The life of a junior creative no-one tells you about

How about this for a LinkedIn post? “I’m thrilled to announce I’ve won Gold at the ‘Shocker of The Year’ Awards due to the outstanding amount of work that didn’t see the light of day and for my performance in the promotion that didn’t happen”. 

The honeymoon period of joining a big, shiny agency wears off fast, and the adrenaline rush of being hired from placement fades. I’m left deep in the battlefield of an extremely top-heavy agency. 

The big briefs are kept out of reach for us juniors. If I do manage to grab one, “off the record”, it comes with stern warnings to work on it in my own time and to “remember your level”. In my stubborn nature, that was "challenge accepted". 

So after five gruelling months of trying to prove that a junior can, in fact, keep up with the big kids working tirelessly on rounds upon rounds of feedback from creative directors, account people and clients and producing more mock-ups than my computer storage could handle… it was all ripped away from me at research when another idea was chosen. Heartbreaking. Why is it taboo to admit that? We’re taught to trivialise it with, “It’s only advertising”, or be consoled by “You did really well to get that far”, but in reality, the next six weeks I had "hayfever" if anyone asked about my red eyes and walked around the block more times than I care to think about. 

Saying goodbye to the idea wasn’t the hard part. It was knowing that when my boss sat me and my creative partner down at the start of the year and said to us, “You will NOT win against senior teams”, he was right this time. 

Like any good junior I wanted (and needed for my sanity) to do it all over again. So again, away from the eyes of the official timesheets I work on a new promising brief and… déjà vu. Me and "research" were really starting to become arch enemies. 

Perfect, just in time for our career reviews.

"Everything should be fine though" I reassured myself, because six months ago I was promised an exciting promotion and a salary bump.

But, of course, it was ludicrous for me to actually believe that. Even more ludicrous to be shocked and angry when my 20-minute ego-stroking career review ended with: “There are no promotions."

What a gullible little junior creative I was... 

More "hayfever". More walks around the block. 

More briefs, more losses. More briefs, more re-briefs. More briefs, more disappointment. 

Then… nothing. No briefs.

 “It’s just a quiet patch” everyone kept saying and “enjoy it” they encouraged.

So why did I feel more unnerved than ever? Why was I on the 5:43am train to be in the office before everyone else? Why did I know the early-morning cleaners by name? 

“Award-winning work gets made in downtime” 

More pressure, more ways I had to try to prove my worth. I should read more, watch more movies, listen to more podcasts, be more creative, push more boundaries. More, more, more. 

Every scroll on LinkedIn felt like another stab in the wound. Another piece of work I haven’t made or another promotion I hadn’t received. 

Then before I knew it, it’s now. The Christmas decorations are filling the shops and I’m planning my new year celebrations. A year has gone by and I have one mediocre social post for a client that gained 12 likes to add to the portfolio. 

I probably won’t be writing a LinkedIn post summarising what a wonderful year I’ve had. But maybe, if I’m brave enough, I’ll write one about all my rejections, because, as one of my favourite creative directors once said to me during a late night at the office: "This job is full of rejection." 

So I think I’ve got it nailed.

If you've been affected by any of the issues raised, contact Nabs for confidential advice and guidance on 0800 707 6607  or email support@nabs.org.uk