"Fish Geek Complication Syndrome..."

[Tannin Aquatics]

I think I might be like a lot of fish geeks…I tend to dwell on really obscure minutiae.

It might be part of my "makeup" as a fish geek- not really sure. Maybe it's a common thing with fish geeks?

On the other hand, it's not part of my overall personality...I don't think.

I recall back in college, I was fortunate enough to land an internship in one of the hottest advertising agencies in Los Angeles- or the world, for that matter, at the time. It was so cool! As an intern, I spent time in a few different departments, even though I was “hired” for my alleged copywriting skills.

 

One of the departments I was relegated to was called the “Traffic” department (yeah, even the name sounded boring..), where all of the media buying and seemingly mundane (to a wannabe young copywriter, anyways) and intricately detailed work was done. Translation- “boring” stuff. I remember “serving my time" in that department (yeah, that’s what my fellow interns and I called it) under a pretty crochet old advertising exec, who sort of loved and hated me at once. She’d dispense the occasional nugget of ad-biz wisdom, followed by a verbal “bitch slap” for failing to follow her byzantine record-keeping system. Once of the best pieces of advice she ever gave me was, “Don’t ever work in this department..you tend to get lost in the details…”

I never forgot that, BTW. And it was a true summation of me as an aquarist, too! Who would have known? (click to read more)