#digitas

[womenwwe]

Kay Lee Ray vs. Isla Dawn

WWE NXT UK: December 17th 2020 - Digitals

[womenwwe]

Charlotte Flair and Naomi react to the Women’s Royal Rumble Match

SmackDown LIVE: December 19th 2017

Digitals: Part Two

[womenwwe]

Roman Reigns wants payback against Braun Strowman in Las Vegas

Monday Night Raw: February 13th 2017 - Digitals

[xtrablak674]

Pushing People Away

[Originally published on Livejournal, June 13, 2002 at 7:26pm]

Do I have unreasonable standards and principals?

Am I too self righteous about my personal morals?

Do I expect as much of others as I do of myself?

Well the answer to the last question is: Yes

I expect ALOT from others cause I expect alot from myself, but this has recently changed, as I have realized you really can't rely on others as much as you can rely on yourself. And this has created my new "DO ME" campaign, that I have been quite happy with. I have been enjoying doing my own thing everyday.

Getting up going for my morning rollerblade, and If I feel like it hanging out in the park longer, then coming home and looking at what else i want to do. I have been very good at keeping myself busy with just "myself" and I have been VERY happy with that, cause I have been so productive.

You may ask yourself where is this coming from, I had another blowout on the phone with my "friend" Darin. He got more upset then I did, but he doesnt seem to see that I am not interested in people who are not "building" in their lives. Which means doing positive things, to make their lives better for themselves. For me my building has been around trying to support myself with my own website design business, which I am not doing bad in (esp with unemployment supplementing my meager income) But i could be doing better, but I am constantly struggling for a way to promote myself, within my means, and try to move ahead.

Working for yourself can be a daily struggle and difficult. So I like to associate with OTHERs who have personal struggles or things their doing in their lives to better them. I don't think its an unrealistic request to NOT want to have people around you who are not doing the same. And I think this is the root of where mine and Darin's argument comes.

I feel that Darin is VERY self-destructive with his life, mind you it is his life, and this is only my opinion. But I feel he abuses pot, and doesnt always take as good care of his body, and emotional health as he could. This definitely is shown thru his bareback bottom activities, I am a bareback top, but i am currently celibate, so i can't cast stones, but i do NOT deliberately try to GET STD's and it sometimes seems Darin puts him in situations where he is more susceptible to exposure to a number of things. And even with his syphilis exposure, his behavior changed briefly.

The most recent thing is him damaging his anus having sex with a guy, a guy he knew had genital warts? I am sorry but i think its a bit idiotic if you KNOW someone has something that you continue to have sex with them. Now on the other hand I DO NOT know my HIV status and I know i put my self at risk for HIV whenever i have bareback sex, BUT alas i understand the risk to myself, and am willing to deal with the repercussion of my behavior, BUT on the other hand i constantly test for STDs cause I am not crazy about getting them. my celibacy is inspired alot by the syphilis epidemic that is going on. And just general dis-interest in sexual contact outside the context of a relationship.

But back to Darin even his very volatile relationships, I find very unhealthy. I told him that he is attracted to CHAOS, and he didnt seem to see that, he thought i was joking but i was serious. Whenever there is tranquility in his life he looks to disrupt it somehow with some new domestic disturbance of some sort. And for me its just silly.

More then anything, I don't want to associate myself with him anymore. His poor life choices and his seeming lack of common sense, drug use and general self-destructive behavior is VERY unattractive to me, dull, boring and sad.

I am doing so many positive things for myself, and continue to try to make healthier choices, whether its my celibacy, or my diet, or my exercising or my creative productivity.

Is it too much to want other folkes around you who are doing things similar to what your doing? I don't think its an unrealistic request, and if me and Darin can't be friend for it, to me its no big loss.

But back to my main topic, is it me pushing people away? Am I being "self destructive" by trying to make "better" choices for myself? And not associating with people who are not doing the same?

My circle of friends is sooo small and just seems to get smaller, which is why i am concerned AM I the crazy one? Or is it everyone around me? Or did i make poor choices in friends? I think part of the thing with Darin is our relationship was primarily based in sex, and I wanted to pursue a more plutonic relationship. BUT he didnt respect that boundary and we ended up having sex anyway. BUT NOW he doesnt have the choice since he damaged his ass.

