OMG! Some feral dude called Fishpaste is going to get half a million bucks because he was “shafted up the backside by the poison dwarf.” Such a coincidence, coz that’s exactly what happened to me last week. Literally! (Well, not literally literally but it definitely felt that way.)
Anyway, the point is that at the Chrissy party I had the client eating out of the palm of my hand. Literally. I had a handful of Christmas candy and my client was so drunk he was crawling across the floor with his face in my hand which everyone thought was totes hilarious and so I go all the way down the corridor with the client crawling on his hands and knees and into the boardroom where CEO was (he was on the couch explaining penetration to that new Chinese digital guy) and I go “Hey look smartypants you told me I’d get a payrise when I had the client eating out of the palm of my hand so I want it now!”. He looked sooo shocked. So did the Chinese dude, too!
My client staggered to his feet and shoved his finger at CEO and said he’d take the whole international haircare account to Ogilvy’s if CEO didn’t sign a payrise for me on the spot. And then he passed out! It was soooo funny.
Anyway, the upshot was that I got promised this massive pay rise (CEO explained that even though he didn’t have any money left in his account management budget he could take it out of creative.) Woo hoo! I went on this hectic January spending spree and bought all this mad stuff. But then things got weird.
At the first meeting back for the new year CEO introduces this Stuck-Up Bitch called Gabriella and says she’s going to be working “across all account management” which means what exactly I asked? Nobody would say. Suddenly she’s turning up at my meetings and telling the creatives what to do and changing all my strategies and even going to see the client without me! Unbelievable!
Worse, when I got my salary slip the other day it was less than before! I rush into see CEO but he goes it’s a matter for accounts and nothing to do with him. So I go see the Lebo finance dude and he goes “well, nobody told me you were given a payrise, let me check.” And then he pulls out this hectic chart and goes “oh I see, that was your settlement. Apparently you don’t work here anymore.” Can you believe it?
Anyway I stormed into CEO’s office and he goes “Inga, you’re by far the best suit I’ve ever worked with” and then he looks all serious and goes but unfortunately you’ve been replaced because global insisted Gabriella be given the job and there’s nothing he could do about it and he’d been meaning to get around to telling me when he had a spare moment.
I was totes speechless but I swore blue murder at him and told him my client would have his balls for breakfast but CEO said that that wasn’t in fact true because Gabriella had already struck up a strong personal relationship with my client and he was perfectly happy with the new arrangements.
If Fishpaste can get half a million, I’m going for the full mill! Game on!
Inga Van Kyck is the pseudonym of a well-known female senior account executive, working undercover and incognito in one of Sydney's top ad agencies, writing an "insider" marketing column for B&T.
