Ad Nomad

by Eric Jay Sonnenschein

  “I had no idea, really!” Dane replied, playing along with Sheldon’s exotic strain of racial guilt. He wondered if “Ronny and the culture of plagiarism” was one more parable from the Book of Sheldon.

  “Things are not always as they appear,” Sheldon said sententiously.

  “No,” Dane agreed. He strongly suspected that Sheldon was talking crap, but it was the sweetest crap he ever heard because it did not include the words, “You’re fired.”

  5. FOUR RULES OF NOBLE CONDUCT

  Dane’s anger over Ronny’s plagiarism passed swiftly but deposited a residue of fear. Having his work stolen diminished his career but protecting it seemed far worse. When he denounced Ronny, he defended a concept which could die in days, whereas his job might not last as long. Ronny had seniority, minority status and was a victim of history—a human resources triple-threat. By accusing Ronny, Dane incriminated himself.

  Worst of all, Dane had violated the Integrimedicom code—again.

  Pride in his work was a self-destructive attitude which put his career at risk, but expunging it could do irreversible harm. If Dane renounced intellectual property, he might kill his creative spirit, which he would need for the afterlife, life after advertising. Dane believed advertising was his Babylon, a transient affliction, and that he was a “bird of passage” who would return to writing, his impecunious passion.

  The senior copywriter wished to renounce ambition for security and a paycheck but craved recognition. Discontent surged in him like peptic acid after his twice-weekly falafels until he asked himself the Integrimedicom question that dispelled all anguish for a time. “Why am I complaining? I have a window office with plants on the sill and a view of Soho.”

  Dane was embroiled in a career-threatening conflict between transcendence and the job. Creative fulfillment, which he craved, came in moments—at conception, peer acceptance, and wider approval—but a job spread over time like eternal butter on infinite bread. Transcendence meant nothing in a job. By forgetting this, Dane put himself in continual dread of losing it. Could he find transcendence in his work? To find out, Dane needed to go within.

  He rectified his previous errors by practicing Integrimedicom’s Four Rules of Noble Conduct—work on everything, collaborate with anyone, own nothing, offend no one—as specified in a human resources memorandum titled “Professionalism” and transcribed by the Committee for Professional Standards from the Book of Sheldon. Dane accepted hack work with enthusiasm, undertook menial projects with servile humility, and kept his head down and his mind occupied.

  When changes came from clients, Dane copied them on the most recent lay-out, titled The Bible, with the painstaking pride of a Sumerian scribe. If he altered even a word to feel like a real writer, the account executive badgered him to transcribe the changes verbatim. Plagiarism was preferred to paraphrase since clients put their trust in pre-approved verbiage. Ronny was probably right. Copywriters were hired to copy.

  Dane put in long hours to prove his diligence so Sheldon and Nadine would consider him worthy of his hire. He was going in the right direction—but only crawling there. These measures were too subtle to repair the image he had created as an ambitious loner. He needed a bolder gesture of subservience and ego-denial. Since he had made a poor impression by defending his work from theft, he needed to show he had gone beyond petty possessiveness.

  During the next creative free-for-all, Dane wrote headlines and taped them to the walls of his office, then left the door open so Ronny and others could come in and steal freely. Dane waited but no one came. “I probably scared them off with all of my ownership issues,” he muttered. If his thieving colleagues would not walk in and help themselves to his ideas under his willing nose, he would deliver the stolen goods. Dane stopped by Ronny’s office with pages of headlines and asked him about his recuperating anus. Ronny shrugged. “At least I can fart pain-free,” the suffering plagiarist conceded. Dane nodded sympathetically and “misplaced” the stack of headlines on Ronny’s desk.

  Then Dane barged into Sheldon’s office to ask which expensive watch he should buy on installment from a pawnbroker. “I can’t help you with pawnbrokers,” Sheldon replied. Dane thanked him profusely for his expertise and left a stack of headlines on a chair before he left.

  Dane dropped pages on the desks and chairs in every colleague’s office and waited for harvest. So they would know the work was his, he key stroked every word in his signature Tahoma font. After leaving his donations, he toiled on his own headlines, tags and body copy.

