Workaholics Of The World, Go Home.

I can remember burning my fair share of the midnight oil when I started in this business. In fact, I can still taste the cold pizza and warm beer as my AD and I sat in a deserted office building, scribbling down ideas and wondering if 18 concepts for a campaign was going to be enough to get us through the meeting with the CD the following day.

That was inexperience. It was also the norm for new hires, especially for creatives fresh out of college. We didn’t know any better, we were juniors and we figured the best way to impress was to deliver quantity.

I also remember feeling very proud of myself as I curled up on the couch in the corner of the creative department, ready to grab a few hours of sleep before the next day of work began. My AD was out buying Red Bull by the crate. He figured he’d be better off just not sleeping at all. And we just couldn’t wait to see the faces of the senior team who had clearly given up the ghost long ago.

We scoffed as they left the office during daylight hours. On the way out, they told us to go home. We said we still had work to do; that we could do more and think more and create more. When we asked how they had done, they told us they had three or four solid campaign ideas. And as they walked to the elevator, I looked at my AD and gave him a shit-eating grin. This was going to be embarrassing.

It was.

The presentation the next day was something of a milestone for both of us. As we pinned campaign after campaign to the wall, we started to lose the interest of the CD. He was clearly becoming bored, and campaign 15, the one we thought would blow him away, had barely raised an eyebrow. The phrase “what else have you got?” was being repeated with a frequency we weren’t too happy with.

Finally, we were done. He thanked us for the effort, and then asked the senior team to present their ideas. The first campaign, well, it was good. No, it was really good. Better than anything we’d put on the board.

As it turns out, this was just fodder to whet the appetite.

Campaigns two and three, they were award-winners. Campaign four, well, it was so rich and thick with creative juice that we could have bottled it. We watched, like rubber-neckers at a car crash, as the CD and the senior team started chit-chatting about which one of the four campaigns should be presented to the client.

Our work didn’t get a mention. Not one word.

On the way out, as we gathered up our piles of paper with faces longer than John Holmes’ schlong, the CD patted us on the back and thanked us for the effort.

We’d done everything right. We’d dug in, drank coffee by the gallon, slept at the office, produced campaign after campaign, we’d even brought a change of clothes so that we could look fresh for the next day.

What we hadn’t done though was put our effort into the right place. We had been so intent of throwing out quantity that we hadn’t really focused on the brief. We didn’t edit ourselves. We didn’t re-evaluate each idea, or see where it could be made better. We didn’t give anything the overnight test, and we also had muddy thinking. The senior team, they were sharp and rested when they presented the work. They only had four ideas, but they were all contenders. They’d given the work time to sink in, and made changes in the morning that honed each idea to perfection. Not us. We’d worked ourselves into the ground, while they had hit a home run and had eight hours of sleep in a comfy bed.

We swore wouldn’t make that mistake again.
But we did.

All too often in our career, we were workaholics. The need to constantly produce, and to be seen to be producing (the martyr factor), was something we had a hard time shaking. We got in early, we worked through lunch, and we left late.

As time went on, the quality of the work improved, and the quantity went down. But personally, it took me a decade to learn that being a workaholic takes its toll on everyone. And it was echoed in a great book called Rework, by Jason Fried and David Heinemeier Hansson.

The main problem with workaholics is that they throw time at a problem. They think that by spending more time working on something, the end result will be much better.

“Of course it will” most of you are screaming. As creatives, we all want to spend more percolating on a project. That’s not the issue. This is the difference between spending the required amount of time on a project, and an unreasonable amount time. We all need time to sit and percolate. We all need more than a few hours to crack a brief. That’s not the issue.

Workaholics don’t care for timelines. They don’t need them. Whether you give them twenty hours or two hundred hours, they’ll always go over. There’s almost some insane pleasure that workaholics get from always staying late, getting in early and working weekends. It’s almost like we have to admire them for sacrificing every aspect of their lives in the pursuit of one more idea, or one more execution.

Sometimes, workaholics will hit on a great solution within a day of being briefed. I mean a real killer idea. But that won’t stop them from creating reams of fodder to throw on the walls. Ah yes, the twenty extra campaigns that serve to “show your thinking.” Do they really serve anyone but themselves?

There are problems with workaholics that go beyond personal sacrifice though. They make everyone feel like crap. If you’re walking out of the office at 5.30pm, happy with your work for that day, and Joe Schmo is still hunched over his desk with a hot cup of coffee and a sleeping bag by his side, you feel like you’re somehow the lazy one.

Why?

If you didn’t crack the brief yet, and the deadline is fast-approaching, maybe you should consider sticking around until it’s done. But if you’re all good, there’s no need to burn any more oil. You’ll be fresh and rested when you get in tomorrow. You’ll not only be able to react to new challenges, but be proactive. Joe, he’ll be buried in work with a brain as fresh as gas station hot dogs.

Workaholics should not be encouraged. They should not be praised. And they certainly shouldn’t be demanded by any agency. It’s one thing to be putting that on yourself, but to expect your whole crew to work into the small hours and give up weekends just to make some corporate schmuck rich enough to buy another BMW, well, that’s not right.

By all means, work hard…but work smart. You are no good to anyone if your brain is Swiss Cheese. And if you want a career that spans more than a decade, you need to set priorities. Or before you know it, the workaholic in you may just become an alcoholic.

I write this on a Friday as I know some of you in town will be preparing for a weekend hunched over office computers, marker pads and pots of coffee. Think long and hard about the path you’re choosing. Or the job you think you love will soon be one you hate with a passion.