Opting Out

Here’s the irony that sparked my journey to a hardscrabble life. Unlike a few other times in my life as an advertising writer and creative director, this time was different. I actually quit, rather than was dismissed, from my last full-time position. I’ll briefly tell the tale. The fellow I had actually campaigned for to consult with some of our clients to help them shape their brands became increasingly indispensable to the firm that employed me.

After an initial honeymoon period, I began to feel he actually was arrogant, full of self-puffery and only reiterated the same rhetoric in different guise time after time. When he shushed me in a rebranding committee meeting at my agency, I felt that he had little understanding of what makes a creative person creative and thus essential to the heartbeat of an advertising agency. It was the proverbial straw. So, in a fit of pique and with a small, really small, inheritance in my pocket, I said, “see ya!”

I was all gung-ho to get out of advertising, as I had been almost since I got into it. So, I tried to get a couple things going (Vintage Vagabond/SmartParty/Hellidays/) that I'll revisit at a later date. But, hey, nothing stuck. Or rather, I stuck with nothing. And so the misery began.....