  At the next creative review, Dane looked for his headlines and concepts among those presented by his colleagues, but no one had stolen so much as one headline, tag—or word. Dane was stunned and offended. What a perverse lot his Integrimedicom colleagues were—they would steal but would not accept a gift.

  Perhaps he had made it too easy for them. Maybe they mistrusted the handout headline that appeared mysteriously on their desks, as if it were a Halloween apple with an embedded razor blade or a suspicious suitcase in a public place. After 9/11, everyone was on alert. Soon signs might be posted around the office: “If you find suspicious copy, call security.”

  Dane was frustrated by the difficulty of giving away his creative bounty but he did not relent. Perhaps his colleagues needed a greater challenge. Maybe they preferred to find great headlines willy-nilly as in a scavenger hunt. For the next assignment, Dane littered his clever pages in public places—on the floors of toilet stalls, kitchenette counters and conference tables. He printed copies and left them on the printers. He waited to be plundered. However, at the next creative review, Dane was the only one to present Dane’s work.

  He was more despondent and frustrated than usual as the Integrimedicom way remained an elusive concept.

  “I can’t give it away!” He lamented. “Maybe I’m not meant for selfless creativity.”

  6. THREE LITTLE WORDS

  By testifying to Ronny’s transgression, Goldfarb saved Dane’s job. In recognition of this, Sheldon and Nadine dissolved their partnership.

  Dane was now paired with Gordon Palmisano, the associate creative director of art. Palmisano had a dour countenance and an austere manner. Goldfarb speculated that it was because Palmisano was disappointed on his wedding night—and never recovered. Around this soft, morbid core formed a gnarly crust. Palmisano held strong views on many things for a very long time and was averse to compromise. The bulbous roots of a rubber plant, which he had purchased when he arrived at Integrimedicom fifteen years before, now traversed his office floor like boa constrictors. Palmisano drew inspiration from them as he squeezed the life out of his writing partner’s copy.

  “Sheldon and Nadine want to see us,” he told Dane. It related to a project they had done weeks before.

  Sheldon and Nadine sat in his corner office, gossiping about Beulah Muschamp, a spokeswoman for Donaral. The aging pop diva had a commercial where she said she shrank two inches and lost two of her five octaves before taking Donaral. Singing at a recent corporate function, Beulah hit a high C and shattered the Donaral marketing director’s champagne glass in mid-sip, cutting his tongue and lips. A diabetic who used an insulin pump while binging on donuts, the marketing director bled profusely because he was on an anti-platelet therapy for atherosclerosis.

  Nadine was listing the sexual favors the marketing director could no longer render his wife when Sheldon noticed Palmisano and Dane loitering in the doorway. With a mortified nod, he invited them in. Nadine’s loquacity having run its course, Sheldon told the creative team why they were summoned.

  Several 11x17 color concepts from weeks before lay across Sheldon’s desk. They were for the makers of Uribilox, a 24-hour slow-release pill to stop overactive bladder, a disease Sheldon proudly claimed to have invented. Before overactive bladder entered medical books, a persistent urge to urinate was not considered an illness, but part of aging, like senility. People without bladder control stayed close to toilets and tried to hide their problem out of shame
.

  Then Sheldon and the makers of Urbilox transformed a humiliating problem into a dignified disease, which was sympathetic and treatable. Brochures, hotlines and questions to ask your doctor supplanted shame and ridicule.

  “The client chose your concept for their annual meeting,” Sheldon explained.

  “All right!” Dane bellowed and pumped his fist. In that impulsive gesture, Dane undid weeks of progress he had made to become a selfless high-paid peon. It was hard to undo a lifetime of uncorroborated self-love.

  “Can we improve it?” Sheldon asked.

  “Come up with better words,” Nadine said.

  “The client didn’t like the words?” Dane asked.

  “What the client likes doesn’t count here,” Nadine declared. “Only what we think matters. The client pays us because we’re experts.”

