, the community comes together to hear teachings on--"

"That's good, that's good. I'll see you when you get here."

When he hung up on her abruptly, she was annoyed that he hadn't even said Happy Mother's Day to her.