Hi Michael

After three months of working at Draft FCB in Chicago, a suit-powered ad agency of 1,600, my favorite experience happened in the last week.

The story starts with a presentation to Rob Sherlock, CCO of Draft FCB Chicago. Short of having the client accept your original, brilliant idea for their product's campaign, becoming Chief Creative Officer is the highest honor a creative can receive.

Why am I telling you this? Because we had to dress real fancy.  So there we were. On the top floor where all the executives live,  a dressed up team of young creatives walked the big guns through their work.  Blah blah blah we kicked ass in the presentation and Sherlock was blown away that we didn't suck as bad as every back stabbing mid level creative told him.  

When you nail a presentation, you feel great. When the presentation is your creative work and raw insights thrown on the table and you nail it, you feel high.  You walk out of the room with swagger, Travolta in Saturday Night Fever swagger.  With this swagger, Urgo and I desceneded the top floor via the spiraling stair case which is in view of cubicles and corner offices.  Draft FCB designed the stairs like this on purpose so every worker knows they're being watched.  

As Urgo and I walked down the stairs we heard a passing girl offer a greeting to a guy in the cubicle nearest to the stair case. "Hi Michael" she said with an overenthusiastic tone much like the telephone operator of Intitech in Office Space.  Once again, here I am dressed up and descending from the titan level, the executive floor. It was too perfect.. I couldn't resist.

"Hi Michael." I said with an authoritative tone of a boss giving heed to a minion. I spoke in the loud, overly confident tone of a man who's primary goal in life to save face.  Michael bolted out of his chair like a fly anticipating a rolled up newspaper. We locked eyes. My hand was raised in a half-assed pretentious wave. The half wave, perfect for brushing off people you don't care about but have to say hi to. 


"Hi," stammered Micheal with heavily furrowed brows. There was a two second pause.
"How's it goin?" Michael squeaked out. 

By this time, I was rounding the outer edge of the spiraling stair case and lost the eyeball lock with the confused, and unfortunate Michael. I offered no response and continued on my way.

Greenhouse 1, Michael 0.