If you love your career, the hours are (often) worth it
Yesterday UM boss Mat Baxter said the media industry should stop apologising for long hours. Mumbrella’s Tim Burrowes agrees.
Back in the day, in my first weeks working on a small daily newspaper, I was given a story to chase. A local family had had some sort of lottery win, and I was to have a chat to them.
Despite all sorts of efforts, I couldn’t reach them, but found out they were appearing on breakfast television the next morning. So I set my alarm for 5.30am, rang the switchboard of the TV show and got put through to the makeup room, where they were happy to chat.
Until my news editor seemed surprised at the effort I’d gone to, the thought hadn’t even occurred. I was still naive enough that I thought that it was what all journos did. Perhaps I’d read too many books about journalism, but I thought that if you chased a story hard enough, you would always get it in the end. So that’s what I did.
As a result, I tended to deliver on whatever I was assigned. And quite soon, I noticed I was being given the most interesting stories to chase.
As a result, my working life quickly became mainly fun, albeit the hours were quite odd.
Yesterday, I was in the room at our SAGE – Secrets of Agency Excellence – conference when Mat Baxter dropped his hand grenade into the work-life balance debate by suggesting that the media industry should stop apologising for its staff working long hours.
As the comment thread of our news story (and the even more extreme comments we couldn’t publish under our moderation standards) suggests, his views have made a lot of people quite angry.
But context is important. One of Baxter’s fellow panelists was Brett Dawson, boss of the Bohemia, which is one of the more exciting agency startups of recent years. Baxter pointed out that for the young staff at Bohemia, the experience they are going through may be a once-in-a-career moment, to be in on the beginning of what looks like becoming a great agency.
Given that, wouldn’t you want to give it your best possible shot?
It’s perfectly possible to make a rational argument for why people should only work the specific hours they are paid for. And if somebody wants to do that, then they should not be penalised.
But it’s worth remembering that if that’s the work-life balance you choose, you are also declining certain opportunities and experiences.
By the time I was on the other side of the management fence, I remember working with an editorial assistant, who’d been asking for some opportunities to do some writing as she wanted to become a journalist. At the time, I was editing the title in question, and generally pretty busy.
But one day, just before 5pm, I had a piece of her copy in front of me, and was getting ready to edit it. Not surprisingly, given that it was one of her first pieces of work, it was all over the place. So I asked her to join me at my computer, so I could explain the changes as I edited it. It was how I was taught (well, apart from the fact that it was typewriters in my day).
After a couple of minutes, she pointed out that it was now after 5pm, and she was only paid until five, so could she go please? That was fine, but I never wasted any more of my time teaching her after that.
Another conversation I’ve found myself having with fellow editors over the years, which I’m sure can be applied in any creative industry, is that reporters tend to break into two groups. There are those who deliver on every story, and those who can explain to you that they left messages with everyone they were told to and nobody called back.
You can probably work out which ones you come to rely on, give the interesting stories to and promote. The same goes in any business.
But you need to want to be that sort of person. If you don’t love (or at the very least enjoy) the job, then the hours and the demands might well be horrible.
And in the end, you have to do it for yourself because you want to know that you’ve done it as well as you possibly could, rather than for your bosses who will inevitably let you down at some point.
There are also limits. One comment we posted on the story this morning shares: “I was in the office every second weekend. I missed my sister’s wedding [my italics] working on a pitch – every night until 3am or 4am, then getting back up for work at 9am.”
That’s down to you to recognise what your limits are. Somebody who skips a family wedding for a pitch has lost sight of what is going on. And you don’t need to do working days of 19 hours.
The first challenge for agency bosses is not necessarily to send everyone home on time. It’s to make sure that their working lives are interesting.
Equally, you may choose to put all of your emphasis into your personal life, and you might be very happy to doing that. But if you turn up at nine and always go home at five, you may find those eight hours are horribly boring because you may be missing out on the experiences of your more driven colleagues.
Not everyone would go as far as radio presenter Derryn Hinch, who chose to part with his wife to focus on his career. But it’s time to recognise that some do.
It’s socially acceptable to point out that the more time you give to your career, the less time you have for your home life. But it should at least be acknowledged that the less time you give to your career, the less satisfaction you are likely to get from it.
There’s a lot to love about agency life. But if you don’t, then perhaps that is the problem, rather than the hours.