  Dane knew he was in trouble when Sheldon and Nadine acted like aesthetic gurus rather than client-pleasing prostitutes.

  “Imagine, Innovate. Inspire are three little words,” Dane pleaded.

  “They’re big words but the ideas are small,” Nadine replied, her eyes fixed on Dane’s crotch. “Maybe we need smaller words but bigger ideas. Like Think, wish, dream.”

  “Imagine, Innovate. Inspire are fine words,” Dane replied indignantly.

  “They’re egotistical words. They all start with I,” Nadine snapped.

  Everything can be improved,” Palmisano added.

  “We’ll help you,” Sheldon said with paternal alacrity.

  We’ll help you were the three and a half little words Dane dreaded most. They meant his words would die, but only after he was tortured in the vain attempt to save them. The creative directors wanted to own every creative act. A cold light flared in Palmisano’s dark eyes, like a nova in a distant galaxy, as he anticipated the fun. Dane had battled him for these words. Now Palmisano would get his thesaurus-thumping revenge.

  “It’s your copy, Dane. Sheldon said. You have the last word.”

  In what sounded like a burping match, Sheldon, Nadine, and Palmisano blurted alternatives for the three word sequence.

  “Investigate. Integrate. Invigorate,” Nadine said.

  “Nice,” Sheldon replied.

  “Initiate. Eliminate. Illuminate,” Palmisano said.

  “Too dark,” Nadine said.

  “Direct. Connect. Protect,” Sheldon said.

  “That says it all,” Nadine said.

  When every effort to change his words was exhausted, Dane said, “I like my copy.”

  “Are you sure?” Sheldon asked with furrowed brow.

  “Yes.”

  Dane left Sheldon’s office with his three words intact. He won the skirmish. Yet in the solitude of his office, he did not feel victorious, only insecure. Integrimedicom offered no place or support for personal satisfaction. The very air rejected it.

  “What did you do this time?” Dane berated himself. All ad agencies shared one immutable truth. The creative director had more clout than a copywriter. Dane realized that he might have put his job and family’s welfare in peril—again.

  7. AESTHETIC VS ASSTHETIC

  Goldfarb, Dane’s guide in the ways of Integrimedicom, appeared in the doorway. His eyes were closed. He had been up since 5 AM. He had biked to his town’s YMCA, swum a quarter mile, biked to his town’s train station, then hiked two miles from Grand Central to Integrimedicom—and it was now late afternoon.

  When Dane saw his mentor and said, “Hey!” Goldfarb’s eyelids snapped open and his eyes were bright with mirth. Dane was startled.

  “Three words! Not even a sentence,” Goldfarb said. “Would it have killed you to let Sheldon have a word?”

  “So you heard! No! Yes!” Dane slumped over his desk and pulled on his thinning hair. He was divided against himself. “It wouldn’t have killed me but it would have killed the headline.”

  Goldfarb smiled at the torment of the younger man.

  “You’re weak,” Goldfarb chided. “What is a headline? Words on paper! You are a master of words but you let words master you.”

  “I do, don’t I?” Dane admitted. “I’m so stupid!” He smacked his forehead.

  “Not stupid. Just handicapped by a hypertrophic ego. Hey, how do you like hypertrophic coming from me?”

  “It’s beautiful…But it wasn’t my big ego this time, Goldfarb. I was compelled by an aesthetic law,” Dane replied.

  “You mean assthetic.”

  “If I changed one word, I had to change them all, and the line would die,” Dane argued.

  “Words don’t die, oh Wordy One,” Goldfarb said as he pulled a yogurt and a plastic spoon from the deep pocket of his cargo pants. “They are reborn a billion times in a billion mouths from a billion minds, most of which are empty.”

  “Spoken like an art director who failed English composition,” Dane countered. “Words produce combinations, like stones that lean on each other in precarious balance. A headline rejects a new word like a body rejects a transplant.”

  “And an agency passes a new copywriter like a stone.”

  “You’re right,” Dane conceded. “So what can I do?”

