What am I? Part 1

I still remember the day when I told my mother that I want to join advertising industry. She looked at me as if I had said I wanted to start farming in Mars! For her, this was a male dominated place where they could take 'advantage' of an 'innocent girl' like me. God alone knows how far am I from being innocent. But she sighed relief when I said I got a job as an Account Executive. Because she thought I will be handling the accounts - financial part- of the agency. Cool job, eh? 9-5 that too... (that time is still a dream though!)

Six years later ask her what am I at CART? Tat comes her reply - Creative head! My soul jumps out of the body and I go, "WHAT?! Who in the world told you that!" And she innocently says, "when I heard that you suggest names for the brands and write scripts I thought you were one!" Well she atleast knows that such a position like exists.

Over the years I have seen, whenever people have asked me what I do for a living, and when I say I am in advertising, they immediately ask, "what do you do? you make these ads (pointing to the TV)?" I try to hide then, because what if there is an ad that irritates this guy and he holds me responsible for it? Worst is I can't make them understand that I don't exactly make these ads but help people to create them and then sell them. Because they will picture me as a door to door sales person who carries ads in a bag and goes about saying, "Sir/ Madam, take these ads, these are freshly made and will work well for you." And then I really don't have patience to explain, how, why, what etc. happens behind the scene. Imagine if I tell them - I meet the client, take his brief and come to office and share it with my team, while adding my perspective too to it. We crack an idea and finally lay it out creatively! They would have jumped from Rupa to eggs to somethings else!
So I politely say that I am a client manager in an advertising company. Well to think of it now, it might be sounding even weird to these people. They would think 'she' 'manages' 'her clients' for her 'agency'. Something's fishy! Phew!!!