Tim Burrowes
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Yes employees should be flexible. Your colleague that you kept back until after 5 should have stayed. But you should have paid her for it.
I frequently work much longer than I’m rostered – and I’m paid for it. If they stopped paying I’d stop coming. Is anyone seriously going to argue that someone who works 10 hours a day should be happy with 8 hours worth of pay? Really? Have a good hard look in the mirror. Book yourself in for assessment because you have an extremely unhealthily low capacity for empathy.
I want to write the kind of message you can’t publish…but I’ll calm myself. Anyone who thinks making people work without pay is acceptable…..there’s a word for those people which can’t be published. There’s another word for that system of labour …slavery.
Not only are you an (unpublishable word) if you don’t pay your staff for the hours they work you are also a thief. If people put up with that…. We’ll I can’t make anyone else grow a backbone. But I guess it’s not news that this world contain both bullies and people who are willing to bully others.
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Well said Tim and Mat. Success and hard work are very close friends. Ask any agency head whats the vital ingredient of success – it’s working hard. ‘Work life balance’ is also a limiting concept. be creative and find ways to mix it all up together – it can be much more fun. Also I swear time is not linear – it has this amazing capacity to stretch and contract. ‘If you want something done you ask a busy person – they are the ones who seem to have time’.
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I don’t think hours are the issue (at least while career is your number one priority, if you don’t have a family etc) – it’s getting quality work and opportunities, working with quality people, and feeling appreciated for what you do. In many instances I think people can feel let down in many or all of those areas. That’s when the hours become burdensome when you work in an agency.
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Did you explain to the junior why you didn’t teach her any more? The realisation post uni that 9-5 was a big lie was hugely eye opening to me. Also that overtime did not exist. Pulling long hours for special projects is fine, but not every single night. It’s unsustainable.
What I find highly annoying is the perpetuation of poor treatment, long hours, and shitty pay by management, because “that’s what happened when I was a junior”. It sucks. Noone likes this. It’s not about paying your dues – it’s causing burnout and stress for bright, talented people. How much more productive and happy would we be if the long nights were a rarity? How many people burn out and never go back because working like this is unsustainable?
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Hear, hear, Tim!! Totally agree with you. Work-life balance is a CHOICE. Along with what you want to sacrifice for ____ .
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Sorry Tim, you’re suggesting that finishing at 11PM most nights a week should be a function of how much you like your career rather than “there is literally no alternative in this role” and any dissent should be viewed as you not loving the job enough?
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I absolutely agree with what you said Tim. Sometimes you have to work harder to produce better work. Simple as that. The problem is you either get exploited by management, or your extra work is never rewarded.
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Didn’t someone famous say: though money is not part of it — it is all of it. LOL
who wants to do something with all consuming passion for little financial reward ? — unless of course you are a Gentleman living in the Victorian Era , where learning and knowledge was the only thing that mattered most – is this possible today ? ; you would be the laughing stock in Sydney Bond Street or Mlebourne Collins Street.
You have to be lucky and find that right balance.
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I did the agency thing for about 5 years. The peak of my earnings were $54,500 – including super.
For working an average of 14 hours a day, and at it’s peak, 20hrs a day (true story).
Made the jump to client side a couple of years back and now work a maximum of 10hrs a day, for well in excess of $100,000/annum.
I enjoyed what I did, but I much prefer financial security and the flexibility to treat my wife and I to overseas holidays every couple of years and invest in a future that doesn’t involve spending any time at all at an office MUCH more.
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I use to work in an agency (both media and creative) and working long and unpaid hours was a given. I knew what I was getting myself into and you get on with it. But it’s the people who get in at 8.30am, take their hour lunch break, and leave bang-on 5pm, that use to and still really peeve me off. If you’re going to choose to work that way, complain about what you’re owed, then don’t bother working in the industry. No one owes you anything, the only person that can get yourself out of the situation is yourself.
I’m in my mid-20s and I made the choice to jump ship to the client side a year ago in preparation of one day having a family. I love how my hours are much more flexible and I still do what I love and get paid well for it. People who think they’ve been hard done, ‘get a deck of cards and deal with it’. It’s your choice.
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Interesting that people are talking about ‘hard work’ yet that isn’t mentioned in the article. Long hours do not always equate to hard work – sometimes they are just long hours.
