Write What You Know: Scaffolding and Career Ladders

What can having building work done teach you about advertising? 

No idea. But I'll give it a go in the pursuit of writing endless content.

For I have recently been embroiled in the holy trinity of stress-inducing upheaval.

A house renovation, an incoming baby, and a new job.

Suffice to say, Farrow & Ball have introduced a new grey colour named ‘Wilson’s Temples’ in honour of my cortisol levels. 

The house renovation meant we couldn't stay in our home because there was no water, heating or electricity. And more dust than my awards-shelf. Mate, was there dust. Everywhere you looked, there was a heavy coating of white powder. I looked like a Turkish delight in human form. My ground floor resembling a TV producer’s left nostril at a lunch in Soho.

So like Mary, Joseph and the wee donkey - if the nativity was set in Bethnal Green not Bethlehem - we waddled across London in search of sanctuary. We moved seven times between five properties over four months. “🎶Someone’s knockin’ at the door 🎶” Unfortunately, you’ve not won the postcode lottery. 

You’ve won new housemates. Me and my wiiiiife. Jagshemash!

If you were on honeymoon or holiday, we were in your house - whether you liked it or not. It was the most amount of squatting I’ve done since accidentally signing up to a legs, bums, and tums class in 2017. We dogsat, catsat, babysat and committed mass herbicide of indoor plants for our gallivanting friends. We covered Lewisham to Leytonstone. For six weeks we rented a room in Stratford with two other random flatmates. Spare a thought for them as they had to endure sharing one bathroom with a married couple, one of whom had a bellyful of arms and legs and would often require assistance as, and I quote verbatim, she “couldn’t see her vagina anymore.” 

While this nomadic life was happening, we were having to project manage our renovation. 

This was a creative director job like no other.

Seven Albanian blokes stood in the rafters of your roofless house, staring at you while you point at a wall and try to and refer them to page 23 of the structural engineering report, all the while they’re wondering why you have a stack of black-and-white scamps of a sausage dog flogging insurance in your other hand.

On top of that, I had a wife with a budget and timing plan more venomous than the snakiest of account directors. Any requests for a little longer on the brief were met with a finger pointing at a bump and a scowl that screamed “DON’T FUCKING TEST ME, BOY.”

The sheer lack of confusion from the builders when they asked what I did for a job. It was like talking to my nan on Christmas day.

“I am a builder of brands. A comms architect,” I announced proudly.

“Is good money?” they asked, looking at my moisturised hands and the flat white in my keep cup.

“Well, sometimes we do a load of work for free and our clients change their mind and go with someone else. We call that a pitch. It’s a bit like you building my loft extension and then me deciding I don’t want to go with you, but I may use some of your loft extension later on if I feel like it.”

“Sound like silly job. Why you not give them quote and show examples of renovation work and testimonials from happy client? Much easy. Much better.”

Pfft. Good one, Fatmir. Idiot! That’s why the advertising industry has been around longer than construction, my friend. Did you know cavemen were brand storytellers much like myself…

It has to be said, I do have a newfound sympathy for clients and their changing of minds, though. I changed my mind on our kitchen layout four times.

Island. No island. Island. No island. 

We’re no longer allowed to talk about the elusive island in our house, instead referring to it as the Epstein design. 

I’m actually surprised the woman from Howdens didn’t break GDPR protocols, track down my address, and gun me down in a drive-by, or batter me to death with her hard drive containing the WilsonKitchen_final1_final2_FINAL3_FINALFINAL_PLEASEGODFINAAAAAL.psd files. 

I got all the way to the end of the process after having five consultations, and then remembered they don’t offer finance and you have to pay cash in one lump sum. 

So I went with Wren instead. 

The designer went from Howden to Whythefuckdidyoumakemedoallthisworkden?

I found myself chasing the builders on why certain things hadn’t been done yet, like an eager young account manager.

“I need this signed off by EOP” nearly got me punched in the face.

And it turns out telling a builder “we need to circle back on the plumbing issue” means they just give you pipes bent into a circular shape wrapped around your skull.

The first time I went round to check on the house a week or so after work had begun, I went through to the back garden and had to shout up to the builders on my roof that I was the owner of the property. They gestured for me to come on up, and then watched amused as I climbed the pole like a stripper with Parkinsons, terrified and clinging on to the scaffolding for dear life while they simply stared and smoked cigarettes. 

“Where is you want bathroom window?” they asked when I finally reached the top. 

“There please” I pointed.

They muttered stuff to each other and laughed. 

“Very small bathroom,” they stated.

“It’s just a shower room for the loft," I replied.

“Very small,” they repeated.

As creative director of the project, it was important that I kept the vision intact and asserted my authority from the beginning. So I tossed the builder off the roof.

A few other people in the village heard about the builder’s plight and soon enough, there was a cowboy, a cop, and a Native American queuing up outside my gaff ‘cos they'd heard I was dishing out handjobs in a very small loft bathroom.

Now, occasionally dealing with slightly terrifying CEOs is one thing. 

But dealing with tradesmen (when being called a “complete and utter spanner” in Albanian is the closest you’ve come to actually using said tool) is a whole other matter.

