An Ordinary Day -- 2

10:05
I survived the meeting. Once more I promise myself that I will generally abolish meetings as soon as I become chairman of a multinational as being the main reason for inefficiencies, slow decision-making processes, and most probably also for the holes in the ozone layer. Until then, I continue developing clever strategies to keep them to a bare minimum, because -- believe it or not -- I actually want to get things done when I'm in the office, which of course is a contradiction in terms when you're in a meeting. Nevertheless, I'm quite satisfied with the meeting because I got to do a lot of work on my report.

10:30
I've read the first 20 e-mails that I got in the last two hours, deleting 14 that are just replies to a question where "reply to all" was selected. I make a note to abolish this function in MS Outlook when I become chairman of a multinational.

10:45
I start replying to the other E-Mails, only to be interrupted every 30 seconds by the incredibly slow network, which makes the computer look like it's crashed. Funnily enough, it always comes to live exactly 10 seconds after you've called the Helpdesk. They really like me there. The company has apparently invented a new policy as far as IT is concerned, which probably runs something like this:
"It is the sole purpose of an IT department to annoy everybody working with computers to the extent of driving him completely insane, and then ask for more money to buy a bigger and even slower network."

11:00
After the friendly man from the Helpdesk has left (stating that it's all "part of the system", which is exactly what I was afraid of), I start discussing the strategy for our core brand with my two fellow-colleagues. It's a good discussion with some actual conclusions because no-one senior is present, so we write down the main points in a presentation and agree on a follow-up discussion with the agency.

12:30
Like most of the times I skip lunch, partly because the quality of the food in the canteen strongly reminds me of the stuff I feed to my cats (including the presentation), and partly because I'm actually one of those rare creatures who really likes his work and consequently hates being interrupted by something as boringly normal and unproductive as lunch. Furthermore, since I recognized to my bare horror that I couldn't see my knees any more when taking a shower, I decided to cut down on my waistline. So I do some more of E-Mail reading.

12:40
I snap a mars-bar from the machine because I'm starving.

13:15
Together with some colleagues I look at the proposals for a leaflet by an advertising agency. We're very satisfied because the proposals are really good, and we feel it really meets the brief. One of the reasons is obviously that we hired a non-aligned agency (because this is allowed for non-traditional below-the-line activities like leaflets) instead of one of the company's club agencies. And these, usually somewhat smaller, agencies are sometimes actually creative! -- something which club agencies by definition are not.
I often suspected that there's some law that results in capital punishment should an aligned agency develop something creative -- like public flogging on the bottom being tied naked to a pole on the marketplace in the middle of Amsterdam in July.
Admittedly, I could imagine they have a slightly different view on this.

14:15
I meet with the financial guy to discuss the low profitability of our new innovation. Recognizing that the low profitability is mainly owing to high transportation costs and expensive packaging, we agree on a compromise: I raise the end consumer price a bit, while he agrees to book some overhead costs on a totally different brand. Apparently, with two great minds at work, creative solutions to most problems can be found.

15:15
I snatch another mars-bar because I'm still starving.

15:20
I get back to my office to find the small light on my telephone blinking desperately with some seven messages. Six of them turn out to be just beep-beep-beep, so they're quickly dealt with. The seventh one is from the account director of our aligned agency, who says he's feeling "very unhappy" and "actually a bit depressed," and demands to know why they haven't been invited to present for the leaflet-job.

15:30
Just as I decided to ignore the account director, he calls again. I spend the next half hour discussing apparently different visions on quality (including the definition thereof), the importance of brands in general, the importance of my brand in particular, and the great work he claims the agency has done in the early eighties.

16:00
The rest of the brand team and I have an appointment with the chairman, who wants to be informed about our thinking on next year. He listens attentively for half an hour, nodding regularly (oh-oh!), which gives us the dangerous feeling of confidence.
When we finish, he acknowledges the great work we've done, the enormous amount of great thinking that has went into the plans, and he points out that he especially likes the intra-departmental synergies (Note: a new buzzword!) that we managed to achieve. Still, he claims to miss "truly holistic step-change thinking that enables us to break the rules and create a mindset-shift into a new paradigm in order to face the mounting challenges of a pan-European vision that only high-performing integrated teams will be able to address."
We are deeply impressed by his using no less than nine buzzwords in one single sentence. We thank him for the inspiring insights that will enable us to create the culture of change that we'll need in order to think out of the box and create a miracle, and we leave with the satisfying feeling that the plan is perfect as it is.

[cont...]