Downtime is Playtime

by Delmy Alvarenga.

Downtime

As I scrolled down my Facebook timeline, I read the status update of a friend who announced she got fired from a creative (?) agency. Instead of being angry or sad about her unemployment situation, she wrote a brief text full of thankfulness and confidence. She said she was happy to use the “available” time to redirect her passions and do what she truly likes. She even said she would partake the 10% of her termination paycheck to grab some beers and dance with friends.

Although we worked at the same place we never really talked except when asking for cigarettes, lighters, or the ocassional “Facebook like” as I updated I was listening Mazzy Star.
I guess music is our link, not advertising.

Agency creative people is always talking about how much they hate their jobs. They’re already used to fast food and taxi cab tickets. They update “creative work orders” on an obsolete system that doesn’t even mix with the accounting or the financial system. They wait for Wednesday, Thursday, Friday —actually, any night— to drink or get high. “One more beer/vodka/scotch/insert your-favorite-drug-here, and then we’ll see,” they say as they ask for another beer before going back to the office and continue their hungovered work. I imagine employers feel the same way about us, creatives and roges. “One more campaign and we’ll see.” See what? Results?

See if “one more campaing” is going to secure the client’s fee and avoid account splitting and biddings to other agencies? See if “one more campaing” is going to give them new clients? See if “one more campaign” is going to give them the regional network recognition they dream about? See if “one more campaing” is going to deliver highly creative award-worth work?

If only awards was the promised land. If only the extra hours meant larger paychecks. If only clients were clear enough to state they have no marketing strategy and all they have is some “media budget” they need to spend to account at the end of the month. That they don’t really understand about revenues, worst consumers, worst advertising. If only everybody spoke the truth.

But life is too short to play the “if only” game.

The very public truth is that most of us —creatives and roges— don’t care about the advertising industry. We don’t care about fees and overheads; about budget “updates” and production commissions arranged under some table while big-headed studs grab more than drinks at a local Hooters or cheap hotel lobbies.

All we care about is the opportunity to understand what the ultimate goal is in order for us to play; to do our work in the fashion of what that infamous email signature states: “creative”

Play time

Reading my friend’s update, it was not the unemployment situation what caught my attention but the happiness expressed that she was free to “redirect her passions and do what she truly likes.” If —only— I was given a pennie for every creative I’ve heard saying those same words. I wouldn’t be millionare but I might invite you to beers.

“To do what I truly like” is a strong statement. It’s strong because we’re trained to think that we are supposed to like our jobs. We put too much attention on “what we do” instead of “how we do” what we do, we believe that our job is more important than our work.

But a hard truth a creative person has to learn is that we will never like what we do because we will always want to do things better. We are only as good as our worst work, and I’m not talking from the perfectionistic side. Au contraire, I’m talking deeply from the creative side because the real challenge here is to understand that “job” is not the same as “work.” Job is a social contract. Work is a result. Job is a paycheck. Work is meaning. Job is a negotiation. Work, the result of how we do things. Job is a punishment. Work is playtime.

We are not our job because jobs change all the time. Jobs are bounded to an industry. Work is linked to our core dreams and desires. Work is motivation in action.

One of the hardest things creative people has to learn is to balance the frustration that grows from our uncontrollable desire of creation. Most of the times we get obssessed about the final result and when we “achieve it” we discover that it’s not what we expected. Sometimes we marvel about it, sometimes we hate the result of our creation. However, the subtle reality is that we’ll never love the end result simply because “creative” will never be an object outside. “Creative” is, and will continue to be, a description to tag a process. Creative is a path, a road, a way of life. It is never a destination.

So, what does playtime mean? When does “playtime” occur?
Always.

We don’t have to leave an agency to be creative. We don’t have to be unemployed to be recover our playfulness and start doing the ideas we want to play.

Playtime should be every single moment of our lives. Every second. Everything we can describe as time is play time, because it is not bounded to end results outside. It is linked to inner motivations that lead us to joyful actions.