Team Talk: Nick and Liz
Nick Dellabarca and Liz Richards are a creative team who are Creative Partners at Pitchblack Partners in Auckland. At the time of writing this they have worked together for 2394 days. Let’s examine one of those days in every excruciating detail.
8.10am. Liz has made us come into work early because our presentation needs fine-tuning. Fuck this, no it doesn’t. It was perfect when we finished it last night.
8.11am. Find first spelling mistake.
8.14am. Argue briefly about whether the grammar errors were Nick’s erratic writing or Liz’s anally-obsessive focus on aligning text at the expense of comprehension. Liz wins, because good relationships are built on compromise. And Liz winning.
8.20am. Nick goes for a wee. Liz pretends not to notice that he’s gone for 20 minutes.
8.55am. The planner sends us his slides for the presentation. Liz freaks out at the fact none of the fonts match. Nick gives Liz a shoulder rub to calm her down. We used to get weird looks for this. People are used to it now. It’s part of our stress-management process.
9am. Show time. Nick suggests a mug of wine for the meeting. We settle for a coffee. Liz reminds Nick not to talk too quickly when he presents. Understanding each other’s headspace is important, especially when things get stressful. Frenetic bouts of energy and sociopathic attention to detail both have their place. Striking a balance, and knowing when to dial one up or down is key in our partnership.
9.10am. Some guy from media charges forth with gay abandon about durations: “Did you know there’s 43,000 seconds in a day? That’s 43,000 one second spots we could run.” This bodes well for the 90 second script we’re about to present. We write each other sarcastic notes.
Nick draws a penis on Liz’s notebook. Liz finishes it off with some pubes.
9.45am. Nick reads scripts. Clients laugh. Suit laughs extra hard in an effort to sell the humour. Media guy laughs robotically. As per usual, Nick gets all the credit for being super funny and witty. Nick tries to deflect some of the praise Liz’s way.
10.13am. “We love it.” says the client. “But…”
10.20am. “I love it too.” says the media guy. “But…”
10.30am. Well that sucked. As tempting as it is to down tools for the rest of the day and ‘work-from-home’, it’s good to spend this time together, bonding over mutual disappointment. An hour spent processing (and wallowing) isn’t necessarily time wasted. We do the NZ Herald daily quiz. Nick lies on the couch while Liz reads the questions like Bradley Walsh from The Chase.
11.34am. Nick goes for another wee. He’s only gone 15 minutes this time.
12.01pm. Lunch. We nearly always eat lunch together.
Aren’t we sick of each other? You bet we are. But a routine is a routine, baby!
1pm. Brainstorming time. Sometimes we talk heaps. Sometimes Nick watches basketball while Liz watches puppy videos. Often Nick pretends to write down what Liz has said in the hopes she’ll forget it later. Liz indulges Nick’s rambling tangents like a patient mother listening to her ADHD child.
We have quite different approaches. Yes, that means we can piss each other off, but after nigh-on 7 years of working together, it always seems to work out. It’s actually nice to oscillate between passive-aggressively putting down each other’s ideas and laughing together at dank memes. We know we’ll get there. They didn’t award us 2015 Axis Emerging Talent for nothing.
1.33pm. Team wee. Not together, you sickos.
2pm. Email. It’s some inane feedback about some minor job that will piss Liz off. Nick’s already laughing (the bastard always reads the email first). We’ve learnt to deal with each other’s triggers. In this case, with a mix of hostage negotiation tactics and soothing words of reassurance, it turns out the feedback can be addressed.
2.45pm. The wheels are fallin’ off this brainstorm train.
Liz brings Nick a mug of wine. See above point about an innate understanding of your work partner.
2.59pm. Fire up Campaign Brief to slag off some work. As dick-ish as it may sound, a bit of professional jealousy can be quite inspiring. Especially when it’s the ‘Dementia Dogs VR Project’ or whatever else is going to win a bronze at AWARD.
3.30pm. A director is coming in to show us a reel of their work that we could just watch on their website. Liz says Nick can take a mug of wine to the meeting. There will be snacks. Liz needs to be reminded that nothing tastes as good as skinny feels.
4pm. Back to brainstorming/arguing/online shopping.
4.12pm. Wine. It doesn’t have to be in a mug anymore. It’s kosher to drink now.
5.17pm. Hey, maybe we’re getting somewhere. Liz wants us to write it all up now. Nick reckons it’ll sit just fine as is until the morning. It’s taken us years to iron out the (many, many) flaws in our relationship. But Nick’s work-smarter-not-harder approach vs Liz’s DO ALL THE WORK modus operandi is one we might never reconcile. And you know what? It probably doesn’t matter. We know what works. Sometimes we do it Nick’s way. Most of the time we do it Liz’s way.
5.23pm. Quickly distract Liz with another meme until home time.
5.30pm. You know what? After spending the whole day together in a confined space, we might just go and grab a drink. Because…here comes the cheesy bit…it actually helps a shit-tonne if you’re friends with your partner. We’ve worked under great creatives who hate each other, and great creatives who are best chums. Both can be productive, but one certainly makes the job more fun.
5.35pm. Before we can shut our laptops, we get an email from our pal Ellen. She’s guest editing the January issue of Gabberish, and wants us to contribute. We both agree that can wait until tomorrow.
