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Tuesday, August 16, 2016

Adventures In Advertising: An Employee Gets Revenge




When I was an assistant account executive in my first job, I was working at the Richard K. Manoff agency.  Manoff was extremely successful.  He was an account guy who left Kenyon & Eckhardt with Welch’s and, as I recall, Bumble Bee Tuna.  (It became a large and successful agency and was purchased by McCann in the late eighties.).

I had been working on two small pieces of business during my first summer. I reported to two account supervisors.  In August, what was then Lehn & Fink gave the agency all its business – Lysol, Resolve and d-Con among the brands.  It was a huge win; as I recall, about $40 million. Those were the days when agencies hired about ten people per million in business, which meant that 350-400 people would be hired. With great apologies, I was told that because of the magnitude of the account, it was necessary to hire an account executive, who I would be reporting to.

As a result of the win, the agency took more space in the building.   I sat in a small inside office.  They hired a man named Bill Smith (obviously changed); he was to share my office until his was ready, probably two or three weeks.

On the day he started work, he was brought in by my former bosses to introduce us.  I stood up to shake his hand and, to everyone’s shock, with his new bosses standing there, he refused to shake my hand saying how much he resented sharing an office with me.  He also announced in front of them that everything I did would have to first be approved by him.  I was to submit any memos to him on a yellow pad, hand printed, not written in script, and he had to sign them or they could not be typed.  i was not allowed to go to a meeting without his permission. He also told me that his work took precedence over mine and that if our secretary was typing something of his, she could not answer my phone,  it was humiliating to say the least. My supervisors were as shocked as I was. They had hired a prick and a control freak.

There was no excuse for his behavior towards me.  it didnt take long to find out that everyone disliked him.

Suffice to say, it got worse.  He constantly belittled me and humiliated me.  He put me down in front of our clients and other Manoff employees. He did the same with others.

At Christmas time, I made a lunch date with my supervisors to tell them I could not work for this nasty man.  They told me that they hated him as well, but the client liked him and they couldn’t do anything about it just yet.  They were trying to find a new account for me, but advised that I should look for a job; they would be my references and explain to anyone who asked that I did a great job in difficult circumstances.

A month or so later, I had a new job.  Two years after, I ended up as a senior account executive at Kenyon & Eckhardt.  My career really took off and I was promoted multiple times in about two years, becoming their youngest senior vice president.

At some point, I was looking for an account supervisor and, while I was on the phone with the client, the HR Director brought me a résumé and asked if I could do an interview.  I was on the phone, not paying much attention, and said yes.  Of course the résumé belonged to Bill.

He was brought to my office.  When he went to shake hands with me, of course I refused. I did not stand up. He tried to apologize for his prior behavior, but I was able to look at him and say, and this is an exact quote (how could I ever forget?), “Bill Smith, I wouldn’t hire you if you were the last account supervisor on earth.  Now get out.” I turned my back to him and went back to work.
It was a wonderful moment.

I have no idea whatever happened to him, but the moral of this story is twofold.  First, there is no excuse to be mean or nasty.  Second, if one is mean or nasty, it will come around and bite you on the backside; what goes around comes around.

10 comments:

  1. Haha, you were actually pretty merciful Paul. You could have made him sit through a half hour interview first and then delivered that line. As I commented recently in another of your columns, my father (also in this business) advised me right at the start of my career, "Be nice to everyone, you never know."

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    1. I am sure I never thought of making him sit through an interview at the time. But I couldn't wait to throw him out.

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  2. A number of years ago I worked at an agency with a particularly nasty client. Treated us as a low level vendor that was supposed to do exactly what he wanted. After a meeting in which he re-art directed a particular ad, the agency CEO called him up and fired him as a client on the spot. Short-term hit on the bottom line which we quickly made up. Long-term boost for the morale at the agency.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Firing a client is the ultimate revenge for an ad agency.

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  3. How lovely that you can still bask in this moment years later. It certainly is one to savor.

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  4. I love "good karma" stories. Have a few myself. I was connected to your blog by an old friend, Lonny Strum [we went to high school together]. Noticed that you collect glass and wondered if you've ever come across seltzer bottles with the name "Hodes" on them?

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  5. On the flip side of this: I once heard a story about a kid applying for a junior account planning job. The hiring planner really liked the kid but didn't think he was a planner. After HR informed the kid he would not be moving on the hiring manager called him to give him advice including that he might be better off on the client side. A number of years later that planner was pitching an account and found that "kid" was on the other side of the table. That "kid" was not the key decision maker but spoke up to his CMO and helped the agency win the account. karma can be a bitch...but it can also be your best friend.

    ReplyDelete
  6. On the flip side of this: I once heard a story about a kid applying for a junior account planning job. The hiring planner really liked the kid but didn't think he was a planner. After HR informed the kid he would not be moving on the hiring manager called him to give him advice including that he might be better off on the client side. A number of years later that planner was pitching an account and found that "kid" was on the other side of the table. That "kid" was not the key decision maker but spoke up to his CMO and helped the agency win the account. karma can be a bitch...but it can also be your best friend.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. As they say, honesty is the best policy. The planner spoke the truth, which may have been tough on the kid at the time; but the kid knew it was true. I have always tried to be truthful and honest with my candidates. Sometimes, it is difficult - like when I tell a fifty year old who has had six jobs in five years, the advice that he or she should have a Plan B. (Wrote a post about that.)

      Delete
    2. There is no reason to ever be nasty or rude and I know executives who think this is a way of establishing their control and power.

      Delete

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