I Have Never Stopped Considering Not Becoming

Between The Time I First Started Working In Advertising In 1998 And Now, The Word Brand Has Replaced Identity. We Are No Longer Individuals So Much As We Are Brands. We're Individual Brands. Individuals Are Basically Left To Define Their Individuality By Staying Off The Internet, Which In And Of Itself Can Be A Brand, The Opting-out Brand.

If Someone Were Plucked From The Group And Given Those Responsibilities, They Might Find Themselves Growing More Aloof, Just By Virtue Of That Promotion. Suddenly The Group Culture Excludes You. I Saw This In My Own Working Life, And I Don't Think It's A Coincidence - I Sensed A Kind Of Loneliness In Middle Managers Especially.

If You Can Get By With Quotes From The Godfather And Nothing You Say Matters, That's Pretty Bleak, Don't You Think? Don't We Want What We Say To Matter?

The People At The Very Top Could Fall By And Grace You With Their Presence And Give You A Little Largesse, And You'd Be "oh, I'm So Beloved." In A Way, It Was Kind Of Like Flattery. The Middle Managers Didn't Quite Have That Cachet, But At The Same Time, They Had To Seem Like They Were Of That Caliber. So There's A Little Bit Of Loneliness At The Heart Of Those With A Little Bit Of Power.

We Loved Killing Time And Had Perfected Several Ways Of Doing So. We Wandered The Hallways Carrying Papers That Indicated Some Mission Of Business When In Reality We Were In Search Of Free Candy.