“Remoted – Hybrid” – Day 858 (Thursday) – ad magic

The Mad Men marathon continues. I’m in Season 6 now, so it will be over soon. Seeing the depiction of ad agency life in the 1960s is depressing. Ditto for what I always heard about banking while young. 

In my first banking job right after college, I kept hearing people talk about how they would love to have “banker’s hours” and “work 9 to 5” and enjoy some mythical concept of Wednesday afternoons off. I don’t know about other banks, but at the one I worked for, we worked Monday through Friday from 8:15 am to 5:00, and later if someone’s drawer didn’t balance. Our “banker’s hours” were pretty much the same as those for every office worker everywhere.

When I was off the teller line and in IRAs, and later, accounting, and then cash management, we were in early and out late all the time, depending upon what was going on. There were enviable, cushy, "banker's hours." Not for us, anyway, and especially not at the end of a reporting quarter.

New! With chips!

The exciting world of Madison Avenue advertising in the olden days has me yearning for a job where I have an office with a sofa where I can have a lie down in the afternoon after having a long lunch that maybe includes a bunch of cocktails (more likely not), but I can do without the chain smoking. When I worked in an agency in the early 2000s, we worked 8 to 5 with an hour for lunch and there were definitely no naps happening on the only sofa, which was in the lobby. Lunch now is 30 minutes, and whether it's an in-office day or remote, it usually happens at my desk while I'm doing something work related.

One Mad Men episode has the executives lining up to see a doctor to get an energy shot in the butt. In the office, no less. One by one, they pop into an office and drop trousers for a glute shot. Afterward, several were so energized, they were running foot races in the hallway. 

The doctor says the shot is a proprietary multivitamin and energy shot that will give them a boost to work through the weekend. The ad folks seem to get stuck pulling a lot of weekends, and the office couches come in handy when the don't get to leave.

In the vitamin in the butt episode, the team is on a deadline for the Chevy project, and it turns out that office workers trapped in an office for the weekend on a project with a deadline and half of them on drugs can be funny. There was even tap dancing by Ken after his shot. He was recently in a car accident and injured his foot, and broke into a song and dance production with a recitation of a list of crappy things he’s had to deal with because "it’s my job." Workers everywhere can relate.

Definitely not Reese's.

Some of the modern-day commercials in the show about advertising of long ago have been effective, but none as much as the one for the new Reese’s cups with potato chips inside. I like Reese’s cups okay in a pinch, but they are never my first choice in candy. But thanks to a week of regular nightly brainwashing by the ever-abundant commercials, I need some frigging new Reese’s cups with potato chips inside. 

Laziness prevents me from dashing out into the night in search of Reese’s with built-in chips, so instead, it’s the baking cabinet to forage for something. Anything. Pecans, almonds, craisins, raisins, and milk chocolate chips are the substitute snack that can be assembled in a pinch with ingredients usually on hand. Maybe tomorrow I’ll get look for the latest new thing. Or maybe, with luck, I’ll forget about the candy after tonight’s heavy rotation of boring pharmaceutical ads.