Don’t Be a Busy Fool: My Stressful Experience as a Debenhams Dishwasher

Kitchen Maid with the Supper at Emmaus, Diego Velasquez

'It is not enough to be busy. So are the ants. The question is: What are we busy about?'
H D Thoreau

In my holidays from College I took a number of random jobs. I distributed law reports around Chancery Lane (beautiful buildings). I delivered the Christmas post around Romford (great canteen). I dug holes in Harold Hill (excellent for sun tan and body tone). And I did a fair amount of filing - which was a major occupation in the pre-digital age (not good for anything really, other than mind control).

My most stressful employment was in the kitchens of the Debenhams Department Store in Romford Town Centre.

I was stationed on my own alongside some large stainless steel sinks and industrial dishwashers. A conveyer belt brought me dirty crockery, cutlery and glasses in a steady stream from the adjacent customer restaurant. All I had to do was sort and stack the items as they came through.

The problem was that I had no control of the speed of the conveyer belt or the volume of the dishes. And I couldn’t prevent myself pausing occasionally to finish off an attractive unwanted pastry. 

As the lunchtime rush accelerated, I struggled to keep up. Pots and plates, mugs and jugs, saucers, soup bowls and serving spoons presented themselves to me in an ever more confused, messy muddle. I piled and loaded with diminishing care and increasing anxiety, spilling gravy on the floor, dropping the occasional glass. I became somewhat flustered, which hampered me even more. 

And the conveyor belt kept on rolling. And the dirty dishes kept on arriving, unrelenting, unforgiving. 

It all got a bit too much. I shouted through the plastic flap to the restaurant, begging the nearby waiters to slow things down. But they carried on regardless, pacing the floor in a catatonic stupor.

I read somewhere once that stress derives in large part from lack of control. The problem is out of our hands, beyond our ability. There’s nothing we can do. Well, dishwashing at Debenhams was the very definition of a stressful occupation.

Eventually, as lunch turned towards afternoon tea, the volume of crockery declined and I recovered my composure. 

I helped myself to one last custard tart.

President Dwight Eisenhower made a celebrated distinction regarding the challenges he faced in office (quoting Dr J R Miller, president of Northwestern University):

'I have two kinds of problems: the urgent and the important. The urgent are not important, and the important are never urgent.’ 

This sentiment should resonate with many people in modern business. We know that we should really be applying ourselves to the big long-term issues that loom on the horizon. But we just can’t quite get around to them, because pressing short-term problems keep demanding our attention.

The truth is that some of these short-term concerns are not as urgent as they may seem. They’re a distraction, and they should probably be dealt with by someone else. Indeed a few of them may be entirely superfluous. What’s more, some of those long-term issues really need to be addressed right now. 

'Nothing is less productive than to make more efficient what should not be done at all.'
Peter Drucker

Smart business people learn to concentrate on the urgent issues that are really important, and the important issues that are actually urgent. They have the ability to differentiate and delegate, categorise and schedule. Prioritisation of tasks and challenges is a critical skill in life and business.

'Being busy does not always mean real work. The object of all work is production or accomplishment, and to either of these ends there must be forethought, system, planning, intelligence, and honest purpose, as well as perspiration. Seeming to do is not doing.'
Thomas Edison

Gwyn and I left BBH at the same time, and we both embarked on a stage in our careers that is more plural in nature. BBH Founder John Bartle, wary of the pitfalls of such a path, offered Gwyn the following concise advice: ‘Don’t be a busy fool.’

'Got to have a job to put the food on the table.
Got to have a job to keep that party able.
Got to have a job to bring home the bread.
Got to have a job to keep that family fed.

Sometimes your business is all messed up.
Sometimes you don't have your thing together.
And when your thing is all messed up,
Somebody will take that fire, yeah!
So, if you don't give a doggone about it,
If you don't give a doggone about it,
Then they—
They won't give a damn!’

James Brown, 'If You Don't Give A Doggone About It'

No. 317

42nd Street: The Galvanising Power of a Motivational Speech

'Remember, my contract makes me boss with a capital B. And what I say goes.’
Julian Marsh, '42nd Street’.

