Social Netiquette

I have a love/hate relationship with Facebook. I love that I can keep up with my friends through amusing status updates. This is especially true for people who are no longer in this area or who I've met through my travels. Or even people who work in our Other Building.

But some people just don't seem to know when enough is enough. I've had to hide several people who seem to do nothing except take endless quizzes and post status updates every 10 minutes. I don't know how you can be that active online and hold down a job.

I remember last year, the Pope encouraged teens to give up Facebook for Lent. At the time, I was new to it, and not being a big fan of this particular Pope, thought it was a bit weird. But you know, I think taking a break every now and then might not be such a bad idea.

High School Musical Too

So, last week, I found out that someone who has had a negative impact on my career has left the company, and I was a little humiliated to find out how happy that made me. I mean, really! I've always complained that her behavior and treatment of people was pretty high schoolish and look at me! Like the wimpy kid that cheers when someone finally beats up the bully.

But in examining my reaction, it occurred to me that, in a lot of ways, ad agencies very much mirror high school. There is definitely a caste system, or at the very least cliques. Once you're branded as one thing, it's nearly impossible to make the switch. (I remember a project manager who wanted to become a writer and believe me, that didn't end well.)

And I bet you could probably match people's current jobs to what they were like in high school.

• Creative Services: These folks were probably either in band and/or the theatre department. I say this as a former and inner creative myself. Definitely my background.
• Client Services: I'm willing to bet these people were the cheer leaders, drill team, jocks and student council members. There's just a ton of skill crossover there.
• Tech: I'm just gonna generalize and say that these people were probably in the Math Club and National Honor Society.

I know we have other departments here, but I don't really have enough exposure to them to make an educated guess.

Of course, having said that, now, like in high school, I don't really fit into any one category and I would suspect that most of the people I respect here, don't either. In high school, I was somewhere between the band geeks, the theatre crowd, the Math Club (believe it or not) and the freaks (I had a thing for boys with long hair). And my current role is so broadly defined that it could encompass anything from cheerleader to chess club to Future Farmers of America.

All I can say though is that I'm greatful to be out of high school and that for the most part, job descriptions and personal backgrounds are where the similarities end.

Lessons from the Jungle Cruise

So I just returned from a week's reprieve at the Happiest Place on Earth. It's funny, because in a lot of ways, I'm pretty jaded, but I still get goosebumps when I ride Pirates of the Caribbean and I have to smile when my 7-year-old niece and 5-year-old nephew run up to Stitch and beg for autographs.

This trip was a little different though because now my niece (no, not the 7-year-old, this one is 21) works there so we got to see things from a totally different perspective.

Let's face it -- I wouldn't last 5 minutes at a job like this. I can't stand the idiot questions I get from my supposedly professional co-workers, much less completely clueless tourists. But after watching my niece and her friends at work, I noticed something. They get frustrated too, but they've also learned how to have a good time with it. And they make the most out of the limited creative license they have -- yes, many of the jokes are standard, but they add their own and turn what could be a totally monotonous job into something of an acting career.

Don't worry. I'm not going to start cracking bad jokes. Remember, I'm the chick with no sense of humor. But I am going to try to remember that I'm a creative at heart and use my limited creative license to have some fun.

The Road Not Taken

So, as I was driving in this morning, I was listening to my new favorite song, "Sound of Madness" by Shinedown. It's basically a cry of frustration from the singer to presumably a romantic interest who blames all of her problems on her bipolar disorder, but refuses to get seek help. He confirms that he, too, suffers from mental illness, but he's chosen to deal with it.

One of the reasons I'm so fond of this song is because I can relate -- oddly enough, both personally and professionally. My work these days is primarily around mental disorders and the treatments, and one of the biggest issues is that many people either won't take the drugs at all or stop taking them. From a personal perspective, I have friends, family and romantic attachments who have refused or ceased treatment as well. The results have not been pretty. We're talking divorces, estrangements, hospitalization, substance abuse, suicide attempts and unfortunately, completion.

I've read a ton of research and I understand the issues -- the side effects, the complications and the not-feeling-like-yourself, among others. But what I don't understand is the complete giving up. Believe me, I'm not unsympathetic. I have more than my share of issues and I've been down in that hole more than a couple of times. But when I see that it's hurting other people in my life, it's time to do something.

I know that the drugs are not for everyone. But there are other options -- exercise, yoga, counseling, diet changes, hypnosis and herbal treatments, just to name a few. And yes, I know that mental illness severely inhibits initiative and motivation. But to not even try? When someone offers to help? When you can see that it's destroying relationships?

I'm not sure where I'm going with this except venting my frustration at people who won't get help and let it ruin their lives and those of others. Shinedown guy, I hear you and I'm giving you a virtual high five for choosing to fight rather than spending eternity in that pit of dispair.

