Overprofessionalism

Me with a girl I met in China Lounge

I had a better week than last week, but it wasn't perfect either. For the second week, all of our ideas for Bild are rejected by the teacher. As I said before, the teacher for concept class is one that can piss me off, after which I make better work. Unfortunately, the pissing off comes to a point where it's getting really annoying.

I mean, I can handle it to have all of my ideas killed, but I realized this week that this guy actually can't teach at all. The only thing he learned me were links to funny websites. For the rest he does absolutely nothing. He just kills all the ideas that students have, without bringing the ideas to a higher level. And he rarely gives any homework. I actually had to ask him in class for extra assignments because all we made so far is a postcard.

In the beginning I thought he just has to get used to teaching a little bit. When I asked him whether we could get an assignment for a campaign, he said to me that he doubted whether our class can handle making a campaign. He obviously didn't know that in the first quarter we've been making so much campaign that our hands still hurt from writing them down.

When he critisized all of my Bild ideas, I had to go in discussion to get some useful feedback. Which I didn't get. All I got was a disrespectful comment: "Yeeaaah, it's a tough school huh, Miami Ad School!". So what the fuck does he know about our school? He's there only three hours a week. He only knows the school from the classroom to the kitchen, where he gets his cola. You want to see something tough Mr. concept class teacher? Then in two weeks, get out of your lazy bed at three o'clock in the evening and go to the school. You'll probably see all the students still working hard for their face-to-face meetings. In my opinion, there's a difference between being tough and just being an ass.

The problem with this guy is that he's too professional. He's the type of creative that always critizises other peoples work and who hates award shows because 'the ads that win prizes are ads that aren't made in an assignment'. He's so perfectionistic that he's getting the fun out of creation. I had a few creative directors like that once and I can say it's almost impossible to make good work under that kind of supervision.

But the fact that I have problems with the teacher doesn't stop me from working even harder. I will show him what good work I can make together with my teampartner Dominik. I might even make work that end up being a star at the exhibition, just because he's looking for the best idea ever. But even that won't change my opinion about him, because I see the rest of the class being demotivated, making nothing and skipping class. He has a negative approach about motivating people, while advertising should be fun to do. Yes, it's just a job, but it's also called 'the most fun job you can do with your pants on'.

Talking about fun: the advantage of having a not so good week is that you're glad it's weekend. I always take my time to have a little drink on friday or saturday (or both). It's good to have your own moments not to think of school anymore. The picture above was taken last week, which was a bad week. It's hard to see that the guy on the picture (me) was a wreck the day before as a result of many dissapointments at school. Oh well, in my case going out for a beer and dancing works better than even the best shrink in the world.