Adventures In Advertising: The Worst Account Group, Ever

I once worked as head of account management for a terrible mid-size advertising agency which, I discovered, was totally dysfunctional.  In the account group, there were 12 other account people.  

Among them:

There was an management rep who had not gone to visit her client in New Jersey in over a year. Neither had the two account people who reported to her.

There was a management rep whose client was the worst payer in the agency. And then I discovered that the agency system was that the account people had to approve and then send out the billing.  The accounting department assumed that it would be approved and sent immediately, so it was marked as “due” as soon as it was released to the account manager.  This account person had gotten away with allowing client invoices to sit on his desk for weeks, even months.

There was another account director who expected the creatives to accept assignments through conference reports.  When the work was late, be blamed the creative department for not reading the conference reports.  He never went to brief them in person.

There was an account supervisor who was working with a client on a marketing analysis but refused to accept changes the client made despite their mutual agreement.  And, instead of discussing her disagreements with the client, she just did nothing until the client complained to me.

There was another account supervisor who the client complained about because she was always late.  She only worked on this one account.  When confronted, she told me she was too busy to get the work out in a timely fashion.

All these characters were account people at the same agency at the same time.

When I went to the president to tell him that I needed to fire the account guy who did not get the billing out (he was worse than just the billing issue), the president said the me, and I swear this is true, “Not him.  Anyone else.  He is the only one who will come to my apartment on a weekend to help me move furniture.”

I started looking for a job.