Keeping your cool

I got angry at the new job on Thursday night. 

I probably had every right to be pissed off. 

2 month long project I've been working on was coming to what had seemed to be an end.

But the legal department at the client couldn't stop changing the legal guidelines for compliance.

I'm not a lawyer, I don't even pretend to play one. But I've read enough advertising and know enough about advertising law that I know these guys are just out of control.

I started making some snarky remarks. To my team, not the client. I'm not nearly that insane or good.

People got a good laugh at them. I felt better.

Then the client gave me an assignment to write a few headlines for a small retail sign they were putting up. I spent an hour cranking out lines, we settled on one, only to hear that the client had really wanted us to just use the provided information and not write any lines or copy.

That's when I complained about a client for the first time at the new job.

"Wasting my fucking time," I growled. I stopped making snarky comments and started using invectives.

I was pissed off.

But I did my work, I kept my bitching to a minimal and I moved on.

Fortunately, no one seemed to think I was out of line. Again, I didn't say these things to the client, I just said them to the person who happened to be talking to me at the time.

When I calmed down, I realized: They're paying me to waste my time. And that in the future I should just keep my mouth shut.

And in today's economy, I'm more than ok with that.