  “I’ve taught you what I know,” Goldfarb said. “But I’m an art director, a click-meister, playing with type, images and layout. You need to learn from another copywriter. What about your neighbor, McAdam? He’ll teach you all you need to know about being a writer at Integrimedicom.”

  By fighting for himself, Dane had not gained confidence but lost his nerve. Were words worth such agony? Dane vowed never to fight for language again. Only the job mattered—the license to write for money. He would learn from McAdam.

  8. THE ROLE MODEL

  Goldfarb was right. No one exemplified the creative philosophy of Integrimedicom more completely than James McAdam. In the next office, McAdam hacked away at brochures about menopause based on internet articles he copied, pasted, discarded and forgot—a method which led to last-minute havoc when facts needed to be checked and sources found.

  McAdam embodied Integrimedicom’s ideals. He grinned fatuously, spoke softly, drank heavily and worked long into the night.

  His father was the legendary founder of an award-winning agency, but James rebelled against all that McAdam Sr. stood for—originality, excellence and success—only to create a new standard. James disappeared every afternoon for beer and volleyball with friends, then returned to his office and toiled into the night. This regimen permitted him to bill a ridiculous number of hours to capricious clients.

  McAdam’s unique schedule also made him an elusive colleague. Dane, for one, rarely saw him. At meetings McAdam seldom spoke. When Dane worked late he passed McAdam’s office to see Integrimedicom’s paragon at work—and to learn in candid glimpses how success could be achieved.

  But McAdam’s process repelled a simple read. Each night he pecked on a keyboard on his lap, as if guarding the mystery of the wordsmith’s creative act. With white socks crossed on his desk and his red face glowing in a yellow pool of lamp light, McAdam was a luminous icon in the dark. He smiled at the keys and evinced no sign of effort. His brow never furrowed from strain; he did not frown, pause, or check his monitor. He knew his words so well that he did not need to confirm them with his eyes.

  Dane stood in the doorway and studied McAdam, immersed in his task. “If only my work were this easy,” he thought.

  McAdam suddenly glanced up. He nodded casually at Dane as if a colleague staring at him from the hallway were normal behavior.

  “Hey! Working late?” McAdam asked.

  “Of course,” Dane said. “Sorry for bothering you. I couldn’t help but notice how you go about your business. It seems effortless.”

  “I can do this in my sleep. In fact, I am sleeping,” McAdam said.

  “You must have good dreams because you’re smiling.”

  “It’s the booze. I’m a happy hack,” McAdam admitted.

  Dane laughed. He identified McAdam him as that rare individual Maslow describe
d: a self-actualized human, perfectly suited to his environment and work.

  One morning, the creative wing of Integrimedicom was in a panic. Babette, the vice president of client services, was screaming. Nadine paced and looked overwrought. Sheldon gulped down aspirins and gripped his Swiss watch like a squeeze toy. Sid Gorfine, the agency president, was on the creative floor, smacking his leather pants with hyperactive wrath.

  “McAdam’s in trouble,” Goldfarb said.

  James McAdam’s career had advanced because he amiably did what he was told. Recently, Babette and her client pressured him to insert a map he found on the internet into a brochure. When the agency’s unauthorized use was detected by the atlas publisher, James was cited for copyright infringement.

  Dane was disoriented. Only weeks after he submitted to the values of Integrimedicom, its business was under siege and his role model was in disgrace. Dane had to deprogram himself to his default setting of integrity. He hoped McAdam’s plagiarism would shock Integrimedicom out of its stealing ways so Dane could be openly original again.

  However, by week’s end, Integrimedicom had paid the atlas publisher a licensing fee and a five-figure settlement and order was restored. McAdam accepted full responsibility but rather than lose his job, he was promoted to vice president! In an email announcing the promotion, Sheldon described McAdam as the consummate team player and praised him for his initiative and accountability.

  The culture of larceny returned and Dane resumed trying to emulate McAdam—a serial beer drinker who sacrificed evenings, talent and reputation for the team—in order to fit in. McAdam was Sheldon’s favorite and Nadine teased him about his alcohol abuse. If only Dane could be like McAdam!