I'Ll Go Home Then, It's Warm and Has Chairs. The Unpublished Emails. - (16 page)

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My girlfriend Candy and I playing volleyball

Candy is extremely athletic and it is this common factor that makes us so compatible. Every day I go for a two hundred kilometre jog along the beach and then swim back. I have been asked many times to do male modeling but am too busy jogging, swimming and having lots of girlfriends who I kiss.  Also, I would not want to be responsible for some girl buying the magazine and having her boyfriend see the photos of me and then break her heart due to turning into a homosexual. Love is a precious gift. Like an iPod or sheepskin car-seat covers.

Candy tells me everyday that she loves me more than Demi Moore loved Patrick Swayze in the movie Ghost. When we are not busy playing volleyball or kissing, she makes clay sculptures of me and currently has 370 in her home with almost half at 1:1 scale. Candy says that I look a lot like Patrick Swayze and am a better dancer which is ridiculous as nobody is a better dancer than Patrick Swayze.

Girls like telephones and apps. It isn't rocket science.

I wasn't expecting Kevin to actually send the client a proof but it will be interesting to see how this pans out.

Despite the fact that most agency account reps have never worked in, or have the vaguest idea about, the industry they represent, I like working with Kevin for exactly this reason.

In the past year, he has asked me to courier him "a portable document disk", promised a client a new logo in exchange for 50% off the price of laying floor boards in his home, and once fell asleep during a client meeting. When I startled him awake by nudging him, he yelled "the sprinklers are on" but refused to go into further detail.

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From: Kevin Eastwood

Date: Thursday 19 January 2012 10.04am

To: David Thorne

Subject: Kotex artwork

Hi David,

I just tried emailing Jodie but got an auto responder that she is away. The client was happy with the last magazine ad layout and wants to place another in the February issue. Same info but different image. I said I would get a proof to them by tomorrow. Can you have a look at this for me?

Kevin

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From: David Thorne

Date: Thursday 19 January 2012 10.32am

To: Kevin Eastwood

Subject: Re: Kotex artwork

Hello Kevin,

Jodie is currently away on stress leave but will be returning on the 23rd. Workload related stress is a leading cause of poor office productivity and a daily schedule of harvesting Farmville crops while eating cake and emailing people images of a cat wearing a tie saying "I need everyone to stay late tonight, we really need to catch that red dot" apparently falls under this description.

While I would love to help you out, unfortunately I am unable to make amendments to Jodie's projects in her absense. This is partly due to not being the designer who undertook the brief, research, direction and development of the project, and partly due to Jodie password-protecting her computer after I changed her open Facebook page status to "Renting the Die Hard quadrilogy tonight. Yippee kayak, motherfuckers" while she was at a funeral.

In my defense, I thought she said she was going to a "Food Mall." Just last week Mellissa stated there was cake in the kitchen and I heard a popping noise as air entered the vacuum Jodie's mass had occupied at her desk a nanosecond before.

Though I know her password, (it is always her cat's name), there is little point using it. As Jodie has modeled her filing system on the Mandelbrot Set, with files named qwedqwyer.fmx and asdasydfg.psd several thousand folders deep, she will probably be back at work well before I manage to locate the file.

I can leave a sticky note on her desk though if that helps.

Regards, David.

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From: Kevin Eastwood

Date: Thursday 19 January 2012 10.46am

To: David Thorne

Subject: Re: Re: Kotex artwork

Not really. You don't have to search for the file it is 0396_kotex_click_advert_01.pdf. It has the black panel at the bottom with the Kotex logo and info and the picture of the girls at the beach splashing each other. The picture and the quote just needs to be changed, keep the rest.

I fully realize Jodie worked on the account but when she is away other designers should have access to the files If someone needs them. Standard operating procedure. I guess having some kind of system in this place is too much to hope for.