I had told him I would be interested in how his relationships with his "men" would be once they learned his ass was out of commission. I knew that I fell in the boat of one of his "men", and I knew his injury would effect me too, since he was primarily one of the only guys i was having sex with. So maybe i am a part of the fallout.

You know what I think is part of the problem with our relationship is I won't enable his "self-destructive" behavior, I call it out as I see it. If I think its off, I will say it, and i have been less and less tolerant as I do more and more positive things with myself....

So maybe its just a part of my personal growing and its NOT a bad thing. I think I am going to call my ex Mark and see when he want to go out to dinner :)

Current Mood: Confused

[Afterwords: Mr. Rudzitis and me never went out to dinner, if that is indeed whom I was talking about, my relationship with him ended in ninety-six which would be six years before this entry. I can't recall off-hand another Mark I would call my ex though.

Here I am with Darin again, but I think I am attempting to have a broader conversation about all of my friendships albeit I seem to focus on my details around him and his shenanigans. There seemed to be such a push and pull with me and him. I have to lay the culpability at his feet because even here I am saying I really wanted to just be friends with him, but he couldn't stay off my dick, like literally.

Curiously enough when he was out of commission as it was, I would hear a whole lot less from him till I didn't hear from him at all. I guess this says it all, that he couldn't have plutonic relationships with other men unless there was some sort of sexual component. It seems like this piece is about my underlying frustration with this particular friendship.

When I was ten years younger I will admit that I had a heavy tendency to sleep with my friends, but usually once I got it out of my system, or had a taste as it was, I was able to have normal plutonic relationships. It felt sort of like a gay rite of passage, that this was something that the young gays did until they figured out a healthier balance with the warm bodies around them. Its a part of that second puberty that queers can have at any time of their lives, which is a necessary part of their becoming more whole individuals.

But I grew out of that, and learned to just have relationships with folks that had nothing to do with us having biblical knowledge of each other. I don't feel I lost anything by doing this, if anything it enriched the friendship because the waters weren't muddied with unmet feelings or sexually frustrated needs.

Darin wasn't me, he had a unique set of demons that I still don't fully understand, and also he was an addict, and those addictive personality traits had moved from crack cocaine, to sex, and then to crystal meth, and there was the sex working. I was fond of Darin and still am, but my assessment that he was self-destructive was quite accurate, and I think this self-loathing was highlighting some other underlying issue that I never fully comprehended.

The early aughts was a tumultuous time for me, I had been let go from my dot com company and rather than attempt to go back to my old agency which I had all but burned bridges at, I attempted to go it on my own, and open my boutique web design and branding business, ran from my home.

In hindsight I truly needed a partner and I think the business would have actually succeeded, but that partner never materialized, and I faltered with acquiring clients, doing all of the design, client management work and coding those sites or getting brand materials printed. It was a lot of work, but actually very fulfilling, but I really wanted larger challenges, clients who actually understood what branding was and its importance in a business. The kind of clients who had those financial resources and the mental vision to become a solid partner with me were rare if not in fact non-existent.

The issues with friends has seem to be a reoccurring theme even back in my twenties. My early twenties it seemed friendship was a lot easier, but as I got deeper into my adulthood it seemed more complicated to hold onto friends as my life became more complex. I wouldn't enter the traditional work-world for another four years this time not as a full-time employee but a contract worker, which I think was the smartest thing I did in my thirties because the financial pay off was huge.

I do think I kept folks at a distance though, unlike many of my peers I was a teetotaler, I also didn't use drugs and wasn't a huge fan of large crowds. I wasn't the co-worker who would go with everyone else to a bar for a drink after work because I didn't drink and I hated bars. It would be untrue to say I didn't make any friends at my jobs, because even at my first job after my own company, I made a friend with Q that lasted for years digitally, even though we never saw each other in person again after my brief nine month stint at Digitas.

My next friend group would come from me joining this collection of young Black professionals who met monthly for the 2nd Sunday Gathering, which was a potluck event where we discussed being young gifted and Black, current events, culturally significant art like books, exhibitions, films or music. It was a sweet spot of my life, I was meeting and connecting with other educated, affluent and cultured Black folks.