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BTDT: I’m a graduate in my second year at a publisher in a junior role, that’s less than what I make now -_-.
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It’s a fallacy that working longer hours equates to quality work. Since when did working harder mean working longer?
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Ive worked in the industry for 8 years and I manage to have a very healthy work/life balance – I think its a matter of working harder AND smarter. Word hard whilst at work and you wont have to stay back to all hours of the night. we work in one of the greates, most exciting, and ever-evolving industries – work hard and count yourself lucky
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If you’re consistently pulling 60 hrs as a midweight pen pusher then your company is quite simply under-resourced – it’s very deliberate nowadays because wages cost is the biggest cost impost on any company .
So companies run lean to minimise cost and simply get people to work harder to fill the gap. And it’s competitive, because people suck it up – don’t wanna do it, someone else will.
But it’s not all our fault – clients are pushing for things faster, cheaper and better and we carry the can.
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Well said, Tim. I couldn’t agree more.
As a young Gen Y who has been working in the marketing industry for about 3 years, I don’t see any issue in working long hours. I’ve found there tends to be a long term benefit for doing so.
You are rarely ‘required’ to stay in the office longer than your contracted hours. You do it because you want to be recognised as a hard worker. You do it because you love the job. You do it to get that promotion or pay rise sooner than you otherwise might have.
I don’t call that slave labour. I call it opportunity. And anyone who thinks otherwise should perhaps reexamine the career they chose.
On the flip side, if management is taking advantage of your hard work, then you’re simply working in the wrong agency. Look elsewhere.
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Absolutely correct……You wanna be in the circus kid?……..Grab this bucket and broom and start sweeping the ring, the spangles and bright lights will come later.
See my splurge on “UM boss Mat Baxter said the media industry should stop apologising for long hours.”
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It all depends on the agency you’re working at and how organised management are. I’ve worked at agencies were management couldn’t get their shit together or decide on their strategy until the eleventh hour resulting in multitudes working back late and on weekends…those agencies have a high staff turn over. High staff turn over pisses clients off because one day they are dealing with Martha the next they are dealing with Arthur and they have to start the whole relationship building thing again…so they take their business elsewhere…ultimately costing the agency, resulting in the poor sods who worked late and sacrificed their weekends being laid off…a word of advice…if you get to an agency and there is a solem vibe…slowly back out nodding and smiling.
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Worked in an egency with over 100 people. Five people had kids. 27 people were older than 30. 3 were older than 40. 12 people were men. Six of them were gay. Enough said. Agency life and kids don’t work.
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What a laugh – I used to work media buying. 7, sometimes 8pm every night. Doing spreadsheets and arguing rates with reps. Oh it was so interesting, it was so career advancing! As in I advanced my arse right out of there. One job I had was a new account, recently won. Found out my role have been covered by two people in the previous agency. Now they just had me, 12 hour days. It’s economics, you are a light bulb, ready to be burnt out and replaced with the next bright young thing drinking the cool aid.
And it is delicious that an article about the thoughts of those at the top is filled with comments starting with ‘I’m 22 and yes I have no dependants and my careers is everything..’ Cute. Get kids and see how your loyalty to your job gets rewarded.
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If you were starting a business striving for success you’d expect to work long hours and make sacrifices It’s no different working for someone else. If you have serious aspirations in agency land or in any industry for that matter you have to be prepared to work hard and be flexible to see the rewards later.
The higher you climb the less sh*t you take, Layer Cake
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While everything Matt says makes sense, I have to take his words with a pinch of salt because me working 20% more for free for example actually benefits him more directly than it does me.
Lets use a very crude model that says that all peeps working in media industry work 20% more than their agreed number of hours (not an unreasonable presumption)…and that agencies make a 20% profit based on their revenue. Crude model and I could be some way off but if we were using these numbers as a guide it also implies that everyone working 40 hour weeks would mean no profit for the agencies. No profit for his agency or group would also mean people like Matt would be out of their job very quickly as it would imply that management ain’t performing.
So while in the long run I will benefit from working longer hours in terms of quicker career progress, Matt’s job performance is also directly linked to my free overtime and I bet that he has a fatter annual performance bonus in his contract than I do. Hence him telling me to work harder and put more hours in is slightly tainted by the fact that this directly serves his self interest, and more directly than it serves mine, at least looking at it from that perspective. It makes me wonder what media agency management’s (on the whole) annual results would look like if everybody only worked the hours that their contract implies they are paid for. And I imagine that it wouldn’t be pretty.
