Who’da thunk it?

It’s been nearly a year since I was laid-off from the ad agency I worked at for over seven years, and the industry I’ve worked in nearly my entire adult life. It was nerve-racking and utterly frustrating the nine-months I was unemployed and relying on freelance for income. With the economy as bad as it is, few companies were hiring, and the ones that were looking sought to find the cheapest low-end talent they could find. It reminded me how “on the edge” that business truly is.

For the last few months I’ve been working in the marketing department for a landscaping company. That’s right, a company that at its core mows lawn, prunes trees, kills weeds and cleans up the mess after a storm. Little did I know how diverse and intricate such a service could be; and how interesting it could be working for one.

Gone were the days of elaborate flavors of coffee, obscenely overpriced office space, fancy new equipment, hours a day of foosball games and YouTube videos, and what seemed to be an endless supply of free-flowing bullshit discussions around the water cooler that got billed to some client at the end of the month.

Though my day-to-day work entails quite a variety of tasks, the bulk of which involves simple tasks such as talking to people, emailing, writing proposals and memos, and gathering data; I’m still afforded the luxury of doing a little graphic design work. While I’m not working on potential Addy award-winning campaigns, I’m finding that the work I am doing is much more rewarding.

Simple things like designing a small ad, a cover for a proposal, a poster for a trade show, or some small graphics for an email-blast have provided a surprising amount of gratification. I see results immediately, people are genuinely happy to see the work, and there’s little “push-back” on the design work itself. By that I mean, the people I work with actually trust the work I’m doing. We all have our specialty, and we’re simply expected to “do our thing.”

Then there’s the clients, the people who hire us to make their community look good. The marketing aspect of this is simple because these community managers are happy to see us, happy to receive the benefits of our work, and genuinely like us. It’s fairly easy to “market” that type of client.

In itself, that doesn’t sound like much, I know. But unlike the advertising business in general, there’s no office rumor-mongering, department finger-pointing, or bickering and complaining about management. In short, everyone appears to be secure in their job and loves doing it. I’ve not felt the need to be constantly looking over my shoulder, nor have I experienced the frustration of someone take one look at the results of a what was 40 or more hours of several people’s work and say “what the f#ck is this?” and essentially throw it in the trash. These are the same people who then demand you do the ad, the TV commercial, or the brochure THEIR WAY, then blame you when it’s not effective or flat out fails.

The last few years at the agency I was working for was a daily test of patience, humility and frustration. It was miserable. That was then, and this is now.

I’m eager to get to work in the morning. I look forward to collaborating with the other people in the company – particularly the four other people in the marketing department. I’m proud of the work we’re doing, and utterly overjoyed with the fact that it’s just a pleasant place to work. I don’t know how everything is going to work out in the end, but I’m excited to see where it takes me. That’s something I haven’t felt in many, many years.