I don't want to say I found my tribe necessarily because albeit this group was queer-friendly it was still primarily straight Black young folks, I am trying to think of one other queer member and falling short. But I would remain friends with some of these people for over a decade, taking a trip to South America together, attending weddings, being supported at my own art exhibitions and of course fellowshipping together at each others parties. It was a great thing for my thirties to step into my Blackness in such a bougie and big way. I was making six figures, traveling often and then kicking back and coming together once a month with folks who were just as upwardly mobile as myself. This was the dream!

But as with most things in life this didn't last, I think the group dissolved somewhere in the tens after we had lost our main meeting venue at Grand Space which was only a few blocks from my house. We were also all growing up, people starting families, having kids, getting married all of the benchmarks of a heteromantic life-style which didn't quite apply to me. Ergo I was left on my own once again.

I did find folks with values, ethics and morals similar to my own, it would have been nice if the entirety of my identities could have been represented though. That was something that has always eluded me, I think during this same time I had joined Kevin Powell's Black Men meetings, which were very enriching fellowships with other Black men in a safe space as we talked about mutual struggles, accomplishments and family issues, but once again this was just a part of me.

Another reoccurring theme of my life is trying to find spaces where I could be all of myself, queer, gender non-conforming, Black, creative, cultured and intelligent. I want to be clear I wasn't shunned necessarily in any of these social groups, but I didn't actually see myself in the other members, which on some level still had me feeling othered.

I think a large part of my life is not me necessarily pushing other folks away but just looking for a place where I could be all of myself unencumbered, lacking judgement, conditions or low-key discernment. I didn't have a role in creating myself, I exist as I was born with many complicated and sometimes conflicting parts, that I would just hope would find shelter in a world that could accept all of me as I am, as they like to proffer in platitudes and children's songs.

Is there a place I can be all of me, and not have to attempt to diminish pieces of myself to be accepted? I don't think this is an unrealistic request, but I don't think that this is the world where I will ever find that unconditional acceptance, and this I will forever find extremely disappointing.

[Photo by Brown Estate]

[adventuresinclientservice]

For those who ever faced a seemingly insurmountable challenge: a story of defeat, recovery, and redemption.

Last week’s post had a two-word headline; this week’s headline seemingly is in open rebellion to brevity; apologies, but I wrote it this way for good reason.

About a month ago I wrote about my former Digitas colleague and current friend, Betsy Pinkus, which led to a series of reminiscences from our early days at the agency.  In one exchange I recounted when client AT&T asked (insisted?) I be removed from its account.  It was a dreadful moment, given I not only was replaced by a competent and more experienced new staffer, Andi Mayer, but also was exiled from my office and cast into a cubicle, plus had to relinquish Betsy as my very capable assistant.

Betsy remembered this, but differently:  “I thought you were promoted when they replaced you!”

So whose memory is more accurate, Betsy’s or mine? 

Both of us, it turns out.  I’m telling the story in the hopes some of you will derive benefit from it, especially if you ever faced a situation similar to mine, where coming back from a seeming death sentence appeared to be well-nigh impossible.

A humiliating defeat:

To take all of you back a bit, I relocated from Washington, DC to Boston to join what was then a largely unknown shop called Eastern Exclusives that later  became Digitas.  I was to work on an account code-named “Keystone,” not knowing until I joined that Keystone was AT&T.  It was my first agency job.

The client lead, J.D. Chappel, was not an easy person; my own inexperience compounded what was the unmitigated disdain he and his colleagues displayed in every meeting and call in which I participated.

I never actually confirmed this as fact, but after six months or so, either Chappel insisted on a change, Michael Bronner realized he needed to make one, or maybe a combination of both occurred; I would be removed from the account.

I had failed, with failure usually leading to termination; for reasons to this day I cannot explain, Michael decided instead to replace me, not fire me.  

Even so, of all of life’s professional humiliations, this was among the worst.   Every day I would walk into the agency, see Andi in what used to be my office, working with Betsy and the staff that once reported to me.

It was daily reminder of how poorly I had performed; anyone in the right mind would quit.

I chose to stay.

