Agency. Culture. Not.

According to the annual Advertising Age report related to the best places to work: "Happiness does not equal perks.” That was one of the key takeaways from a recent panel that included executives from some of Ad Age's 2014 Best Places to Work. Happy employees are empowered and have a sense of purpose. They come to work every day and feel good about the people they're working with and for. That held true in this year's edition as well. Yes, the employees surveyed are fans of on-site yoga and free snacks, but the really glowing reviews came from employees who adore their bosses, understand their company's vision and feel valued. “It's at once the most simple and most complicated formula to get right."

This in itself, with the presence of the LA branch of M&C Saatchi as a representative

October 2016 from the major multinationals in the top 20 of the 2015, is capable of reflecting the way employees value or do not value the companies they work for.

Advertising employees are expected to keep abreast the current events, attend art galleries, be present at festivals, read, enrich themselves culturally and personally, contribute to brainstorming and new ideas for the accounts they work for, lead meaningful lives and remain upto-date of the market, see new cultures and interact with the world they live in.

They are supposed to do that without having a proper working schedule as the 9-5 model is absent from the industry. They should be grateful to work overtime in tiny cubicles. They should be thankful to pull a couple of all-nighters. They ration their vacations, get bullied by bosses who themselves were bullied before they got promoted, are undervalued and/or ridiculed most of the time publically, get invited to participate in "team-building" practices, which most of the time is nothing but secret Santa a few days before Christmas as they gulp their takeaway orders sitting on their desk during what is considered "lunch break".

Anyone who watched "Mad Men" might have realised that the programme was not too far off from the truth. Men and women with destroyed personal lives sell "berry berry delicious" ideas to their clients (the slogan is taken from one of the presentations by Peggy), are most of the time alcoholic (a Lebanese creative director was known to keep a vodka bottle in his