After 10 Years, a New Chapter
Rubberband Slingshot
Ten years ago, I walked into a dive taco bar and got laid off. I was an award-winning senior creative tasked with opening and managing a Houston ad agency’s Austin office. My severance after eight years was…an ipad.
I held it together over the basket of chips and the depleted bowl of salsa, but lost it in the parking lot. I called my husband and choked out the news. He replied, “Thank God.” He meant it.
I didn’t know what I would do. I hadn’t made many agency contacts in Austin – they were our competition.
I reflected. Since I’d graduated, I’d been working insane agency hours for experience and prestige and very little money. The first time I almost left advertising, I called a bunch of contacts and interviewed them about other fields and positions. I discovered I wasn’t ready to leave the industry until I’d done what I’d gone to journalism school to do – write. After working as an assistant media planner, a media planner, an account executive and an account supervisor I started over, salary cut in half, as a copywriter. I believed I could do the work. I’d been doing it to get projects over the finish line every chance I’d had in every job I’d held.
It turned out all that experience in media planning and account service gave me a broader perspective than many writers who’d been where they wanted to be all along. As my former boss boarded the Megabus to return to Houston, I was at another crossroads. Was this the time to leave the industry?
I began calling contacts again. And they began offering me work. And I began to realize that the twisty road I’d walked – from the numbers side of media to the strategy side of account service to the creative side of writing – well, it uniquely equipped me to serve these clients myself. Instead of opening someone else’s branch, I’d open my own. That’s how Rubberband Slingshot came to be.
My husband realized immediately what would take me years to recognize: being laid off was the best thing that could have happened to my career. It shook me out of a safe space and made me grow. And now it’s time for me to shake things up again.
I have decided to go in-house with one of my long-term clients, which means the opportunity to dig even more deeply into challenging, important work. It also means both saying goodbye to daily collaboration with people who have trusted me with their success and letting go of projects that I love dearly (hello, Vital Times!) and have poured my heart and mind into for 10 years. It is so bittersweet!
In my author bio, I write that my biggest joy is using my powers for good. I think this new position equips me to do that. And while change (for me) is always hard, Rubberband Slingshot will still be here, the center of my creative life – acting, writing and all the things that inspire both my life-life and my work-life.
On the 10th anniversary of the start of a great adventure, I want to end this post with thanks:
Thank you to my husband for believing in me when I couldn’t see it and celebrating the achievements I chronically downplayed.
Thank you to my friends and family for much of the same (I am so lucky).
And thank you, most of all, to the clients who have become friends. Thank you for trusting me with your stories and your people. Thank you for being vulnerable with your challenges. Thank you for being adventurous in our solutions. Thank you for pushing me to keep growing and learning. Thank you for enduring so many questions! And, most of all, thank you for being kind and collaborative and for making me part of your team, even from afar. You are so brave, and you made it possible for me to do the work I believe I was made to do.
Now onto a new chapter.