A slow, by no means assured recovery:

Out of this wreckage, Michael did his best to salvage something for me:  he assigned me a handful of small accounts – Digital Equipment Corporation, Bolt Beranek and Newman, Philips Test and Measurement – plus told me I would help with new business.

I didn’t sulk and didn’t let people see the magnitude of what was an embarrassing setback; I put my head down and got to work, this time even harder than before.

Days turned into weeks, weeks into months; slowly, incrementally, almost imperceptibly, I learned how to do my job properly, interacting more effectively with clients, screwing up then correcting my many mistakes, figuring out how to write a decent presentation, an effective letter of proposal, or anything else we needed to support clients.

At last, redemption:

At some point in my first year or possibly early in my second (it was a long time ago), the person who oversaw the American Express account, Stacey Silverbush, announced she was leaving.  Michael needed a replacement.

I was the replacement.  A door had opened.

Not aware of my past failure with AT&T, American Express was much more accessible and welcoming, while I proved to be more capable, with a growing  confidence that I could, in fact, not only meet client and colleague expectations, but exceed them.  

My new responsibilities as account lead prompted Michael to rescue me from my cube.  I relocated to the top floor office, not far from the founder’s.  Betsy recalls the move came with a promotion to Vice President.  She might be right; I was promoted, I just don’t know when.  Later I was elevated again, this time to Senior Vice President and one of two Associate Partners, but would remain in my new office until I left, years later, graduating to run Foote Cone & Belding’s west coast direct marketing agency. 

Faced with my departure to San Francisco, I was offered the opportunity to open and oversee the agency’s soon-to-be-formed New York office with my Creative partner at the time, Christine Bastoni.   Having committed to FCB, looking forward to working for an agency just named Advertising Age’s Agency of the Year, I turned down the offer; still, it felt like a validation of sorts. 

I had made my way all the way back from that early, now-distant disaster.

Why this matters:

If you ever have or are currently facing what appears to be an insurmountable challenge, you might take heart from this story.  Sometimes it pays to leave.  You’ll know if it’s time.

And sometimes it pays to stay. 

I knew what time it was.

[adventuresinclientservice]

Optimism plus determination equals the courage to take a risk.

When I joined Digitas – the advertising agency that didn’t know it was an agency – the shop was about to undertake the single largest value-added direct mail promotion in advertising history for the then long-distance telecommunications giant AT&T.  

Ordered to deregulate by District of Columbia Federal Judge Harold Green, unable to compete purely on price --although competitors like MCI were free to do so -- AT&T was searching for a way to level a decidedly uneven playing field.  My colleagues approached AT&T, advising it could still succeed by adding value through a wide range of partner discounts from which its customers would benefit. 

AT&T signed up for an undertaking designed to reach roughly 20 million households with a package that included 40 offers from participating companies, to be repeated every quarter of every year. 

The urgency of the task was daunting; it meant the agency needed to staff up in a hurry, recruiting people practically from off the street. 

I was one of those off-the-street new hires in those early, insane days, having just two weeks to start my new position, something called “Program Director.”  With AT&T’s identity withheld from me, I left my Washington DC, marketing job, relocated to Boston; arriving late one evening, a week before my “official” start date, began work, foreshadowing a routine that would become all-too-familiar. 

It was my first agency job in what would span a 40-plus-year career.

In truth I had absolutely no clue on how to engage with clients or do something as simple and obvious as write an after-meeting conference report, let alone a presentation or proposal, a budget or schedule. 

Were there standard procedures for such things, precedents or go-by’s I could rely on for guidance?  Of course not.  Someone to teach me?  You make joke.  I was flying blind along, with all my other visually impaired colleagues, steering way too close to the sun, or maybe the ground, whichever best describes the chaos pervading those early days, with disaster lurking around the corner.

The stress was unrelenting, the failure rate high – in short order my first boss bailed (severe case of mono), as did one of my colleagues (pressure got the better of him), as did the shop’s sole copywriter (her endocrine system shut down) – with many realizing they simply could not cope.  I stuck it out, with fear supplanting pressure.  I wasn’t just stressed:  I was afraid.  Yes, afraid.

To screw up.  To let others down.  To fail.

