Ponsonby Shop Rebrands Timesheets as 'flash fiction' in bold operational pivot
The creative leadership at The Velvet Brick has announced a radical restructuring of their administrative layer this morning. They are officially retiring standard time-tracking software to launch a new initiative called 'Narrative Billing'. Executive Creative Director Hamish Sterling claims that reducing a creative genius's day to numerical codes is an insult to the craft. He insists that the fifteen minutes a junior designer spends resizing a banner ad deserves a proper narrative arc. The agency now requires all staff to submit their daily activity as hand-written prose.
It is a staggering logistical commitment for the boutique agency. They have hired a dedicated Head of Temporal Curation to edit these submissions for tone and voice. Account managers are reportedly struggling to adapt. They now have to parse through three paragraphs of stream-of-consciousness writing just to confirm if the client was billed for a coffee meeting. One submission regarding a Zoom call with a bewildered dairy client was described as 'Kafkaesque' by the finance department. The goal is to elevate the mundane into high art.
The physical submission process is equally rigorous. Staff must use a single vintage typewriter located in the main breakout room. The ribbon is changed weekly to a slightly different shade of charcoal to reflect the mood of the fiscal quarter. Sterling argues this creates a tactile relationship with productivity that a digital interface cannot replicate. Clients will now receive their monthly invoices bound in leather. They are charged not just for the work, but for the literary merit of the time logging itself. It is the ultimate fusion of commerce and art. It is also incredibly inefficient.
It is a staggering logistical commitment for the boutique agency. They have hired a dedicated Head of Temporal Curation to edit these submissions for tone and voice. Account managers are reportedly struggling to adapt. They now have to parse through three paragraphs of stream-of-consciousness writing just to confirm if the client was billed for a coffee meeting. One submission regarding a Zoom call with a bewildered dairy client was described as 'Kafkaesque' by the finance department. The goal is to elevate the mundane into high art.
The physical submission process is equally rigorous. Staff must use a single vintage typewriter located in the main breakout room. The ribbon is changed weekly to a slightly different shade of charcoal to reflect the mood of the fiscal quarter. Sterling argues this creates a tactile relationship with productivity that a digital interface cannot replicate. Clients will now receive their monthly invoices bound in leather. They are charged not just for the work, but for the literary merit of the time logging itself. It is the ultimate fusion of commerce and art. It is also incredibly inefficient.