You walk into a meeting with a new client or a new agency, and you’re in that honeymoon phase when everyone is attentive and polite and laughs at each other’s stupid stupid jokes. And you’re there so you can discuss “the process”, the way you’re all going to get the work done. The “great” work done. The great work we’re all going to be proud of. Together.

Whereupon someone, usually mid-level, begins to describe something that has so many damn moving parts, so many checks and balances, so many org charts with dotted lines that seem to lead to other org charts with still more dotted lines, that you can’t imagine yourself actually doing any of it. And you pray to god that no one actually does.