The one person who betrayed not even one iota of this was our 24-year-old founder, Michael Bronner.  If he was worried, he surely did not show it.  I have no idea what was going on in his head or heart, but to us, no matter how dark or gloomy things became with the client, a partner company, a staffer, whatever, he remained steadfast, a perfect cocktail of confidence and can-do.

Michael’s near unflappable demeanor reminded me of something I recalled from a documentary, Somewhere You Feel Free, about legendary songwriter/singer/band-leader Tom Petty. Speaking of his work on his solo album Wildflowers, in the film’s opening minutes, Petty says:

“If I had really known how little I knew about what I was doing, I might have been discouraged, but I wasn’t.”

Petty was referring to his early days as a musician, but to me he just as easily could have been speaking about the early days of Digitas.  I surely did not know what I was doing.  The same is mostly true of my colleagues, even those who hid behind what was a false sense of bravado (there were a fair number of people who fit that description).  I soon realized how easily things could spiral downward to disaster.

I was old enough to know this; Michael was not.  Like Tom Petty, Michael didn’t know enough to know he could fail, with the outcome being we somehow, in some way, found a way to launch AT&T Opportunity Calling.

Even more important, this is why, among all the other reasons others could offer, today there is an agency called Digitas.

(If you're traveling this Thanksgiving, to see family, friends, or simply to escape, travel safe!)

[adventuresinclientservice]

When does being competitive turn sinister?

Roberta and I just finished watching a "60 Minutes" special commemorating 9/11, which first aired shortly before its first anniversary.

We were there that day 23 years ago, residents of NYC, living about 10 blocks north of what became ground zero; from the roof of The Textile Building, where we owned a condominium, we watched building six of the World Trade Center complex collapse.

If you've never watched the show, or even if you have, I urge you to view it again, a small gesture of remembrance for the 2,753 people who lost their lives that day.

Here's the link to the show: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bj6s4WULw64 .

In my early days at Digitas, I was one of two Account people assigned to a couple of accounts, working with a colleague named John.  Neither of us had much experience as presenters, yet at some point we were facing an important client presentation.  John was rightly nervous; I was too, with the only difference between us being my superficial sense of false bravado:

“No need to worry, John, if at any point you get in trouble, turn to me; I will jump in and rescue you.”

Was I being magnanimous?  Supportive?  A good colleague?

Hell no.  I was being a shit, a gaslighter.  Instead of building John’s confidence, my intent, whether or not I fully recognized it at the time, was to undermine it. 

The truth is, we were colleagues in name only; in reality, we were competitors, doing battle in the agency arena. 

At some point later, John was gone, a casualty of an unforgiving environment where only the resilient endure and survive.

I hadn’t thought of this in years, until I read a New York Times story, “The Office Assassin:  What should I do about a friend who deliberately undermined one of her colleagues and then bragged to me about it?”  In a reply to someone asking about an overly competitive and aggressive colleague, the author responds:

“Wow. Your friend sounds like a real piece of work, by which I mean, she sounds pretty awful: manipulative, prone to gaslighting … even abusive."

Which caused me to ask:  am I, or was I, that person?

In the early days, as I adjusted to my first real agency job, I struggled mightily, but I was a relentless worker, focused, disciplined, and determined; in a  mistake-prone, I’ll-get-it-right-next-time way, I slowly, sometimes painfully, gained surer footing. 

As I became more proficient and capable, I found myself at odds with several of my colleagues – many of them college buddies of Digitas founder Michael Bronner -- all of whom weren’t nearly as motivated, and wasn’t shy in letting my opinions be known, often voicing my concerns in a way that let Bronner know where I stood.  When each of the underperformers left, either voluntarily or not, I was not unhappy. 

A question remains, though:  did I have a hand in their demise, or for that matter, the demise of others who I considered competitors?

In truth, I likely did.   

Other questions:  were my actions manipulative or toxic?  Did I gaslight all of them, just as I had with John?  If I had this to do over, would I have behaved differently?

In truth, the answer is “No.”  I am fairly certain my assessments were for the most part accurate, and stand by them, all these years later.

While I am the first to admit I wasn’t always the best or easiest colleague with whom to work, at least I was an honest, reliable, you-can-count-on-me one. 

Looking back on this now, this is one of the things that likely saved me for a career in client service.