January
Hello all. This is going to be an exercise in the art of brevity. With 2 weeks effectively away from work, one for holiday and one for work trip, I have barely had time to formulate some scintillating thoughts let alone write them down. But I did get to watch some heavily censored films on a plane and I have lots to say about that. However, as you don’t care I won’t bother putting them down here – so you’ll just have to do with some links that I thought were worth sharing and a quick thought about generational enmity. Besos.
Quick thought:
The idea of intergenerational angst has been prevalent in the things I’ve been reading this month.
See this lovely ad for Australia day as a summary of everything we think and hate about each other.
Along with that I am still very much loving the writing and thoughts of Charlotte from Hiring Gen Z who often posts (and far more regularly than I), on the themes that concern younger people today. The comforting thing being is that I find them very relatable. When young people kvetch about 9-5s being exhausting, rather than roll my eyes, I remember that this is exactly how I felt at 18 on my first job. Used to finishing concentrating at around 15:45, it took me about a year to get acclimatised to working through to 5.30. And man did that last hour drag balls. Similarly, worries about business attire and anger at corporate speak was, and still is, part of my general work conversation. What I can see is that it isn’t what young people are saying, it’s how and where they are saying it. When I moaned about it, it was to parents and friends it went no further. Now, when you film yourself complaining about work (or even filming yourself being made redundant), the world sees and remembers. If you want to delve a bit more into this topic, this is a good resource and BBC business daily has also done a three parter on ageism in the workplace.
Things to read
Following on from the above, this was a good article with cracking quotes from young people who are NEETS (Not In Education, Employment or Training). It made me think I probably had the same feelings "work is stifling me, I have to do what I'm told, I just want to do what I want and be me etc" but (a) I didn't know what I was doing so telling me what to do and when to do it was probably a good thing, and (b) I didn't have (or didn't think I had) any other option.
The experience of working at Brewdog gets worse. A genuine case of employer and consumer branding halo effect, I would think twice about buying the beer now.
Discord has made some layoffs this month. This article has an excerpt from the letter that spoke about it to staff. The package seems generous and the writing is well done. Something that many companies could learn from
"It is incredibly important to me that we support departing team members through this difficult time and provide them with a sizable runway as they transition into future employment. To that end, we are offering them:
- Five months of salary (plus an additional week for every full year at Discord)
- Five months of benefit continuation
- Three months of outplacement services
- Equity vesting of awards scheduled to vest on Feb. 1, 2024
- Continued access to Modern Health through the end of 2024, and more
I’ll end by sharing deep appreciation and gratitude for those leaving us. Discord is better because of your contributions and the passion you brought to delivering for our users, our company, and each other. Thank you for everything."
Nice uses of Tik Tok for employment (from Charlotte from Hiring Gen Z again - I told you she was good)
https://www.tiktok.com/@patsyramsey62
People are using LinkedIn as a dating platform – perhaps because dating apps are seemingly not what they once were. Personally, I found this very strange. It’s the things that people talk about when they’re not talking about work that makes me warm to them. If you are turned on by people celebrating promotions and posting up pictures of company away days then please go ahead though.
Things to look at
Here is a resource that has digitised and collated all the old awards books. NB If you’re not old like me, creative awards used to come with an annual that collected the winning work and wrote detailed liner notes about them. Mainly they used to sit in the creative bookshelves and were ruthlessly plundered for inspiration. When I first became a creative copywriter, I used to flick through them endlessly on “ideation sessions” and seeing these again did give me a warm glow. What also stood out to me was how feted some of these advertising campaigns were and I cannot remember them at all – “I am advertising creative, look upon my works ye mighty and despair”. However, there are still some wonderful ideas and the thing that comes through for me is the humour that was more prevalent at that time. Also, something about the executions does seem very “man view” and I can’t quite put my finger on it. Really interesting.
And the ever excellent Alex from stratscraps shares a load of design systems
That’s it from me. Enjoy the last hurrah of your dry Januarys. Tomorrow shall be moist.
Will
*Noodling my way through alternatives to New Year. New Career. I think “New Year. Insincere” is my favourite.