Tell me about a time you crashed out at work in advertising.

I had a mental breakdown during a team “bonding” day celebrating everyone’s achievements. I spent it hyperventilating in the bathroom. I quit a year later, no job lined up, because it was better than there.

But it was also the start of one of my closest friendships to this day.

Trauma bonding is the only reason I’ve made it this long.

I’m currently crashing out because everyone else in creative got fired or left in the span of 2 months lol. Gotta snap out of it so I can step up and be leader though send positive vibes

I took myself to the doctor with chest pains. After running a test, he told me I'm not having a heart attack. He then asked me if I have a stressful job and unbelievably, only at that moment did I FINALLY connect the dots and realise how much I'd been internalizing my stress and anxiety. This was 5 years ago and ever since, I've given 90% instead of 110. It's made all the difference to my health, but the awards and career progression has stopped. What a shitty trade off to have to make for your health, huh?

Christ why do we work in this trash industry

Boyfriend sent me a breakup text message two minutes before a creative presentation. I stood up to present and totally blanked. Mumbled my way through it.

At the office all weekend working on a 9am Monday morning pitch. Hit my breaking point after designing all day Sunday when everyone was arguing about the printed leave behinds…at 3am. The pitch was in 6 hours, we all needed to be back in 4, and I just wanted to sleep. Had to pretend like I wasn’t crying until they let me leave. Never again.

My first ad job. I’m always ‘the quiet one’.

I threw a brief on the ground and walked out of the office because of a condescending accounts person being rude to me even when I was the only one who offered to help on her urgent project.

Took the rest of the day off and cried on the way home but I got high fives from my co-creatives when I came back the next day. And no one dared to give me shit for walking out lol

I had a minor mental breakdown partly due to the work stress and partly due to alcoholism. I was WFH over the weekend leading up to a big conference, capping off two solid months of 80-90 hour weeks. The umpteenth ridiculous bit of client feedback made me step outside myself and just collapse into the fetal position on the floor, sobbing, whiskey bottle in hand. Time had somehow stopped/lost meaning and I was watching myself from outside my body. Eventually I came back into myself, finished routing the job, and stopped crying.

I kept drinking for years, partly to cope with stress but mostly because that's just what us alcoholics do. I finally got sober but am still in the industry for now.

I call this time "Tuesday"

I poked out the ECD’s right eye with a Pipe Dream Wallbanger! Sorry Al!

when an old manager wouldn’t promote me because I never went out to drinks (literally told me this)

During my first internship at a large company, I was assigned a design project. Partway through, my design lead asked to review my progress. I sent her my work without hesitation. Later, I discovered she had shared my file with another designer (without telling me) so that designer could use my work as her own.

I walked past the designer’s desk and saw her quickly closing my file. She ended up presenting the work before I had the chance, making it appear as though she had done everything.

I later found out that the design lead and the other designer were close friends and often spoke poorly about others behind their backs. It became clear I wasn’t welcome on the team. The environment was toxic, and the stress began to take a toll on my health. I left the internship after about a month

My stories are a bit less dramatic but every bit as burnout related. On one sleep deprived morning, I placed my laptop in the office fridge instead of my lunch. On another day, I got a call from the office parking garage staff—I’d left my car running after I’d arrived. On another day, I started dialing a phone call on my cell phone’s calculator app. 🤦🏻‍♂️😝

My first week in advertising. I was added to an account that I didn’t know and was briefed on a friday at 5pm with a CR on Monday at 11am. I don’t know where all the assets are or what to do. I messaged everyone before 6pm and nobody answered and I was nervous to ask everyone on a weekend. So I stayed up all weekend to build everything from scratch. Obviously everything was ugly and was crapped on the next morning. I had an anxiety attack all Monday because of that & told my Senior AD what happened. Anyways, I am still in advertising and I love it. It felt like a good way to introduce me in this world I willingly put myself in lol

Once I was WFH on a weekend and screamed “WHAT DO YOU WANT FROM ME” at a laptop after the freelancer I was reporting to (they’d fired the rest of my department) said round 15 of my Pride brief wasn’t “sparkly” enough. I quit the job not long after, partially because my wife was home at the time and basically said “you need to stop working there”.

I was due to have my child in the middle of a retention pitch. I was the SVP. I set everyone up to do the pitch as it was due on my due date… despite promises I was told I needed to present at the pitch … I set up cues to my manager just in case … and sure enough.. day of the pitch, standing in front of everyone, labor started. I tried 5 times to hand off the presentation with all cues… unresponsive MF. So, when I was having contractions NO BODY Stepped IN. I excused myself, got into a car service to go to hospital (my husband was adamant about my exit just in case).

The account did not get renewed (all women leaders on the client side). I returned to work post baby and got sent abroad first week back from mat leave for a global pitch… I can’t describe how human deficient my manager was. Left that job as soon as I could manage a job search.

Lost my mind many times that pitch day. Advertising sucks. Went client side and never hired those MF despite them having amnesia to what they did.

;)

I was in a junior role at the time and was left to QA, and manage our production department to make last min changes to creative that was previously client approved. I Had a client call me every 30-60m asking for status updates regarding changes that were being made to creative from 5pm-midnight on a Friday. I quit shortly after, the client just got more and more abusive and was unchecked by our leadership.

I was told I was being promoted. Called my parents. Celebrated with my boyfriend. Then days later they took it back. The CD told me prematurely before it was really confirmed. I had a panic attack and he had to walk me out of the office cause I needed the rest of the day off. Everyone thought I got fired after seeing him walk me out while I sobbed until I came back the next day 😂

Weekly honestly

Crashed out during a meeting because I had reached my breaking point. Got let go eventually