After a year and a half in the advertising world, it’s time for me to move on. As of March 14th I’ll be joining the super-talented team at White Whale.
The Big Business Experiment
The number one reason that I went to work at Hill Holliday was to experience life in a big (or, big-to-me) company. There are no cubicles, but desks with these half-wall things instead. Most of the actual walls were panes of glass. Everyone can see a window. It isn’t your usual big-business experience, but it felt like it to me.
Oh, and the view: incredible. Something I’ve come to take for granted, and I’m ashamed of that.
I knew nothing about big-time advertising. I knew nothing about working in big-business. I can honestly say that I’ve learned a lot.
The first week that I was there I made a thirteen-page website for a client. I still see commercials for that website on TV even today. Growing up in a small shop and then a month after leaving seeing commercials (on main channels, during the baseball playoffs no less) for a site that you built is mind-blowing. It’s like the first time you actually stand in Times Square at night.
And when drinking at a bar with your former colleagues while the game is on, looking up and saying, “see that URL? I made that site.” It’s like being a rock star.
I’m not fit to be a rock star.
The Pace
The word that I’ve heard used a lot is “glacial,” and I can’t stand that. Every change requires a meeting and buy in from ten people located in ten different corners of the office. Client requests to change something on a website can run through a chain of ten people before it gets to me. (That’s not an exaggeration, I just counted in my head.) Have you ever played telephone before? Yeah, it’s only fun for a while.
This isn’t to say that where I worked was bad at getting things done, that just seems to be how big business works. Just because it took ten people to get from the client to me, don’t think that it only took one person on the client’s side. There were probably four or five more people in the chain on that end.
The Spending
My least favorite part of big business is the spending. It felt like at times our company was making so much money we didn’t know what to do with it all, yet at the same time folks in the technology department were using four-year-old MacBook Pros that would freeze if you had Entourage and Safari open at the same time.
The scale of everything in big business is different, and it never felt right to me.
Feeling Good About What You Make
I’ve found that in advertising, there are few opportunities to make something that you can genuinely feel good about. Don’t get me wrong; we weren’t selling cigarettes or stuff that harms people. We weren’t doing anything that was technically “wrong.” Not at all, but the feeling of good was never really there. It was always a feeling of indifference.
I was rarely in a position where what I was building had that big of an impact on the company I was doing it for. Sure, if we failed the company would lose some money, but they would survive without anyone on the outside noticing. Those are not the clients I want. I want what I build to make or break my client. I want my clients to trust me with a challenge and I want to blow their minds.
When I say off to better things, I mean building better things. Building things that make an impact and make a difference.
Aiding a Transition
While I was hired to build a specific site for my current company and to replace someone that was leaving, I was also part of a bigger initiative. The company had recently decided to “integrate” (the 21st century version of this word, meaning to combine “traditional” and “digital” disciplines). I wasn’t told this before being hired, but my time at the company would be in the throes of trying to get the rest of the company to listen to our expertise and to trust that we know what we’re doing.
As I said, change is slow, and the transition is still happening today although we’ve made a lot of headway. It is certainly necessary, and the right people will open eyes like a tidal wave, but that isn’t me or what I do. (Is this you? Let me know.) I don’t want to have to convince people that the web is completely different than print. I need to exist in a place that knows that already and has a team solely focused on creating amazing web work.
I’m entering into the prime of my professional career. Arbitrary obstacles cause me to idle. I need to be at a place where flexing my coding and creativity muscles is my job, not something I sneak into projects when I can.
I’ll Miss the People
Regardless of the process, the transitions, the pace and the problems, the core of what made trekking all the way into Boston every day worthwhile was the people. I didn’t work with most of the folks there, but just about all of the ones I did work with were great people. They taught me a lot, they made my days better and hopefully I did the same for them. I’m sure we won’t stop IMing anytime soon.
But Heeeey White Whale
The process was quick. I saw a clever job posting on Authentic Jobs and instantly dug in to try to win them over. They wanted an email, so I wrote them a long email-in-an-HTML page to show them what I can do and tell them who I am. I didn’t have a résumé or portfolio ready. I wasn’t seriously looking, it just kind of happened.
A day later the actual email communication started. We traded fun but informative responses and before even “meeting” anyone I could tell that I liked them all. And the emails were CC’d with everyone at the company. Everyone was seeing the conversation at the same time. That’s the sign of a team that makes decisions together.
Everything felt right. It was a gut feeling. Pure instinct.
Less than a week later I’m on a three-way video iChat “interview” with Jason and Tonya. I wore a niceish coat over a Ghostbusters shirt. I had a flask in my coat pocket that I pulled out during our chat. The first hour flew by, and then Jason had to run. White Whale’s awesome designer Janie then popped in and we discussed our anger about Facebook. I was sold.
It took a couple of days to crunch the numbers and figure out the insurance of it all, and on Tuesday I accepted the position. The whole process: about a week and a half. Nothing glacial about that pace.
Working From Home
Last April we visited Scarlette’s Father in Colorado. He works from home, and as soon as I experienced life in his house for a couple of days I knew that’s what I wanted to do too. Besides, I work on the Internet all day. I should be able to do that from anywhere!
And that’s exactly what this position at White Whale will allow me to do. I’m working from home. I’m going to be saving twenty hours per week in commuting. I’ll be able to eat dinner at a reasonable hour. I can spend more time with Scarlette. I can be a better husband.
There is going to be some travel involved in this position, and I really don’t enjoy flying, but the more I do it the better I’ll get at it. (Also, Janie also sent me a ton of information to make me feel better about it as she was once the same way. See? The team is already super helpful. A+.)
During my video interview a question came up about if I would be able to successfully work from home, and the answer is yes. If I’ve ever needed to get anything done at my job now I’d work from home to focus. It’s where I’m comfortable. It’s where I do my best work.
Please, Check’em Out
Aside from the fact that I’ll be satisfying a lot of selfish desires, you really should check out their work. I absolutely love the design of their CMS’s site (“LiveWhale”) to their company website to the items in their awesome portfolio. The designs are beautiful and make sense. The code is valid and clean. The technology used is appropriate and well-implemented. The information is organized. There is an extreme attention to detail. Every element has a purpose.
The New Adventure Begins March 14th
It feels like Christmas morning is coming.
I’m pumped to dig in.
