gor[b] Paul Gorbould: Words and Pictures

Trading places

I have a friend who is changing jobs, moving on to (as they say) "new opportunities." That's something I haven't done in a long time – though I've worked for different shows and different websites, I've been at CBC for a decade.

It got me thinking about a couple of conversations I've had with other folks who have changed employers. By making the switch, they discovered things I would have never considered. Here are two examples.

- Neal used to work for a major advertising firm. On a canoe trip to Algonquin, he told me about his two biggest accounts: Mercedes, and then Coca-Cola. Both were plum clients – big names, big budgets, established brands. But according to Neal, when it came to advertising, they were like matter and anti-matter.

"Mercedes are just plain good cars," he told me. "We could do zero advertising, and throw stuff at customers as they entered the showrooms, and they'd still buy the cars." (For the record, that was not the creative strategy Neal pitched.)

"But Coke is just sugar and water," he explained. "It's all about the advertising."

Image is about the only reason people buy Coke, or buy it instead of Pepsi. The product constantly needs new ideas and maximum creativity to stay afloat, a model that Neal preferred. Interestingly, neither client made his company rich. They were high profile loss-leaders, accounts that would win the company awards so they could gouge less sexy clients.

- On the blue collar end of the spectrum is Jason, who fixes trucks for a living. Until recently, he fixed cars. Sounded about the same to me: wrenches, oil, manual labour. But at a birthday party, I asked him about the switch, and he was ecstatic.

"When someone's car breaks down, they get mad. It's an unexpected expense, they have kids to pick up from school, and they need their car back yesterday."

Fairly or unfairly, car owner frustrations are usually leveled squarely at the mechanic. For trucking firms, on the other hand, it's all in a day's work.

"We have a fleet of trucks, and when one breaks down they just put another one on the road. It's an expected cost of doing business." Jason fixes the trucks, and nobody yells at him.

All of this got me thinking... I wonder how my workplace experience would be summed up in a single pithy anecdote.

But I think I've been here too long, and I don't have any immediate plans to leave. Wrong guy to ask.

So I asked some new(ish) employees for their takes. Here are a couple:

While very impressed with the level of intelligence and professionalism on the part of CBC employees, I was caught off guard by the extreme bureaucracy and conservatism. As soon as I walked through the doors, I got the sense that I entered a time warp. While other companies I've worked at are moving forward with progressive ideas, attitudes, the CBC still seems entrenched in an old-fashioned bubble a la 1970. (e.g. time cards, no concept of flexible hours, working from home etc.)

It's true: I've been working here on the internet for ten years, but I still fill out a thick, green paper time card each week, using a ball point pen. I presume they are carried away by pneumatic tube to a stenographer for card punching. But she's right about the intelligence and professionalism, too: there isn't a single person I work with who isn't smart, capable, and completely deserving of their job. Any CBC bashers that think otherwise can e-mail me and I'll give them a tour so they can see for themselves. Here's another:

I guess for me the biggest difference is the red tape... compared to the smaller places I've worked at, there are far more people and steps involved in getting things done.

On the upside though, the projects at CBC are much cooler than my previous jobs... just simply because of the content of each project... it's news, sports, arts, or entertainment... aside from the banner ads on the website, my work is detached from the world of marketing and advertising.

Amen to that. From my fuzzy recollections of life in the private sector, I don't remember having to write up a Project Charter every time I wanted to blow my nose. Then again, I didn't have to make a profit doing it.

I think this is why secondments, work exchanges and internships are such a good idea. Employees get to trade places for a while, distill these sorts of lessons learned, and bring them home.

If only you could keep the demo Mercedes...