A day at the office: turf wars and sausage fests!

Even though I have my share of oft-documented problems with office employment, I’ve got to admit that my current job isn’t too bad. I work independently, I’ve got creative freedom, and my performance is judged exclusively on the quality of what I produce (as opposed to, say, somebody’s bizarre and abstract notion that I just don’t seem adequately thrilled by the very act of showing up to the office every day.) In fact, all told, I’ve been perfectly happy here…

…and then came the Wannabe.



The Wannabe (see lower left panel in the above cartoon) is a classic nemesis for those of us who work in creative fields. He is that person who thinks that writing, graphic design, art direction and the like don’t require any particular skill or expertise, and therefore, that anyone – and more specifically, he himself – is awesomely capable of doing these jobs. (For the uninitiated, this is a load of crap. Creative professionals are vital to good marketing, and if you want proof, just picture a world in which this was the gold standard for advertising. That, my friends, is not a world you want to live in.)

I was blissfully unaware of the existence of the Wannabe until last week, when I attended a meeting with him. He is the manager of a new, branded product which will hereafter be referred to as the “Widget”. I was slated to present potential marketing taglines for said item. The Wannabe – let’s call him Fuckface Ravioli, because he is Italian, and also, because we can – was seated at the head of the table. The meeting was halfway finished, and I was next in line to present, when Fuckface Ravioli pulled a piece of paper covered in handwritten scrawl out of his binder.

“Oh, I came up with some taglines, too,” he said. “You know, just during lunch.”

Around the table, people blinked.

“Okay,” someone finally said. “Kat, why don’t you go first.”

In the interest of saving time, (and, uh, not totally giving away trade secrets), I will not say anything about my taglines... except that they were clever and awesome and everyone loved them. My coworkers were discussing which of two they preferred, when Fuckface Ravioli said, “Well, here are MY taglines.”

Everyone fell silent and waited.

And okay: I admit it, at this point, I was feeling mildly annoyed. As would you if, say, you had a job to do, and you were presenting your work to your team, and some jerk suddenly whipped out a piece of paper that he’d doodled on and said, “Oh, by the way, I did your job during my lunch break.” But, faced with the possibility that the jerk’s doodle sheet might contain a brilliant, life-changing idea, I chose not to speak up.

In hindsight, that was really effing stupid.

“Okay, here’s my first one,” said Fuckface Ravioli. He paused for effect, smiling broadly, then said:

“Got Widget?”

There were ten agonizing seconds of silence..

Fuckface Ravioli stared eagerly at us, jabbed his finger at the paper, and said, “C’mon guys! Got Widget? GOT WIDGET?!”

At this point, I took a closer look at the piece of paper in Fuckface Ravioli’s hand.
There were at least twenty, maybe thirty, taglines written there.
Nooooooooo.

Fuckface Ravioli continued grinning, looking from person to person, then said, “Okay, well, how about this?…

“It’s Widget time!”

It's WIDGET TIME. If there is a private hell reserved especially for copywriters, no doubt this would be one of the daily tortures. Fuckface Ravioli, laboring under the impression that his ideas were the work of a master wordsmith, readingdown his list – stopping each time to nod knowingly at each of us, as though to acknowledge our collective silence as the only natural reaction to his genius.

“Don’t forget the Widget!” he cried, grinning like a maniac. “Think Widget! A Widget is forever!”
Things continued on in this manner until he reached the final tagline, paused again for effect, and then, with a flourish, yelled:

“WHO LET THE WIDGET OUT!!!”

He looked at us. “C’mon, that’s funny, right?”

Around the table, my coworkers all appeared to be contemplating suicide.

“Sure,” someone finally said, “but it, er, may not be the best ide—“
Fuckface Ravioli cut him off.
“What does everyone else think?” he said, thrusting his paper at the group.
And then, the worst thing that could have possibly happened: One guy made eye contact.

Fuckface Ravioli pounced.

“STEVE,” he said. “Which one do YOU like?”
Steve stuttered, coughed, and then said, “Uh… I guess that one is pretty good.”

“There,” said Fuckface Ravioli, staring at me. “Steve likes my tagline.” He looked around the room. “I think we should put it to a company-wide vote. I’ll send out all your taglines, and all my taglines, and we’ll see which ones the other employees like best.”

I would have liked to do any number of things in response to this – for instance, protesting that sending thirty taglines to a company of sixty people for popular vote does not make mathematical sense; or pointing out that taking a famous ad slogan from the early nineties, removing the brand name, and inserting the word “Widget” does not equal brilliant marketing; or forcing one of my team members to stop throwing me under the goddamn bus, already, fortheloveofgod.

Instead, because I am conflict-averse – and also, because I am always the only woman in these meetings, and even though it shouldn’t matter, it really does – I just said, ‘Fine.” And then I went home and shouted a lot.

That was last week, and based on recent events, I believe that some authoritative person has since informed Fuckface Ravioli that he should stop trying to do my job. And I am totally over the whole thing.

Really, I’ve even hardly fantasized about killing Steve this week at all.

But the entire thing got me wondering: How do you make known your displeasure at some obnoxious turf-stepper's attempts to do your job -- particularly when there's not only a seniority issue at work, but a seriously wacked gender disparity as well? Readers? Help a sister out.