When you’re faced with a PR problem today, you need to act FAST, or the hyperlinked beast will eat you alive. That’s precisely what Canadian agency, henderson bas did yesterday, after one of its workers leaked an internal email to Steve Hall at Adrants.
I once worked at an agency that took cleaning one’s cube a little too seriously. It was always in relation to the fact that clients would be visiting tomorrow. And I always thought, what a waste it was. For would not a client be more impressed with how busy the agency was (as revealed by one messy cube after the next) than a falsely antiseptic environment?
The tidying “instruction” reminds me of primary school, when we had regular clean-outs. And I was a hoarder, so I always had a messy desk. In effect, that agency would be hell for me.
I wouldn’t call this good PR – it smacks of bullshit spindoctoring. The person who leaked this email certainly didn’t survive… and I’m willing to bet he didn’t get a shirt.
Having your employees use billable time to clean up the office is a ridiculous waste of resources. Compare 30 creatives all billing at $150/hour to the $500/week it would cost to get a janitor. Managerial power tripping – that’s all it is.
Who called it good PR? I said they needed to react quickly, which they did. The fact that they can laugh about it is a definite plus, but it does not negate the lameness that preceeded.
Having creatives be janitors certainly doesn’t make sense, but look at it another way; Whenever I am cleaning and organizing I get a chance to reflect on the work that I have done, remember things and get new ideas. For this the experience might be valuable. For after all the end results (and by-products) are of value — not the day-by-day-under-the -whip-BS used to create them.
Hey this Donna chick. . . I think I have a group email from my viscomm classes at school and a previous life on the internet. Could this be the same person? Sure smells like it.