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Hmm such good experience, thinking of creative ways to shill toilet paper and air fresheners to a world of brainwashed greedy consumers.
The advertising industry is basically a bunch of people lying about the effectiveness and necessity of products, made by out of control multinational mega corporations, who pollute and mine our planet for their own gain.
What an industry.
journos are ok tho. Allthough the line between journalism and advertising is ever shrinking too.
In saying all that, I do see both sides of the story. I think the truth lies somewhere in between.
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No-one on their deathbed says, “I wish I’d spent more time in the office”.
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I worked in agency land for a while and one thing I could never fathom was the terrible salaries for entry level and junior staff. On top of that there was always an expectation they stay back and work over their agreed hours. Moving away from agency land has made me realise that the pay versus the stress and demands are not worth it.
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Methinks this article is to appease Mr Baxter so UM will continue to add value to Mumbrella’s paid events. This is the reason journalism is dying and why customers are harder to reach – WE DON’T TRUST YOUR OPINIONS ARE REASONED AND CONSIDERED.
I don’t know a single Gen Y that leaves at 5 if others are still in the office. You give a very extreme example that is NOT the norm. Absolutely not. You think uni didn’t train them? Research, interviewing, having to pitch to professors – they’re not afraid to work hard and it’s not as if uni + part time jobs + interning was a sweet 9-5 deal.
Working smart and hard does not mean no overtime!! The issue is that *remuneration is not in line with effort in the ad industry’s lower echelons*. If it was THEN you could say “ok, you don’t want this lifestyle, so go work for lower pay somewhere else”. There is nowhere else (can’t get client-side with no experience). Ad execs know this and THIS is where exploitation exists.
Acknowledgement of effort (verbal & monetary) leads to happier workers and a more effective, efficient and motivated machine.
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It appears the whole “work long hours and you are a better employee” notion is really all about “being seen to be working”.
You are not being an efficient, effective employee who actually has a life and is aware of what goes on around them outside the artificial environment of an agency. Is it any wonder that the bulk of work coming out of the agency bubbles are cheesy situations imagined by ego maniacal agency people who don’t actually have a life??!!
Having sat in both agency and client chairs, the muffled laughter as most agencies left the room was priceless. The occasional realist on an agency team would eventually apologise for “creative” personalities stressing how many hours they had worked to justify another inflated invoice when the output was often stereotypical and predictable.
High staff turnover was inevitable. One agency wheeled out 5 key account service people in 3 years. Each one of them was pistol whipped into hating their jobs. The media agencies had just as high turnover usually with the whole business hanging on the shoulders of one exhausted person.
The only people who are impressed are those for whom every last dollar is squeezed. Clients are not impressed at all. As is evidenced by the many comments, there is always a willing crop of people who see it as their professional duty to not only encourage the behavior but demand it as the key to success in the industry. Kind of warped really!
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No wonder some posting here are not doing well because they think they are being paid an hourly rate. A salary is payment for doing a job, not for working 40 hours a week. If you value yourself in terms of hours you are severely self limiting and probably belong in a less demanding career.
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And why? 1.) I was probably inefficient. 2.) I was basically doing the job of another guy for the firm for free. 3) I had this perverse idea that I was indispensable. At 39 years of age (and with two small children) I was diagnosed with cancer. Trust me, I no longer do 100 hour weeks!!!!
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I think both the articles and the comments are showing two extreme ends of this situation.
As a 12+ year veteran of the media industry, with a family, and a senior management role, I have seen most aspects.
Working long hours semi regularly was part of how I built my knowledge, experience and reputation. However, I certainly did not maxismise the hours between 9am-6pm either back then – lunches, chatting, coffees were all a big part of my day, and sometimes a reason why I was in on Saturday to compensate. The cyclical nature of the business meant there were plenty of frantic weeks, but also reprieves where everything was under control.
The key to this was that I felt part of a team, had pride in my work, and could see that there were breaks in working those kind of hours. A lot of this was to do with the agency I worked at.
I also worked at an agency that had unrelenting work till 8pm-9pm culture. That was unsustainable, had a high churn and I was out of there as soon as I could be.
