No Snivelling

“Beer.” I wrote on the office supply list. Right below “spray adhesive” and “tape”. The list had been sitting on the table for a few days. I thought it was a lovely little joke, especially since nobody would know I was the culprit. I’d only been working at the ad agency for a month or so.

A few days later, Bill showed up with our supplies. “I made a supply run!” He called. I glanced out the door to find him lugging a few plastic bags and a case of Heineken.

“What? Beer?” I asked.

“It was on the list.” He said, smiling. It was a Thursday.

Ad agencies are the kinds of places where creativity literally bounces off the walls and windows and doorframes at such a magnificent pace that you’d think those things flying around are actually hyperspeed insects. Indeed, such innovation is required of every employee.

You are installed into “open seating” arrangements so you can brainstorm with your neighbor without the sluggish interference of a closed door. You are given beer at the end of a workday because you’ve been working for twelve hours straight without stopping to eat or drink or piss. You lock yourselves in the conference room with a fifth of Mead supplied by a colleague who just spent two weeks in Ireland so you can devise the next ad campaign for a new client you want to impress. You are given toys like popguns and toy periscopes to make the work environment that much more productive. A sign sits above the break room doorway that says, “No Snivelling”.

This is the kind of environment where someone like me can actually put her propensity for innovation to good use.

Our receptionist was going out of town for a week. To the beach. With her husband. She had a few plants on her desk and for two weeks prior to her departure, she commanded us to water her plants while she was gone.

1PM Monday. “Be sure to water my plants while I’m gone.”

4PM Monday. “Now, when I’m gone, I want you guys to water my plants.”

9AM Tuesday. “I’m going to be gone for a whole week and these plants won’t survive if you don’t water them.”

3PM Tuesday. “I’m leaving a thing of water right here on my desk so don’t forget to water them.”

It was like that. Every day. For two weeks.

“We ought to hide her plants right before she gets back and replace them with giant silk trees. We can say something like, ‘I don’t know what happened, Gail! Maybe you haven’t been taking very good care of them. We watered them every day and … Look!’”

One of our art directors brought in one of those troll dolls. You know the kind. With the pink hair that sticks up and the ugly bug eyes. Her mom had made an artist outfit for the doll. The edges of the white coat were frayed and the painter’s cap was barely recognizable as anything other than pigeon poop that had landed on the doll’s head. I constantly made fun of the troll doll.

We also had some small plastic dinosaurs in a box of toys that appeared from an unknown source. There were probably twenty or thirty of the child’s dinosaurs and to me, this demonstrated nothing but potential.

One morning, I arrived at the office a few minutes early. I made a little sign for the troll to hold. It said, “Please take me out of these ridiculous clothes.” I don’t think my colleague noticed it for a few hours.

A few days later, I undressed the troll and hid it in the office with a sign that said, “Please keep me away from my owner. She’s going to put me in those ridiculous clothes again.” The doll was dressed by lunch.

The next week, I used some string to make a noose and hang the troll from the ceiling with a sign that said, “Save me, please!”

The troll appeared in various ridiculous postures over the next few weeks. Until one day, my colleague walked in to find the dinosaurs crowded on her desk. In front of them was one of the giant popguns, as if they were an army at war. On the other side of them was the troll with its hands raised. It was also holding a small white cloth in surrender.

The next day, I showed up at work to find all of the dinosaurs lying sideways in my chair and on the floor. The troll was standing on the edge of my desk looking down at them. With the popgun in front of it. And I think some other doll or toy was standing with the troll.

The troll wars carried on sporadically until the owner of the company went out of town for a week. There we were going to be, virtually unsupervised for the duration.

“We should bring in all the pizza boxes we can gather over the next week along with beer bottles from all the beer we drink. Just bring it in and scatter it around the office like all we did was goof off, get drunk, and party the entire time.”

We also made a tape outline of a body like you used to see in old murder mystery movies. And stuck a beer bottle in the middle of it.

The boss didn’t say a word.

I’d been working with a client who was very difficult and demanding. Patrick. One of our art directors was creating a series of diagrams for his company and he would call me several times per day asking about the project. He would send final versions only to send final final versions the next day, working our designer to the maddening bone. It seemed as though he’d never be happy.

A summer intern had started joking with me about Patrick. “Patrick wants to get in your pants.” “Patrick is in loooove.” And, after Patrick had told me it was his seven-year anniversary with his wife for no apparent reason, the intern said, “Oh my God! He’s got the seven-year itch! He’s going to leave his wife for you!”

I came home from lunch that afternoon to find my screensaver changed. Scrolling across it were the words, “I miss you. Marry me. Love, Patrick.”

It was the most fun I’ve ever had at work.