I recently watched the grandmother of all ‘backstage’ musicals, the 1933 film '42nd Street.’

'42nd Street’ features a tough but talented director, an angel investor with eyes for the leading lady, an ingenue who dreams of stardom, and a chorus line of sharp talking, hard working hoofers. It has a romance in peril and a stage production teetering on the edge; beautifully written comedic dialogue and splendidly kaleidoscopic Busby Berkeley choreography. It’s a magnificent movie.

Ruby Keeler plays Peggy Sawyer who arrives in New York from small town Pennsylvania intent on a stage career. At an audition for a production of ‘Pretty Lady’ she encounters fierce competition and caustic humour from her fellow dancers.

'It seems that little Loraine's hit the bottle again.'
'Yah, the peroxide bottle.’

'It must have been hard on your mother, not having any children.’

Sawyer is taken under the wings of two of the more considerate performers.

'Stick with us, girl, and you'll come in on the tide.'

The director of ‘Pretty Lady’ is Julian Marsh (played by Warner Baxter). 

'Julian Marsh, the greatest musical comedy director in America today.'
'What do you mean, today?'
'All right, tomorrow too.’

Marsh has recently lost his investments in the Wall Street Crash and his doctor tells him that his health is failing. He really must make ‘Pretty Lady’ a success. Once auditions are over, the cast and chorus are assembled for the first time. Marsh gives them a rousing address.

'All right, now, everybody... Quiet, and listen to me. Tomorrow morning, we're gonna start a show. We're gonna rehearse for five weeks, and we're gonna open on scheduled time, and I mean scheduled time. You're gonna work and sweat, and work some more. You're gonna work days, and you're gonna work nights, and you're gonna work between time when I think you need it. You're gonna dance until your feet fall off, till you're not able to stand up any longer, but five weeks from now, we're going to have a show. Now, some of you people have been with me before. You know it's gonna be a tough grind. It's gonna be the toughest five weeks that you ever lived through! Do you all get that? Now, anybody who doesn't think he's gonna like it had better quit right now. What do I hear? Nobody? Good... Then that's settled. We start tomorrow morning.'

There follow five weeks of gruelling rehearsals. Five weeks of barked instructions and tired limbs; of navigating complex steps and predatory men; of money worries and blossoming romances; of temper tantrums and nervous exhaustion.

The night before the show's opening, Marsh has a loss of confidence and his angel investor contemplates withdrawing. To cap it all, the leading lady breaks her ankle. 

It’s down to the inexperienced Sawyer to step up and save the show. Marsh rehearses her mercilessly until an hour before the premiere.

'All right, I'll give you a chance - because I've got to... I'll either have a live leading lady - or a dead chorus girl.’

Just before she takes to the stage, Sawyer is visited in her dressing room by the injured star.

'You're nervous, aren't you? Well, don't be. The customers out there want to like you. Always remember that, kid. I've learned it from experience. And you've got so much to give them. Youth and beauty and freshness. Do you know your lines? And your songs? And your dance routine? Well, you're a cinch… Now go out there and be so swell that you'll make me hate you!'

Of course, the plot of ‘42nd Street’ may now seem somewhat commonplace and the characters rather familiar. Critic Pauline Kael famously observed that it was the movie that 'gave life to the clichés that have kept parodists happy.' But ‘42nd Street’ was there first, and it presents its story with such gusto, conviction and good humour that it can still put a lump in your throat and a tear in your eye. At the end you’re willing sweet Sawyer to succeed.

As a former adman I can’t help being reminded of the drama of the pitch process. That spirit of camaraderie as a team embarks on an intense period of toil and trouble; that sense of urgency and consequence regardless of the Client or the task.

One of the marks of a great leader is the ability to unite a disparate group of people in a common endeavour; to instil the belief that this particular challenge really matters, and that each individual can make a difference.