Having a family and returning part time meant I completely changed the way I worked, I had a finite finish time that could not be moved, however I worked efficiently, often out of reg hours and definitely did a full time job for a part time wage. But I didn’t mind this – it was a good wage, I was keeping my oar in while spending more time with my family, and when they were older and I was ready to come back, I was able to keep the momentum of my career.
This time I see it from the other end. My team do work the hours I did, but less often. I make sure I know what they are doing, why, and help them when they need it. I also make sure they have time to enjoy the social side of our business, and give them unrecorded extra days off if they have been burning the candle at both ends particularly hard.
Without exception the younger people I’ve managed have been eager to learn and prepared to put the hard yards in when necessary. However, they (like everyone) require the occasional reward and regular recognition for this – over and above pay. Be it encouragement and congratulations after the work is in, vouchers, lunch etc, I find that if people are appreciated and recognised, they are willing to put extra in.
However, I am NOT talking about non stop late nights, and regular weekend work. If that is happening to you, it doesn’t need to be. You should talk to your manager about how this can be adjusted, and if they can’t or won’t help – move on.
Finally, if you are in management and you judge the skill or someone based on the hours they are sitting at their desk, you are doing your staff and our industry a disservice.
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Hi Lina,
While you’re entitled to your view on the reason for this article, you’d be mistaken. I write it because it’s what I think.
Cheers,
Tim – MUmbrella
Cut off Facebook, YouTube etc at most agencies (and media companies) and you’ll see most people won’t need more than 37.5 hrs to do their roles. Working 8am-9pm is tolerated by those who think it’s fine to spread out their 7 hrs work over 13. I guess it depends if you have something to go home to.
I haven’t worked at an agency where working 9-5 has been punished or looked down on (if the workload has been achieved) but I have seen numerous examples of inefficiency being rewarded by pay raises, promotions and recognition. As long as you are “seen to be working”.
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VERY I N T E R E S T I N G…
LOTS of people work late because they’ve not put in a solid day’s work.
For instance, look back through all the times-of-day people have posted on this topic. Illuminating.
Clearly people are able to read Mumbrella and have time to post comments duriing their working day. Or else lots of people on sickies.
No?
So, while Staff are insisting on prompt departures, Bosses should insist on people at work actually working.
Oh yeah, that’s right; it’s part of the job to keep up with Industry News> Yep. And, of course, to go to weddings and Grand Finals… oh wait, that’s just the Pollies.
Yeah, I WAS gonna go to Uni but they reckond they weren’t going to pay me for it. What’s the value of that???
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Hi Tim,
Thanks for publishing my comment – the mere fact you pressed ‘publish’ restores my faith a little.
Have a great afternoon (don’t stay back too late),
Lina
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Choose to do something you love and you never have to work one day in your life.
That’s true to a point.
And it’s up to you to know at which point when enjoyment ends and exploitation begins.
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Who could be certain the junior didn’t have a job interview to go to on above mentioned afternoon, or even a wedding?
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RIP Mita Diran
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There’s working long hours, then there’s working insane hours. And with insane hours you get inefficiency, errors, resignations, and all sorts of problems on the home front and with people’s health.
But if it’s managed well from the top down, you can balance it to a degree. Hell, I’ve done my share of monster hours, lost personal relationships over it, all sorts. But it is part of the game, and you have to factor that in.
You will lose weekends, weeknights, dinner plans, and a lot of sleep. But you gotta be aware of your limits and when to manage it. It’s the old case of something that takes you 90 minutes at 11pm will probably take 15 minutes at 8am the next morning.
It’s a tough game, but it’s the game it is. Again, if the top is paying enough attention, you can at least smooth the process and produce good work. Working hard on shit work is no good. And frankly, no one in any industry should be pushed to the degree Mita was, even if she’d convinced herself it was what was expected.
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CD – what a load of crap.
You repeat ‘it’s the game it is’ throughout your post as if it’s an immovable truth and some sort of sage advice. It’s not. It’s parochial acceptance and propagation of a major cultural problem, and a callous attempt to pass it off as something people in this industry just need to deal with, as if it’s your average workplace hazard. Come on. For an industry that prides itself on thinking differently, we’re uttering the same crap over and over and not questioning the validity of it.
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