I dunno if you lot all have boyfriends in planning or what but there were quite a few comments sticking up for them last week.
Whatever. Mr RMWLC is his own man, not the type to pander to the murmurings of the masses just because he is terrified of losing readers.
It just so happens that I was going to write a nice post about a planner anyway.
The fact is, today I am genuinely sad at the departure of a guy by the name of Sameer. Because in an industry that seems to be losing its share of crazies, he is one of the precious few oddballs left.
This is a man who, in my early days here at Partners, re-briefed me by handing me a Philip Larkin poem, reciting a few lines, then ambling out of the office. A man who can weave quantum physics, Gershwin and the Bernoulli Principle into a brief to sell frozen peas. A man who once tore up ten pound notes in front of me to illustrate his point (it was about one of our clients so I guess I shouldn't say who).
Most crazy of all, here's a guy who doesn’t actually tell a client something unless he believes it. I know! Mad as a fish.
In recent years there's been an alarming trend of agencies increasingly hiring sensible types. Awful people who have made us more efficient, productive and businesslike and generally done all they can to ruin the industry.
What so many people fail to understand is that without Sameer and people like him we’re just an accountancy firm with a snazzy reception. We’re just salesmen in jeans. Estate agents with marker pens.
So it's with a heavy heart I watch him pack up his pie charts and collection of wacky striped jumpers and head off to Mindshare. Good luck to you Sameer. We hope to see your kind again (but we doubt we will).
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