I often watched my great friend and long-time colleague Gwyn Jones motivate a pitch winning team. He would inspire commitment with passionate oratory and one-to-one encouragement. He would give youth the opportunity to shine. He would summon industry and endurance, and yet be sympathetic when morale was flagging. And he would always demand excellence in the finished product.

It’s the night before the pitch, and the team is assembled in Gwyn’s office with the finished deck awaiting final adjustments and sign-off. All is expectation. Gwyn pages through the document in silence. At long last he looks up:

‘Now I know we’re going to have a great pitch tomorrow and you’re all going to be brilliant… But I want all of us here to understand one thing: right now we are nowhere!’

He would then pick them up off the floor and help them piece together the winning argument.

There’s nothing quite like the galvanising power of a timely, well articulated motivational speech - to revive drooping spirits, to summon last reserves of energy, to focus the eye on the prize.

‘The Bridge of Thighs’

Before Sawyer steps out on stage for her make-or-break performance Marsh gives her one last pep talk.

'Sawyer, you listen to me, and you listen hard. Two hundred people, two hundred jobs, two hundred thousand dollars, five weeks of grind and blood and sweat depend upon you. It's the lives of all these people who've worked with you. You've got to go on, and you've got to give and give and give. They've got to like you. Got to. Do you understand? You can't fall down. You can't because your future's in it, my future and everything all of us have is staked on you. All right, now I'm through, but you keep your feet on the ground and your head on those shoulders of yours and go out. And Sawyer, you're going out a youngster, but you've got to come back a star!’

'Every kiss, every hug
Seems to act just like a drug.
You're getting to be a habit with me.
Let me stay in your arms.
I'm addicted to your charms.
You're getting to be a habit with me.
I used to think your love was something
That I could take or leave alone.
But now I couldn't do without my supply.
I need you for my own.'

Bebe Daniels ‘You’re Getting to Be a Habit With Me’ (H Warren, A Dubin)

No. 278

The Memory Machine

It’s almost a year since Gwyn and I left BBH. This is a piece I wrote soon after our departure, reflecting on my time at the Agency and the broader theme of memory.

It was first published in the Winter 2016 edition of You Can Now magazine.

'I remember, I remember,
The house where I was born,
The little window where the sun
Came peeping in at morn.’

I Remember, I Remember/Thomas Hood

When I was a child my mother often read this piece to me from The Golden Treasury of Poetry. I could tell that nostalgia was a powerful thing, even when I’d not lived long enough to experience it.

Now that I am of robust middle age, memory and remembrance of things past are powerfully present. I’m increasingly drawn to reflect on my history in order to make sense of my future. And increasingly I have to guard against the corrosive force of sentimentality. (As Lou Reid said, 'I don’t like nostalgia unless it’s mine.’)

I have recently left the advertising industry after twenty five years’ happy service. It’s interesting to consider what I can and can’t remember.

I have forgotten endless meetings in poorly lit conference rooms at home and abroad. I’ve forgotten the compromises, the arguments, the politics. The indignity of labour. I’ve forgotten the decks and documents, the Power Point and power plays. I’ve forgotten many of the Pitches that we won and lost. I’ve forgotten entire strategies and campaigns. Clients that were good, bad and ugly, often at the same time.

People, events and things that once seemed terribly important are diminished by time, their memory fading to grey. All forgotten.

So what do I remember?

I remember Dav on the harmonica, Reddy on the ukulele, Kev on the penny whistle. I remember Kidney conducting, Kendall coaching, Pollard swearing, Wardy giggling, Stacey smoking, Charlie punching the palm of his hand. I remember Ben’s acrostics, Nigel’s aphorisms and JB’s acid wit.  I remember Bish on the table, Fernanda on the dance floor, Dylan on the football pitch. I remember Joe having fun, Blatch having disasters, Pepp having a quiet word. I remember John Hegarty singing Fairytale of New York. And more besides...

It seems that I can recall with vivid clarity faces, phrases, places, gestures, and moments. It’s a kaleidoscope of trivial detail. Why are these the dominant memories of my employment?

