Groundhog Days

 

There was a time when people in this industry had to walk both ways to work. This was, mind you, long before working remotely had caught on, so both ways meant a great deal farther than the distance between your bedroom and your hallway mini-fridge. People had to walk uphill too, since this predates the massive razing of any elevated urban areas. San Francisco still has a few mounds left, but nobody works there anyway. Not only that, but they had to trudge through the snow, since this was prior to the ascendancy of climate change. They tried harder. They worked harder. Heck, the ground was harder. Not this organic stuff used to make packing material.

And that was just on the commute. In the building, anything could happen. Except taking an elevator. That could never happen. You always took the stairs, no matter how high the destination. Sometimes you slept in the stairwell due to to the altitude change. There were sleeping bags, lanterns and tons of gorp. The first people to understand the principles of acclimatizing were not sherpas, but advertising schleppers. 

Once you were in the office, you had to dig an actual key out of an actual pocket. It usually had chain on it for safekeeping. You had to shove it into a doorknob’s tricky lock. It wasn’t a decorative accessory used to open beers and dig crud out of your fingernails. This was the real thing and you only had one. Lose it? Well, I hope you knew how to mountain climb or were neighbors with a friendly and worldly sherpa.

Swiping keycards was inconceivable. People didn't even have credit cards. Many used cash. Most preferred bullion - and not the stuff you use to make soup. The other kind that's much, much heavier.

Sitting in your desk chair was a profoundly uncomfortable experience. This was before lumbar support and acupuncture. You had to make phone calls and write memos in real ink. That meant going to the fish market and buying a few pounds of fresh squid to insert into each printer. Otherwise, you couldn’t review any layouts that day. Even your portfolio caused hernias for people who didn’t lift properly. This was a major risk, given the state of desk chairs and vertebrae appreciation at the time. 

There were paperweights, fax machines and rolodexes, oh my. Tweets were something your bird said while destroying your private balcony. Not part of a media plan. It was a culture that cultivated cult-like ideas. How can you worship someone without an oil painting of them in the lobby? It worked in the Eastern Bloc, why couldn’t it work on the East Coast? Well, it did.

People were just smarter. It’s not that they never did bad work, it’s just that we don’t remember it. But if you don’t remember something, did it really happen? We must at least grant that it’s hard to prove, given the lack of documentation. In a surveillance state you can always check the footage first. 

You never had to come up with an original idea, since there were so many better ones on bulletin boards, garbage pails, or inside thick annuals. Today, there’s none left. People sit around all day staring into screens and memorizing memes. People aren't even people. Some are apps. Others are robots. A few are considered "rockstars." Nobody takes risks anymore. They're too comfortable in Aeron chairs and working totally at-will. 

There were no hacks. There were only visionaries. It was a paradise, an Eden, a utopia. And the address was Madison Avenue. There was no shortage of great work. Especially if you had to sell something like laxatives to a backed up audience.