Management Trainee, Age 42

I once heard that if your ad agency hadn't sent you to New York by the age of 30 you were a failure.

I cheated.

I was going to a big fat Jewish wedding so I asked the company if I could visit Y&R HQ on Mad(ison) Avenue.  The day I spent at command control was mostly a waste of time.  They assumed that as I was coming from Poland our level of media expertise was on a par with darkest Congo.  One friendly gentlemen wasted an hour of my life explaining what TV spot buying was.

In fact as ex-communist markets have a surplus of nuclear physicists & our TV buying expertise is years ahead of the 50 continental.  We literally employ rocket scientists as media buyers.

Then the Mad Man complimented my English.  "It's really good for a Polish guy."  Thanks I replied, "I learnt as a child."  "That is the best way" he said.

Clearly to a New York TV buyer the name Brown isn't a clue to my country of origin.

I heard an even better Manhattan adland story regarding someone we shall call Charles Courtier, because that is his name.

Charles had been deservedly promoted to be global head of Y&R media which meant a move to the Big  Apple & a corner office on the 50th floor.  There was only one problem; he was a heavy smoker & New York had just banned smoking in public buildings.  Being up in the clouds meant a long commute to the street for his nicotine intake.

Inevitably he once had a crafty fag out of the window.  A junior employee came into his office & said "Mr. Courtier do you realise you are breaking both State & Federal Law by smoking in the office."

"Call the fucking cops" Charles replied.