Like a planner who has just learnt about AI and is now hellbent on mentioning AI in every meeting, I repeated phrases like ‘RSJ’ and ‘load-bearing wall’ despite the fact we were having a conversation about carpets. I knew they knew that I know nothing.

Meanwhile we were lugging our life around in two suitcases, from pillar to post to load-bearing wall. A slipped disc from carrying my creative partner for ten years (Hi Matt!) was not helping the situation.

The trouble with having any hint of your own aches, pains or illnesses when your wife is heavily pregnant is that, if you make the mistake of mentioning it, you risk conjuring a demon from the fiery chasms of hell. I mentioned my back was hurting the other day after a weekend of ferrying tiles between B&Q and the house. I was met with “ohhh your back is hurting is it? Your poor little back. Are you growing a human inside you that is pressing on all of your internal organs? No? Didn’t think so. Now go and get me five crumpets.”

This is all completely fair feedback because it is absolutely bonkers what pregnancy puts a woman’s body through. She’s busy building a person while I’m writing dumb articles with no real point to them. My wife is having to contend with a loft conversion and a biological basement extraction. In fact, she should win all the awards at Cannes including The Grand Prix-Natal. 

She wasn’t the only one smashing glass ceilings though. 

My builders dropped a roof tile on my skylight. 

There we were, cooking on a camping stove, a microwave plugged into the plasterer’s extension cable, wondering if this construction would ever get completed.

I tried various tactics of man management with them, all learnt from various gurus on LinkedIn selling their training workshops.

I attempted the hands-off approach to creative directing, leaving them to their own devices.

The young labourer took this literally and was playing Candy Crush when I arrived unannounced. They went wildly off strategy and decided to tile every inch of my bathroom rather than just the one wall, as per the brief.

I tried inspiring them with a planifesto made of short, pseudo-poetic sentences.

“So you not want ceiling?” they said, confused.

I tried being nice and pally with them, desperate to build a bond. That didn’t really get me anywhere. No matter how many cups of tea and biscuits I offered them, they weren’t going to invite me out for a pint. I was their boss. Their client. I needed to give them space to bitch about me after work.

I attempted the role of bad cop. A tough, disciplinarian who works them late: evenings, weekends and Christmas day.

This failed pretty much instantly as I haven’t got it in me to be a total and utter prick. 

My dad showed up to help with some painting wearing an old British Army Tank regiment t-shirt and suddenly they started listening. I attempted a similar technique by using the sharp end of a British Arrows trophy for Best 30 Second Retail to point out snags, but failed to earn the same level of respect.

Most of the time I sent my wife in and things miraculously got done. 

And that’s probably why most creative departments need more female CDs.

The best tactic, it emerged, was to just let them get on with things, trust their skills and don’t rush them, leaving them to perfect their craft without some plonker interfering every five minutes.

I found the key factor in alleviating all problems though, was clear communication. A lot of stress and confusion disappears when people talk in person face to face, rather than over WhatsApp or emails or phone calls. 

I also learnt to stand up for myself when I thought I was being mugged off or when I knew I was categorically correct. If you don’t say something at the time but you bring it up months later, they’ll blame it on you and say it’s your problem now. The scaffolding and their vans and their tools are long since gone. Say your piece in a client meeting, otherwise it will haunt you when shit hits the extractor fan.

And going with your gut is always, always the best idea.

The main thing I achieved was sitting back and taking sole credit for the brickwork, plastering, wiring, plumbing, carpentry and painting despite not really lifting a finger. I stand outside the house, with my arms folded for the black-and-white press release shot, leaning casually against the front wall as neighbours compliment the campaign and I say, “Thanks. It was all me. Nobody else was involved in the building of this house” like a true creative visionary.

The end is in sight!  Wraps drinks are in order! We can finally sit on our sofa and watch adverts!

And yet, there was one last twist in act three. A few weeks back, we went to a retail park on a Friday evening, looking to get the last bits we needed to get the house tickety-boo, ready for our new lodger’s arrival. To avoid the rush hour traffic, we turned up at 7.30pm, half an hour before closing. It quickly transpired we weren't the only people to have this idea, as three masked robbers arrived in Currys at the same time. Dressed all in black, hoods up, balaclavas on, machetes out. They made a beeline for the MacBooks. I made Mr Bean style strides towards the kitchen appliances department, hoping to evade them inside a fridge freezer. Turns out, despite having a 238-litre capacity, you can’t fit a creative director and a pregnant woman inside a Samsung Series 4 60/40 Frost-free E-model. So I had to resort to using my wife as a human shield instead.

On reflection, I admired the robbers’ bold approach. They entered the room knowing exactly what they wanted to take home from the meeting and they didn’t settle for anything less. The three of them working as a tight unit with one shared goal. And that is why in 2024 I will be attending all client workshops clad in a ski mask and wielding a Rambo knife.

Anyway, the house has now been clocked, played out and gone live.

And we survived an armed robbery.

No more stress.

Now for a baby. That’s a doddle though, right? 

Right?!

Anyone know the job number for a 3am nappy change?