So while I'm trying to figure out what I want to be when I grow up, I thought I'd share a lighter topic. A few months back, I stumbled on to a blog entry called "Deconstructing Jonny Quest". It was about the funniest thing I've read in a long time -- I remember LOVING that show as a child. For those of you who aren't familiar with it, Jonny Quest was a Saturday morning cartoon about Jonny, his scientist/adventurer dad, their bodyguard (???) Race Bannon, an Indian kid named Hadji that they presumably adopted and a pug named Bandit. Each week, they would fly around the world fighting evil, in the form of mummies, aliens, mechanical spiders, ghost pirates, etc. If this sounds even remotely like a normal cartoon, do a search on YouTube for the credits.

But that got me to thinking about the other bizarre show concepts that I watched as a child. I realize I was born in the 60s, but there must have been a lot of drugs circulating around the television studios during those days! Here's some of the ones I remember:

The Banana Splits: This was sort of a live-action variety show for kids, I guess. The Banana Splits were a band that hosted the show, made up of (and I'm not kidding!) a gorilla, an elephant, a dog and a lion. They played rock music, told bad jokes and introduced a series of cartoons and live action shows, such as Danger Island (with cannibals), the Three Musketeers, Arabian Nights and Gulliver's Travels. The opening credits alone could make you think you were hallucinating.

HR Puf'n'Stuf: There's a reason this show got a head shop named after it -- this is easily the most bizarre one of the bunch. The premise is that a British kid has a magic flute that can talk and is being pursued by a witch (aptly named WitchyPoo) who desperately wants the flute for something diabolical. The only safety he can find is under the protection of a dragon/sheriff named HR Puf'n'stuf who lives on an island with furniture and other usually inaminate objects that have come to life. Would you believe this came from the same people who brought you the Banana Splits? And yes, it's live action, too.

The Perils of Penelope Pitstop: This is the stereotypical damsel-in-distress show. Penelope is a race car driver who can outdrive anyone in the Fast & the Furious franchise, but apparently is too oblivious to notice death traps set by her uncle. You see, Penelope is an heiress and the next in line for her fortune is her uncle, so naturally, he tries to kill her every episode. And despite the fact that she can operate very sophisticated vehicles at high speeds, she always ends up in some time-delayed execution. So tied to the train tracks, suspended from a cliff with a candle under the rope, that type of thing. Fortunately, she has a posse of golden-hearted mobsters who always seem to know when she's in trouble and pile into their PT Cruiser to come rescue her.

I haven't tried re-watching any of these after a horrible experience watching the old Speed Racer cartoon. (I guess as a child, I didn't notice that the characters don't move at all naturally and that the audio doesn't sync up to their mouths, but as an adult, it was pretty annoying.) I want to remember them as insanely goofy magical experiences that shaped me today. Or account for what's wrong with me. ;)

A Framework of Fail

So I've alluded to the fact that I'm somewhat less enamored of my job than I have been in the past. To clarify a bit, I used to be user-focused -- it was my job to make sure that I understood who was using our end product and how to make it the best possible experience for them. That all changed post-vacation. I came back and was told that with my new clients, I was focused on the business. As in how to make them more money.

OK, fine. I understand that they have to make money or they can't pay us and if they don't pay us, I don't have a job. But this new "focus on the business" aspect is insane. I guess if I was an MBA, I might have more respect for it. But what it means to me is that I'm no longer involved in the work. I feel like I'm actually doing meta work -- you know work about the work. I feel like all I do these days is create frameworks to talk about talking about the work. And argue with other people about them. At length.

The problem is that at the end of the day, the frameworks are useless. I've been in the trenches and I know what the people doing the actual work really need. And it's not a bunch of charts and boxes describing the approach. Oh sure, we present them and argue about them and finally agree about them. But what happens then? They languish unused on the server while the writers, designers and IAs are scrambling to get the information they truly need to get the job done.

So there it is. When I was first presented with this, I thought I could handle it a bit like the Comedian from Watchmen, albeit without the napalm, guns and blowtorch. He saw the world for what it was and because he thought he was the only one who got the joke, he made himself into a parody of the world. I thought I could do the same thing -- I get that it's all a joke, and I do get paid for it, so why not just have fun and laugh quietly to myself while I'm earning a paycheck. But it turns out that the joke's on me. Doing this for 10+ hours a day plus traveling almost every week to talk about it with people who actually take this seriously is destroying my soul.

I go on vacation in exactly a week and I think I'll use that time to search what's left of my soul to figure out what I want to be when I grow up. Who knows? Maybe I'll come up with a framework for it.