Many ad agencies charge for creative services this way:

1. They find out how much is in your account.
2. That’s the price.

My introduction to the practice came when a client said he’d budgeted “up to ten thousand dollars.” I knew we could bring it in for less. So did my former partners, but they were not about to tell the client, much less let him keep the difference. I protested and, having fewer shares than they, lost. The price was ten thousand. One of many reasons they are former partners.

Having since been on my own for 23 years, I get to price creative services my way. I consider the project’s scope, the value I attach to my work, and the value the client attaches to having me do it. Admittedly fuzzy, but fairer than divining how much they have and taking it, earned or not. If I leave behind money I could have taken, not only is that okay, that’s the idea.

​A newly hired account executive collected from a client twice the price I’d calculated. I sat him down and said, “One, you didn’t know better, so I’ll commission you on the original amount you collected. Two, I’m going to refund half the client’s money. Three, don’t do it again.” He thought I was naive. Maybe so. ​

A few weeks later, he was pitching a prospective client who happened to ask if he could trust that Cuno guy. “Let me tell you a story,” said the account executive. We won the client.

That was a welcome exception. In general, it has not been my experience that integrity pays in dollars and cents. To wit, I am not rich and my former partners are. But then, integrity motivated by hope of monetary reward isn’t really integrity.

AN EMPLOYER just called for a reference on a potential hire. It’s not unusual, and I always welcome an opportunity to put in a good word for good people. Which this candidate happened to be.

Not-so-good-people, that’s another story. ​Fortunately, they have been the exception in my career. For the most part I have worked with honorable people who number among my good friends. I can think of only a dozen who treated vendors and associates about as well as rattlesnakes treat field mice.

Indeed, one fellow was actually known in our shop, not fondly, as The Snake. We put up with him because he worked for an important client. Looking back, I think the nickname gave him too much credit. Literal snakes don’t dress up like harmless bunny rabbits in hopes you won’t know who’s swallowing you whole while you twitch in agony. Gotta respect that about literal snakes.

I don’t believe in karma, but it’s not hard to see why many do. Of the above-referenced dozen not-so-goods, eight later reappeared in my professional life after, inevitably, their employer caught up with and canned them. Some called wanting to know if I was hiring or knew someone who was; others were dumb enough to use me as a reference, leading their prospective employer to call.

In the first situation, I express sympathy and promise to keep an eye peeled. The sympathy is genuine; I don’t wish dire straits upon anyone, even people I don’t like. The promise to keep an eye peeled, however, is an outright lie, borne of the fact that I see no use in saying, “The last thing I’d do is recommend a dishonest, toxic personality the likes yours to an unsuspecting employer.” It would launch an argument I don’t need, and, trust me on this one, it would not bring the snake in question to take an honest look, much less resolve to change.

The second situation presents more of a dilemma. Again, even when it comes to people I dislike, I’m not interested in sabotaging anyone’s employment prospects; the dilemma comes from my conviction that employers deserve a fair warning. Ultimately, the conviction prevails. I level, and another snake loses another opportunity.

Don’t let me get away with painting too virtuous a self-portrait. I admit that the reversal of power gives me a bit of satisfaction. But karma shmarma. Anyone says there’s no such thing as a coincidence, I say balderdash. Coincidence isn’t just a thing. It’s a common thing.

Either way, it behooves everyone to beware the consequences of jerk-like behavior in the not-unlikely event of a power-reversal. Perhaps snakes who understood that would act less like snakes, assuming they can, which I doubt. Still, I think fear of payback is a not the best reason to be a decent person. A better reason is that being a decent person is the decent thing to do.

 
TODAY’S MAIL brought a direct mail offer mail containing a hand-labeled CD. I threw it away without bothering to read the accompanying materials.

Here are three reasons never to send out unsolicited CDs:
​

1. Ever heard of computer viruses? Only the minimally informed will take a chance on a disc from a stranger. There’s no telling where that thing has been.
2. A good many recipients will not have a CD drive or player handy. Though not yet obsolete, they’re obsolescent.
3. It takes precious time to insert a CD into a drive, wait for it to load, and navigate through it. Most people won’t bother. A few will set it aside for later, “later” meaning “they’ll rediscover it in a few days or weeks, wonder why they kept it, and toss it.”

I once lost a client to an agency whose first effort for them enclosed an unsolicited CD. The mailing went to established customers who trusted the sender, so virus fears weren’t necessarily a problem, but Items 2 and 3 above still applied. Worse, the agency had used a blob of glue to affix the CD to a card, and some customers ended up with said blob inside their CD drive. I am told they found it displeasing.

That may be how I learned the word schadenfreud. Oh, and guess who won back the account.