Tuesday, March 13, 2007

Boiling Point

You will first see the water churn, strange things are happening to the water you have just put to boil. The air trapped in the water starts to get agitated and form tiny bubbles which float quickly to the surface. The once lifeless water is not bursting with new found energy, it becomes more syrupy to the eye. Its funny, watching water boil because while a great many things are happening to the precious liquid, it does seem to take forever to reach the boiling point. Its a slow build-up of energy transfered through the heating elements through the kettle into the water, until it suddenly bursts with such intensity it almost always catches you in surprise despite the inevitably of it. This my friends is the boiling point!

My colleagues and I are kind of experiencing this same phenomenon at the moment.

We started the year with a niggling fear of a slow-down. Us advertising guys are usually the first to get hit with a slow-down in the economy. Clients hold back budgets, reigning in spending to protect their bottomlines. Wether this is the right thing to do is a topic for another discussion. We couldn't be more wrong. We have been busy as bees and it has in a way taken us by surprise. A little heat never killed anyone and we were all quite happy taking on the numerous projects thrown our way. Start the year well we say, and the rest of the year should take care of itself.

Just like the water first introduced to the flame, we got buzzed. We got excited. We were however clueless to the inevitable boiling point.

This is my fear. When will we reach that point? When will we cease to enjoy our ourselves in our work and lose our cohesion? I fear the time is quite near.