Cruelty of being in an Ad industry

Now that I am on my way out of this industry, let me take this opportunity to bring out some of the hidden facts of this industry.

So after thinking for 5 mins, let me start by saying that in advertising  there are certain myths that non-advertising professional has. They are broadly -

• Ad people create TVCs and cool campaigns
• Our meetings are largely about the next big campaign idea and no number crunching involved
• Agency decides the creative
• We can rest our feet on our tables
• We work late and we enter late the next day
• We can pass slang words easily to anyone
• We get to meet celebrities 
• We have an amazing social life
• We can wear Tshirts and 3/4ths
• Every agency has a Piyush Pandey

None of these are true. Far from it. Ya, you keep your feet on ur table when no one is around or there is no client in the office but most of these myths are rightly myths.

Instead, this is what we do -

• we don't create only TVCs - we go on to design a flyer or even a tender ad or a sticker (its just a question of how low can you go)
• Cool campaigns? what's that? What really happened was that the client was extremely dissatisfied because the agency did not provide any proactive work on the brand and thus one call to the CEO of agency and the creative & servicing battle it out over weekends and after endless food ordering we came up with a campaign which is only bound to be forgotten by the client.
• Agency decides the creative?? Phhaaa!! 
• No one will ever tell you that 'son why dont you leave early today and come back tomorrow to complete the rest'. Wait, hold on, some one did care once (this is what I once heard one of the VP saying to a junior executive), 'Beta dekho abhi toh 11 45 hue hain meeting kal 9 baje ko hain, ye pura kaam hone mein 3-4 baj jayenge, abhi tumlog niklo aur kal subah aao, bas karo abhi, ghar pe aaram karo, theek hain.. meri car aa gayi hai, kissi ko drop kar na hai kya?'. If only you would've said this 3 hours earlier.
• I tried the slang once. Turns out the client wrote a 'stinker' (ohh my next post on stinker--Excited!!) and some of those slangs were volleyed back at me by my own boss
• So if you are a junior in either servicing or creative, and if you are shooting with a celeb, forget it! only seniors will go for it while you do the rest of the work
• I haven't met my friends in 5 months and haven't called my dad in 2 months
• 'Bugger if you wear this and come the next time, you dont wanna know what I will do'. Says enough doesn't it?
• The NCD's is the reason why you are an Ogilvy or a Triton. So if you have a pansy, safe-game player, unoriginal and uninspiring NCD, all the perils of being in agency will come alive 

Someone rightly said that this industry is not for the faint-hearted nor is it for a brave heart. Its a funny industry and everything and anything is a crisis after a client has written a mail to your boss. Strangely, after bashing this industry in so many words, one cannot entirely hate this industry & abandon it. Much like what you do when you are in love (not infatuation). 

No matter where you go or what you become, an advertising person will always be a tribesman. And this dichotomy between love and hate for this industry is the pure sense of cruelty one could ever face.