Lilly

My job is awfully intense. I work in a team of 5, the whole department is 15, and equivalent of a 72-person staffed team. You would think that means we get paid more and you're not right.

I work in media planning. Some creative people somewhere out there ideate and create a commercial that you see on your television screen during a Glee episode on April 12, 2011 at 8:15 PM. We're the people that put it there--to reach young, weird girls who enjoy a mix of talent-inspired television dramas and uber-hot men with their shirts off. Except I don't "do" commercials. I operate within the Internet. All those annoying banner ads that you see, but never click: I put them there. I don't actually put them there, our vendors do. But we purchase the space by the millions and tell our publishers to put this ad, on this type of site, at this time. It's disgusting.

I'm learning a lot, I'm making a lot. I also have no work-life balance, and I long for the days I get to sit outside and watch a tree bristle in the wind. That only happens 2 days a week, because from 8:30am - 7:30pm every day I am locked inside an office building in dirty, dirty New York City with no lunch break. At least I have money.

A lot of it is strategy; we have to figure out who will use this product, what type of website they visit, and attempt to drive them there. You'd be surprised how much it works. You'd be less surprised to find out how much I don't give a shit. When the NFL gives me and my partner $1 million to spend on banner ads, I want to take the NFL by their nuts and show them 1. How much it doesn't work and 2. How much they could do with that money if they only had half a brain to stop relying on analytics and metrics.

That's the other part of the job: we track. When you visit OrganicPeanuts.com and then go to Facebook and see an ad for peanuts, it's because my team "cookied" you and tracked your movements to populate ads into everywhere you go. This is all under the belief that you will then click on the ad and then "convert." Again, I don't care. But, again, I'm making money and have a job.

There are many other things I do, none of which are particularly interesting. But what IS interesting is looking around at the way my business operates, and especially the people. No one seems to bat an eye about the irrelevance of the work they are doing or that we spend upwards of $100 million a year on commercials, banner ads, and generally useless shit that consumers don't want to see anymore. But, again, I'm making money and have a job.

I HATE IT GET ME OUT