Just out of college, I was hired by an ad agency in Houston -- a big time, high profile agency with many national accounts.

In my first week, one of the account executives had gotten behind on his work. To cover up, he sent out office memos to everyone on the account except one of the copywriters, blaming the copywriter for not getting his work done on deadline.

The copywriter was a small-built, mild mannered guy about 30. When he got wind of what had happened, he attacked the account executive in the hallway. He grabbed the account executive by the throat and started trying to strangle him with the intention of killing him. The account executive was a bigger guy than the copywriter, but he was caught unaware and was in a lot of trouble. I came out of the kitchen after eating lunch, only to find every guy in the agency trying to separate the attacking copywriter and the account executive. It looked like a scene out of a western, except we were in downtown Houston, in a high-rise office building and all the guys were wearing suits and ties.

I likened working in the ad agency to going to war everyday. Another time, the owner got so mad at a creative director that he slammed the guy's chair across his office. The chair broke a window and fell five floors into the bayou. And I thought advertising was going to be glamorous

¶ 7:40 PM