Lazy N omad
Paris, Champs Elysées, a few years ago.
I was sitting at the giant meeting table of one of the
biggest advertising agencies in the World. Alone.
Through the glass wall, people run in the open space.
I don’t even hear the hubbub of the never ending war
between the creatives and the suits.
I work for a strategic client, with a big international
budget. The pressure is high and I have no time for
my life. My office becomes my home and my
colleagues, a kind of family.
My boss has recently decided to impose that I take a
English courses. His way to improve my sales speech.
I wish he would simply create a day of 35 hours to let
me, maybe, finish my work.
I tap my pen nervously on my notebook. A tall and
blond man, wearing a long black coat and carrying a
briefcase, walks slowly to my door. He hesitates, then
knocks and enters. Although, he is French, his first
words were pronounced in English with a perfect
British accent. He took his time to open his book and
his computer carefully. That makes me feel even more
stressed. Finally, he looks at me and asks me how I
feel today.
How do I feel today? I think I don’t even feel anything
since… for many months now, maybe years? But, this
is not what I am supposed to tell him. His life is
assuredly more interesting than mine. I decide to use
the strategy that politicians use when they want to
avoid a difficult question: answer with a question.
“And you, how are you?”
This is how I started the conversation that changed
my life.
Though this woman is
clearly stuck in a corporate
world she is not our Lazy
Nomad.
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THE CONE - ISSUE #7 - FALL 2015