Dear Advertising, I can’t get up.

A rant and re-education on industry “burnout.” (Part 1 of 2…maybe.)

Today is my day off and I can’t get up. I was hoping to go on a day trip somewhere, but I’m still here in bed, heavy, depleted, and energetically sick. The only reason I’m typing this is because I happened to have my laptop at arms distance from me. The very arms I’ve been self conscious about when salsa dancing, are the same arms giving me access to this current moment of expression.

I am officially burnt out.

Those who know me well, know I’ve been here before several times. My mind is shot and I’m looking a lot like that low battery icon on your phone. I’m sick. No, it’s not Covid. Illness seems to have come with the territory of choosing a creative career that didn’t sound boring or awful, yet, here I am sick and not able to get up. You know when you try really hard to grab the crumbs at the bottom corner of a chip bag? That’s me, grabbing any left over crumbs of energy at the bottom corner of my chip bag. Getting to this point doesn’t happen overnight so getting out of it, won’t be quick either.

I used to think my inability to shoulder everything that came my way (as an art director) was a sign that I was weak, slow, or confirmation that maybe advertising wasn’t for me. I remember a mentor saying to me, “Maybe the industry can’t offer you what you’re looking for?” My immediate thought was, “You mean basic humanity?” After being in this industry for some years now, my perspective has shifted quite a bit. If you’re reading this, you’re probably from the industry and you most likely have experienced burnout and have probably had days where you also could not get up. I see you, and do I feel you.

The way we talk about “burnout” isn’t quite accurate and we all need a little bit of a re-education.

“Burnout” has routinely put the onerous on an employee deficiency but really, “burnout” is evidence of systemic negligence that has manifested into corporate abuse. Corporate abuse? (That sounds so serious!) Yes, corporate abuse. You might think that’s dramatic, but it’s not. It’s reality. I can’t tell you how many times in my career I’ve been put in a state of panic because of the perceived immediate need of delivering (______←insert task here) right now at this very exact moment and not a second later. It’s really a mind fuck to be honest, to routinely be put in a physiological state of urgency as if someone’s life is at stake when really what’s at stake is an extended deadline, by an hour, by a day, by a week.

Corporate abuse looks like having nothing left when you get home.

It looks like being awake for 6 hours after work, but having no life force left to do anything with it, like: going on a date, connecting with your children, cultivating a new hobby, seeing a friend, making a meal from scratch, being a part of your local community, playing that guitar collecting dust, or even planning the vacation you desperately need to take. It looks like sometimes not “going home,” even though most agency workers are still working from home. It looks like working weekends. It looks being required to be so amped up during the week, that you’re still amped up on the weekends and not knowing why. It looks like joking about divorce, because you never see your spouse. It looks like your family going on vacation without you. It looks like having no space to really absorb any life milestone, like: moving, having a child or losing a loved one. It looks like saying yes to everything because you’re afraid to be replaced at work. It looks like spending all your “free” time away from work just trying to recover from it. It looks like not being able to rest when you finally have time to rest because your personal life is in shambles. And finally, it looks like not being able to get up. When I share stories with non industry people, they are just left in utter confusion as to why I just can’t opt out of the chaos. You can’t opt out of something that is everywhere.

You might think I’m overly sensitive and you’re right, I am.

But what I do requires it. Staying connected to a cultural consciousness rooted in human emotion is why I’m good at what I do. It’s a job in itself to stay tuned into what people care about, how society is changing, and where we are headed. It’s a job to go out of my way to try understanding other people’s experiences beyond even my own. It’s a job to try understanding harmful stereotypes so that I don’t reinforce them with the narratives I help craft. It’s a job, but it’s important. So to demand that I shed the very sensitivity required that makes me good at my job, is a useless effort.

I once recall chatting with an ER nurse about her job. She told me how afraid she was to go into work sometimes because the pressure was so high. I related to her every word, but then quickly realized how insane that was because I’M NOT A NURSE. I MAKE ADS. Nobody will ever be bleeding in front of me and it will never be my responsibility to stop it. Yet, her emotional journey felt unexpectedly familiar.

I can honestly say I probably don’t have more than a few years left in advertising because of corporate abuse. I like what I do but it has demanded so much of me that there’s often not much of me left to thrive, or even really live. I deserve to thrive, you deserve to thrive. It is a sad and hard realization after putting in a decade of work to reach this point. I’ve always looked at my bosses and what’s required of them and know that I don’t have the stamina nor willingness to absorb what they do. Am I weak? No, just intolerant. Does that make me better? No, just more desperate for change. I’m afraid that my future will just be filled with too many days where I just can’t get up, like today. A good indicator of the future is the past and present, and here I am. My friends hear it from me often, “I’m not going to make it to 40 if I keep doing this.”

I don’t have a single specific solution to offer, but I will say that the solve for corporate abuse is going to require a human centered solution, NOT a business one.

Please hold the charts, pie and bar, and listen to how people are feeling. All my industry friends are currently “burnt out,” on their way to it, or trying to find their way out of it. We often hear business grounds for promoting diversity and I always meet that with dramatic eye rolling. We don’t need a business case for diversity because it’s common sense, because it exists. And like diversity, we don’t need a business case for addressing “burnout” because it exists. We need a human solution because no matter how much you’re getting paid, no job has the right to make you sick or take so much of you that there’s not much left for yourself. It’s common sense, that’s it. I’ll fight you on this with my flailing arms, the only things working right now.

This rant is not specific to any one place I’ve worked either, because this rant is an accumulation of EVERY PLACE I’VE WORKED AT. I was “burnt out” trying to break into the industry and then subsequently at every place I’ve worked. It’s an industry issue, not an agency specific one. While I could probably write a book on this topic, I’ll pause here because the leftover takeout in my fridge is calling my name and I may have just a few crumbs of energy left to crawl over to go grab it. I might, just might, be able to get up.

Xoxo 💋 ,

Kat