Dave: I need everyone just to give me some space.
Stacie: Like, you don’t want us in here?
Brian: You want us to leave?
Dave: It’s an option I’m encouraging you to consider, but as with everything I am only here to offer guidance and add value.
Stacie: So we can stay?
Dave: I’d rather you not.
Taylor: But you don’t insist we leave?
Dave: I’m off insisting right now. I’m working on my conflict avoidance skills. It’s kind of a cleanse.
Taylor: Then we’ll stay. You obviously need us here.
Dave: I don’t.
Alex: He’s in denial.
Stacie: Did you take your meds this morning?
Dave: Yes, of course I took my meds this morning. I take my meds every morning.
Brian: Did you take the Venlafaxine?
Taylor: That’s for his depression. His therapist says he’s depressed because he’s convinced that he’s a disappointment to his father who he idolizes.
Stacie: Which is ironic because he’s been successful his whole life and his father adores him.
Brian: Yes, but because the underlying condition is low self-esteem, his brain is wired to find pathways or even create fictional ones if necessary to confirm his self-loathing. It’s an interesting coping mechanism.
Dave: I have not been successful my whole life.
Brian: I rest my case.
Jason: You hit two homeruns in one Little League all-star game.
Dave: I was 12.
Alex: You were captain of the varsity football team and took home district honors.
Dave: My high school football team was horrible. It was like being the smartest idiot.
Taylor: And in college you were in that special club.
Dave: It wasn’t a club. It was a campus organization.
Stacie: Yeah, but you had to be chosen for it and everything was secret and you couldn’t be seen for an entire semester.
Dave: We are never, ever drinking together again.
Taylor: So you took your meds?
Dave: Yes, I took 225 mg of Venlafaxine. I take it every morning within 30 minutes of eating and avoid grapefruit juice for two hours after ingestion.
Taylor: What about the Adderall?
Brian: Is it hard for people with ADHD to remember to take their Adderall? Do you have to leave yourself a note or something?
Dave: No. I take it in the morning right after I take the Venlafaxine within 30 minutes of eating.
Alex: Man, I wish I had ADHD. That shit is fire.
Dave: It’s not fire. It just gives you the energy to focus.
Alex: Chemically, it’s only one methyl group away from crystal meth.
Brian: Damn, one methyl group from being a tweeker. That’s so cool.
Dave: Guys, I’m feeling edgy and buzzy and my anxiety is acting up and I just need to get this thing done for Jennifer right now.
Stacie: You didn’t take your Clonazepam.
Taylor: He’s supposed to take .5 mg of Clonazepam every morning to control his panic attacks.
Brian: He got that from PTSD.
Alex: You don’t get something from PTSD. Something happens to you and then you get PTSD from that and then it can manifest itself in a variety of forms— one of the most common are panic attacks.
Dave: I took the Clonazepam. I think this is just normal Jennifer anxiety.
Taylor: Why does everything have to go through Jennifer? This is our account. Why does New York have to stick their nose into our account?
Brian: Because it’s bigger than any account in New York, that’s why.
Stacie: They don’t want us to screw it up.
Alex: Screwing up an account is inevitable. Every account gets screwed up eventually. DMBB had Cadillac for like 90 years.
Brian: How long has that office been closed?
Dave: It’s not technically closed. It’s just owned by someone else now.
Stacie: Yeah, because they screwed it up. Now there’s one less agency in town.
Dave: Well, technically not. It’s just now a completely different agency, with a different name, owned by totally different people who now have the Cadillac account. I think a lot of the old employees are even still working there.
Brian: So why go through all the bullshit of dismantling an entire agency brand if you’re just basically going to white label the business and send the revenues to a different holding company?
Dave: Exactly.
Alex: I understood zero of that.
Dave: Good. Keep understanding zero of that for as long as you possibly can. It’s the only way to survive this business. Why are you people all still here?
Stacie: Because you have the best couch.
Taylor: And you’re the closest thing we have to a boss.
Dave: I am not your boss. Jennifer is your boss. She’s everyone’s boss.
Alex: Yeah. But when she’s not here you’re kind of our boss.
Taylor: You’re a GCD. That’s one letter away from ECD.
Brian: Which is kinda like being one methyl group away from being a tweeker.
Dave: I’m not a tweeker. I was evaluated by a professional. I have a condition. And the only reason I’m a GCD is because Laura was a GCD and when New York canned her and made me take her accounts, they would have had to charge the client less if there wasn’t a GCD working on the business. They could have just as easily given it to one of you jerks. It’s meaningless.
Brian: He’s doing it again.
Alex: Yep.
Dave: What? Doing what again?
Brian: Self-loathing. Always trying to turn his accomplishments into some sort of accidental insignificance. Who hurt you so bad?
Dave: Stop it.
Alex: You need to be held. You need to feel skin on skin.
Dave: Don’t.
Alex: I used conditioner on my chest hair. Come here little cub. You need some big bear love.
Dave: Alex, if you come one step closer I will call Russ and tell him you’re flirting at the office again.
Alex: Russ loves it when I flirt. It reminds him he’s punching above his weight.
Dave: Then I will call HR. Don’t make me be the bad guy.
Taylor: I thought we outsourced HR.
Stacie: It’s not outsourced. The department was absorbed by the New York office.
Brian: Fucking assholes. At least we still have the foosball table. From my cold dead hands they take our foosball table.
Dave: Guys, I’ve told you several times that the foosball table is paid for. It’s safe.
Taylor: Nothing is safe. They took my cube.
Stacie: They took everybody’s cube.
Brian: It looks like we work in a call center now.
Dave: What does it matter? You guys spend all your time in my office. Jason even has his standing desk set up in the corner. Wasn’t there a plant there? What happened to my plant?
Jason: It’s in New York now. Last I heard it was dating a Ficus from the Upper West Side who works in finance.
Dave: This deck has all of your guys’ work in it. And Jennifer is coming to review it. Aren’t any of you the least bit interested in allowing me to finish formatting this stupid thing? The meeting is in half an hour.
Stacie: Did you say half an hour? I thought the meeting was at 11.
Dave: No. Open your calendar every once in a while. It’s the little tab at the bottom of your email. The meeting is at 10:30 in the main conference room.
Stacie: So that means the danish are here already.
Brian: Elizabeth always puts the danish out 30 minutes before the meeting.
Dave: Do not eat the danish before the meeting.
Alex: We always eat the danish before the meeting.
Taylor: It’s good luck.
Dave: It’s bad manners.
Brian: She’s from New York. They expect bad manners. It makes them feel less homesick.
Stacie: Did we pay for the danish or does that come out of New York’s budget?
Dave: The danish are on us. We bury the costs in whatever production estimate we’re currently working on. Technically the client pays for the danish.
Brian: Our client, our danish.
Alex: Yeah man. We earned that danish.
Taylor: It’s sweat equity danish.
Stacie: If the danish were a child we would be awarded custody. We do everything for that danish. If Jennifer wants the danish every other weekend that’s fine, but we are the ones who are raising that danish.
Dave: If I say you can have the danish will you leave me alone for 15 minutes so I can finish this thing?
Jason: Do we have a danish deal guys?
Brian: Consider our departure to be a tentative acceptance.
Dave: Good. Now get the fuck out of here and bring me a cherry danish if there's any left.