It’s been seven hours and fifteen days…
Or in my case, nearly 13 years at bbd, but I am putting down my (many) spreadsheets and my calculator and heading out. Oddly it doesn’t feel anything like 13 years – surely it has only been… 4ish?
I joined bbd way, way back in 2009, just as the economy was headed into troubled waters. And I leave bbd with the economy…ah. Plus ça change.
But what also hasn’t changed is that bbd is about the humans first and foremost. Always has been, always will be.
It is in the company’s DNA, and it has been at the core of everything here for more than 60 years – the belief that the foundation of any successful business is the people, and everything else takes second place.
Don’t get me wrong, agency life isn’t for everyone. It’s busy and messy and loud and goes at 100 miles an hour, and bbd is agency life in glorious surround sound technicolour – you’ll see this every day in the people, the surroundings and the work. It’s for the sort of person who enjoys turning the volume up, and are slightly disappointed when they discover it only goes up to 11.
And, for me, it’s the agency where many different backgrounds and personalities work together, and not only do so harmoniously and productively, but enjoy each other’s company while they do it. Creative agencies attract creative people, and creative people tend to have strong individual personalities – anywhere else this would be friction, but at bbd it just works. It is a place where you are not only allowed to be yourself, it is positively encouraged.
Good humans make for good relationships; between everyone that works at bbd, and everyone bbd works with. Good relationships make the hard times doable, and the successes that much sweeter.
I am no different to the hundred plus people who have been part of the bbd family in the time I have been here when I say that the thing I will miss most is the people.
Nothing compares to you.
Farewell bbd.
Finance Director