This job can’t be done remotely. Aka “How it feels to be wrong”
How’s your pandemic been? Mine’s been okay. Knock on wood.
I lived in Vermont with my wife’s parents for like 10 weeks. I know, right? Lived out of a suitcase on the floor of my wife’s childhood bedroom. We were up there shooting when it hit, so we just kinda got marooned there—and stayed. I would’ve said that’d be impossible, but I did it.
And that’s not all.
I would’ve also gladly told you that this working arrangement would be impossible. Remote, that is. All my adult life I’ve led creative groups at agencies. In fact, I’ve been a CD, ECD or GCD longer than I’ve been a husband or father. Never in all that time would I have believed that an agency creative team could function remotely. No effing way.
I can hear myself now: “… too many intangibles, too much collaboration and interpretation. Too much back and forth. All the joking, the vibes… that kind of magic can’t happen on Zoom. Oh yeah, you definitely gotta be in the same room for that stuff.”
Turns out, not really.
Here we are a year later, and while I’ve finally moved out of my wife’s parents’ house, our entire creative team is still humming along just fine working remotely. Quite nicely, in fact.
Looking back, I think that old rap was kind of a humblebrag. A way for me to say, without saying, that “What I do is so unique, that—maybe unlike your job—this could never be done without real people really being together. You know, like NASA.”
If that’s the case, then so be it. I’m happy to leave that charade behind me.
Live and learn, right?
Movin’ on!
Take this website, for instance. Started and finished—to the extent that any site is ever “finished”—during the pandemic.
See?
Anything is possible.
