It's time for another life update! I had been a little too depressed and busy riding to blog the last few months, two barns with horses that need riding and six months of unemployment will do that to a girl, but all that changed recently because I finally got a job! Yay!!
I am now working for an agency start-up called Neighbor, which was founded on a commitment to social and environmental responsibility, as a Senior Planner.
I have always felt conflicted about working in the ad world. A lot of people don't have a high opinion of advertisers and marketers and I can't say I blame them. We have a reputation for pushing crap, for developing and encouraging consumer culture, and for exploiting subcultures and resources when it suits our interests. Its not like I didn't see it. I'm a planner, it's my job to see the bigger picture and I knew that focusing on the immediate needs of shareholders and the bottom line without considering the long term consumer impact was a slow train off a cliff, but I also had rent to pay and food to buy, so off to work I went.
Interviewing at Neighbor was a revelation. Instead of being laughed at and called a Commie for voicing my views about advertising ethics and consumer culture, I was agreed with and embraced. I never thought I would have that.
It's also nice to know that Dave can be proud of what I do as well. I knew he respected my work and my opinion, but he was never a fan of the ad business. Every so often we would pass an unusually bad billboard or see a commercial that totally missed the mark and he would exclaim, "F*cking Advertisers!" And then he would look to me a quickly say, "But not you. I know you're one of the good ones." And I would smile and let it go while silently thinking to myself, "Really? Am I really one of the good ones."
Now I can say that yes, indeed I am one of the good ones.
On another note, Dave and I set a date for the wedding. We'll be getting married in Seattle on November 14th 2009.