This clip is instructive. Although it was part of a fictional television series, you are deluding yourself if you think this was composed in a vacuum.
Don is trying to get his dream job. When Don tries to go through the front door, he gets “oh, you’re the fur guy,” and “I threw out your portfolio” and “I ignored them. That’s my message to you.” That’s the modern job search in three sentences. Don Draper, of course, turns out to be a legend, but so far, the boss is never going to know, because it’s far more important to stomp on people than it is to find new talent.
Keep this in mind the next time you see a job ad that asks for “passionate guru rock stars.”
Since the front door approach isn’t working, Don has to employ subterfuge. So he admits he’s skipping out on his boss, admits he was lying about being in the building for a meeting and then gets the boss drunk at ten in the morning and lies twice more in order to get a job that didn’t exist until he lied it into existence.
Keep this in mind the next time you see a job ad that asks for “passionate guru rock stars.”
Black out.