I was leading an organization that was responsible for multiple billions of dollars in advertising for sports, broadcast, and cable television at Fox Networks Group, one of the world’s most powerful media empires. Think, The Simpsons, American Idol, Modern Family, and every major sports league imaginable. I’d been on the field at the World Series and the Super Bowl, hosted parties from Las Vegas to the south of France with actors, National Geographic Explorers, and WWE wrestlers.
It was everything I’d never even dreamed of since I dropped out of business school and moved to the West Coast without a career plan over two decades ago.
The network advertising chiefs (what they call the head of ad revenue at the major TV networks) had long held the most powerful jobs in media and advertising. They were rainmakers and ringleaders. They helped shape the ad spending of the world’s largest companies and weave their messages into content people love. They connected marketers with the Hollywood storytellers who offer the opportunity to reach many millions of viewers during their favorite programming in order to hopefully persuade them to buy a new Ford or Toyota, trust Aflac or State Farm with their home or car insurance, reach for Irish Spring or Dove soap in the shower, kick back with a Budweiser or Heineken.
For years, network advertising chief was the biggest job in all advertising. But by the time I got to Fox, the ground was shifting. Networks were consolidating, and TV advertising was shrinking as viewers were opting out of the traditional TV experience. My remit as president of advertising at Fox Networks Group, at least as I described it, was to make the advertising “suck less.” And with a true Quixote-like effort, I tried to do just that right up until Disney acquired (most of) Fox.
When I finally got the call from Disney HR, it confirmed what had long ago been decided: I wasn’t going to become a “cast member” (a.k.a. Disney employee). But that morning in Tokyo, all I could think about was how few people could say they’d been fired twice by mouse-centric companies.
The first time it happened, I was working at Chuck E. Cheese in Latham, New York. I was seventeen years old and, despite the perpetual sweat smell, I actually enjoyed running around in the mouse costume and entertaining kids. And if I am being honest, the real reason I applied there was to get the title of assistant manager.
Considering all the free pizza, getting excellent at Pop-A-Shot (but not Skee-Ball, no matter how many times I played), and the fact that there was always some low stakes human drama to triage, it was everything you could ask for in a high school job: seniority at seventeen and perks galore.
One time, the employee in the Chuck E. outfit was running through the main room and tripped and fell. The giant mouse head came off and rolled across the dining room. Birthday parties watched with various levels of horror or amusement. There were a lot of free pizza and prizes given that day. I loved solving people-problems and dealing with eccentric personalities, and the Latham (that’s actual upstate New York, near Albany) Chuck E. Cheese was never short on either.