Virginia Woolf once said, ‘I am writing to a rhythm, not to a plot’. I think perhaps that’s how my career recollections have played out. I have lost the plot, so to speak. The grand narrative of success and disappointment, trophies and triumphs, has slipped quietly into the night. I’m left with this curious soup of the incidental and the inconsequential. I guess it’s the rhythm of the Agency’s culture that I’m recalling; the rhythm of a great Agency working in harmony, marching as one to the beat of a creative drum. I’m inclined to say that my memories are predominantly of people and personalities because culture matters; because culture is the critical determinant of career success and fulfilment. I do believe this.

But I’m also conscious that we can’t entirely trust the evidence of our memories. We are unreliable narrators of our own lives.

I have read that, according to the science of memory, we generally do not recall actual events. For the most part we call to mind the memories of those events; and sometimes the memories of the memories. And so our recollections of the past can adjust and evolve with retelling and remembering. Memory has been compared to a palimpsest, a parchment on which the original script has been erased and overwritten. In other words, memory is a ‘multi-layered record’. It is flexible and plastic. It is creative, reconstructive and autobiographical.

That’s why so many people swear that they saw Bugs Bunny in Disneyland and the Sex Pistols in Manchester’s Lesser Free Trade Hall. Some call it False Memory Syndrome; others call it wishful thinking.

Some time ago I attended a performance of Harold Pinter’s Old Times in which Pinter considered the malleability of truth. As the character Anna put it:

‘There are some things one remembers even though they may never have happened. There are things that I remember which may never have happened, but as I recall them so they take place.’

Harold Pinter/ Old Times

The play’s programme notes helpfully explained the psychology of memory.

‘Two forces go head-to-head in memory. The force of correspondence acts to make our memories true to the way things were, while the force of coherence acts to tell a story that suits the self. We know that autobiographical memory is a reconstructive process, drawing together different sources of information and putting them together in ways that can differ subtly from telling to telling. These dynamic reshapings often serve to make memories as true to how we want the past to be as to how it actually was.’

Charles Fernyhough, Pieces of Light, quoting Psychologist Martin Conway

So my recollections of my time at work are both a reflection of the truth and of my own sense of self. I make my memories and my memories make me.

It strikes me that the communications industry has long put the creative, autobiographical nature of memory to good use. It has supplied contexts for experiences, ways of remembering; reconfigurations of events, so that we feel more positively disposed to repeat them.

That beer was more refreshing, that holiday was more rewarding, that car was more thrilling, that conversation was more entertaining.  It was the real thing, the ultimate drive. It was the happiest place on earth, the best a man could get. It got you back to you. You loved it.

Advertising is more than a promise for the future. It is a reconstruction of the past.

Of course the past and future are inextricably linked. I recently read an interview with Sir Nicholas Penny, the outgoing Director of the National Gallery, in which he made the case for respecting our heritage: ‘Real concern for the future is always more persuasive in those that have a genuine feeling for the past’. I’m sure he’s right. By giving a brand historical context, we give it a narrative that makes sense of its promises for the future.

Critically, memories can sustain consumers through a brand’s absence.  Memories excuse marketers from the expense of ‘always on’, ever-present media strategies; and consumers from the waking nightmare that these strategies represent. Because memories endure when we’re not around. At its most powerful advertising supplies the recollective material for enduring experiences and relationships. Advertising is a Memory Machine.

I wonder do we properly appreciate this? Are we so concerned with momentary messages that we ignore more meaningful memories? Do we ever ask what memories we are seeking to inspire for our brand, lest perhaps it is forgotten in our absence? Are we so eager to create a vision of the future that we disregard our vision of the past?

To conclude where we began. In another verse from The Golden Treasury of Poetry, Christina Rosetti made a plea that resonates through time and particularly rings true for a middle aged ad man looking for a new frontier: remember me.

‘Remember me when I am gone away,
Gone far away into the silent land;
When you can no more hold me by the hand,
Nor I half turn to go yet turning stay.
Remember me when no more day by day
You tell of our future to be planned:
Only remember me.’

Remember/Christina Rosetti

No. 69