Kevin

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From: David Thorne

Date: Thursday 19 January 2012 11.01am

To: Kevin Eastwood

Subject: Re: Re: Re: Kotex artwork

Kevin,

We do have some kind of system and it is entirely hope based. Standard operating procedures consist of hoping nobody notices, hoping someone else gets blamed, and hoping account managers make promises only after checking the availability of sources to fulfill those promises.

Last month, while a file was in pre-press after a two day photo-shoot featuring five babies for a Kimberly Clarke advertisement and a week of design, you asked if it was too late to "make the text bigger and one of the babies an Asian."

If you expect me to make amendments to the Kotex layout, I am hoping that you have either a budget allocated for sourcing a replacement image that represents the confidence and resulting lifestyle benefits gained by using a particular brand of tampon, or have an existing 'rights free' replacement image in mind.

Regards, David.

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From: Kevin Eastwood

Date: Thursday 19 January 2012 11.09am

To: David Thorne

Subject: Re: Re: Re: Re: Kotex artwork

Budget for what? It is one photo change. It really isn't that complicated. Instead of girls at the beach, just change it to girls riding bikes or something and change the quote to something about being confident.

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From: David Thorne

Date: Thursday 19 January 2012 12.16pm

To: Kevin Eastwood

Subject: Requested amendment.

Attached file 0396_kotex_click_advert_01B.pdf

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From: Kevin Eastwood

Date: Thursday 19 January 2012 12.33pm

To: David Thorne

Subject: Re: Requested amendment.

Ok. The photo is nice but it doesn't have anything to do with tampons and the copy doesn't make any sense. You cant even tell if it is a girl or guy and I didn't say motorbikes.

I said bikes. If it was a cute girl smiling and hugging a guy on the back of a moped or something that might work but not doing jumps

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From: David Thorne

Date: Thursday 19 January 2012 12.51pm

To: Kevin Eastwood

Subject: Re: Re: Requested amendment.

Attached file 0396_kotex_click_advert_01C.pdf

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From: Kevin Eastwood

Date: Thursday 19 January 2012 1.19pm

To: David Thorne

Subject: Re: Re: Re: Requested amendment.

I liked the first one better. That's not a moped and I meant parked or something not riding. How is that image meant to appeal to anyone? They look like idiots and the bike is too old. Girls like modern technology like telephones and apps. It isn't rocket science.

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From: David Thorne

Date: Thursday 19 January 2012 1.46pm

To: Kevin Eastwood

Subject: Re: Re: Re: Re: Requested amendment.

Attached file 0396_kotex_click_advert_01D.pdf

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From: Kevin Eastwood

Date: Thursday 19 January 2012 2.46pm

To: David Thorne

Subject: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Requested amendment.

I will just send them the first one of the girl doing a jump and get back to you if they have changes. Thanks.

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From: David Thorne

Date: Thursday 19 January 2012 2.51pm

To: Kevin Eastwood

Subject: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Requested amendment.

No problem. You may want to CC Jodie in on that as I intend to be away next week.

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From: Kevin Eastwood

Date: Thursday 19 January 2012 2.57pm

To: David Thorne

Subject: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Requested amendment.

Will do.

Ten reasons I probably shouldn’t be alive: the beach

I don’t like the beach. I especially dislike busy beaches and having to navigate through eight thousand people to find a metre squared plot in which to take my top off in front of eight thousand people before venturing into a body of water with eight thousand people. Brochures always show beaches deserted, possibly with a footprint in the sand, but they are never like that.

I would probably quite like the beach if there wasn’t any people. Or sharks. A private beach would be quite nice, one a few steps down from a mansion of something. I probably wouldn’t actually go swimming but I might sit on the bottom step eating a sandwich while looking out at the water. Probably wondering how many sharks are just below the surface and what type. Then I would go back up to my mansion and read a newspaper or something while wearing one of those white bath-robes.

Once, while at the beach with my offspring, I swam out past eight thousand people and waved. Interpreting my waving for drowning, two huge men, wearing red shorts and carrying surfboards, bolted down the beach, dove in and swam towards me.