{"id":360,"date":"2013-08-06T16:47:08","date_gmt":"2013-08-06T16:47:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.english-culture.com\/?p=360"},"modified":"2018-04-26T16:55:03","modified_gmt":"2018-04-26T16:55:03","slug":"who-was-robley-feland","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.english-culture.com\/who-was-robley-feland\/","title":{"rendered":"Who Was Robley Feland?"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Brown's<\/a>
Brown’s Job and Robley Feland<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\"\"<\/a>Brown\u2019s former employers know it. Brown\u2019s job is where Brown is.<\/span><\/p>\n

For all its virtues, the Internet is unkind to those who must be digitized without profit. Robley Feland died without fanfare on Nov. 14, 1952, and my online searches revealed very little about him.\u00a0 But after several years of occasional curiosity, I found my answers offline at a used bookstore: The Huckster\u2019s Revenge, a 1959 memoir by Fred Manchee, who succeeded Feland as BBDO treasurer.<\/span><\/p>\n

A dreadful book, The Huckster\u2019s Revenge is Fred Manchee\u2019s public rebuttal to the scathing Madison Avenue critiques that were popular fare at the time. It\u2019s also a vanity memoir by a man of middling abilities who wanted to commemorate his agency career upon retiring. And some of the most vivid parts are about one Robley Feland.<\/span><\/p>\n

What we learn is that Robley Feland (no surprise) was a lot like Brown himself – \u201ca brilliant creative man, philosopher and financial man all rolled up in one.\u201d Feland, like David Ogilvy, was famous for his memos and his axioms, and they are widely quoted in Manchee\u2019s book. (Many are so Ogilvy-like in their flashy erudition and persnickety tone, it\u2019s stunning.\u00a0 Perhaps there is a certain overqualified personality type that naturally gravitates toward advertising.)<\/span><\/p>\n

He seems to have been a man of conspicuous civility. In one anecdote, Feland recounts his discovery that a colleague of many years went home every evening to feed and wash a severely\u00a0 handicapped child who was \u201ca mindless lump.\u201d\u00a0 He recalled that discovery every time he felt tempted to snap at co-workers, mindful that his harsh words might be the last straw for someone carrying unseen burdens.<\/span>
\n Feland had a wicked sense of humor, too. As treasurer at the George Batton Company, he had to fire two young employees when a prank backfired. As a gesture he gave them a piece of paper with an agency address and suggested they apply there. Quickly they interviewed and were hired. Upon reporting to work, they saw Robley Feland \u2014 a colleague once more, because their \u201cnew employer\u201d was merging with Batton to form BBDO.<\/span>
\n For the sake of brevity, I\u2019ll just get out of the way at this point and provide some direct quotes.<\/span><\/p>\n

From Bruce Barton:<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cRobley Feland had one of the most interesting and stimulating minds of any man I have ever known. He was a college man \u2013 two years in the University of Kentucky \u2026 the rest of his vast fund of information was self-acquired. He read French and Latin and some Greek\u2026<\/span>
\n The imprint of his mind and fingers will continue to influence the operations of this business and guide its progress for a long time to come. Ten years from now somebody will speak up in a conference and say: \u201cI remember what Robley used to think about this.\u201d Or \u201cthat reminds me of something Robley wrote years ago.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

From a Feland memo:<\/span>
\n \u201cI do not mind being cursed for trying to hold down payroll and other controllable expenses. That could be a source of pride. I do greatly dread being cursed for not trying hard enough, for yielding when I should have been firm, for being agreeable when expenses could have been held down by being disagreeable. For that I would feel shame forever.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

To a new office manager who wasn\u2019t doing enough cost-cutting:<\/span>
\n \u201cWhen James the Sixth of Scotland became James the First of England, he moved from Edinburgh Castle to London. Immediately after crossing the line from Scotland into England he encountered two vagrants by the wayside. He knighted one and had the other hanged, just to show that he was really King of England.<\/span>
\n \u201cThis is a much more thorough job than you have been doing to date. You have knighted a lot of people, but you as yet have hung no vagrants!\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

From a memo on signs:<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThat sign on the second floor conference room reading \u201cKeep Out!\u201d is just a little too blunt and rude for an office in which some of the people are ladies and gentlemen. I would suggest any words that can be devised that will be a little less like a farmer\u2019s sign to wandering hunters, or something on the private entrance to a little dinky factory.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThe words \u201cIn Use\u201d could be used, or even the words \u201cDirectors\u2019 Room\u201d or \u201cBoard Meeting.\u201d But \u201cKeep Out\u201d is not exactly redolent of old world courtesy, unless you want to go the whole way and put \u201cThis Means U.\u201d<\/span>
\n Another memo, about agency organizations:<\/span>
\n \u201cThey want the dues. That is all they want. And all we get is the privilege of paying them. They are like lobster pots. The lobster is safe enough until he crawls in. Then let him try to get out. You keep on paying dues, year after year, for precisely the whole of nothing.\u201d<\/span>
\n \u201cAnother request to join another association and pay dues \u2026 for many years I have kept two thumbs, eight fingers and ten toes in this dyke, but here comes another hole. For goodness sake, put one of your thumbs in it!\u201d<\/span>
\n Fred Manchee, on Feland\u2019s last agency visit after retirement:<\/span>
\n Robley Feland had cancer. He knew it. Everybody in the office knew it. Robley was given permission by his doctors to go to his home in New Jersey to vote in the 1952 Presidential election. On the way home from the hospital he stopped at the office.<\/span><\/p>\n

I must digress long enough to tell you that, as treasurer of the company, he had approved installation of time clocks to conform to the Wages and Hours Act during World War II. Acccurate time records were not required for employees earning over a certain salary, but to forestall any feeling of discrimination, everybody punched the clock including Robley Feland. Picture him on this, his last departure from BBDO. Too weak to walk alone, he was leaning on an attendant for support. To look at him was to know he was in pain. All eyes were glued on him as he approached the time clock. Out of habit, he reached for his card, dropped it into the slot. Somehow he summoned up enough strength to give the clock a whack that could be heard from one end of the office to the other.<\/span><\/p>\n

Robley Feland did not turn around. If he had, he would not have seen a dry eye.<\/span>
\n And that\u2019s a perfect exit for the man who wrote \u201cBrown\u2019s Job.\u201d It dovetails eerily with the last lines in Robley Feland\u2019s little masterpiece \u2026 an ad that wasn\u2019t exactly an ad, about a man who left behind a job that many coveted but none could do so well.<\/span>
\n Don\u2019t they know that Brown\u2019s chair and his desk, with the map under the glass top, and his pay envelope, are not Brown\u2019s job? Don\u2019t they know that they might as well apply to the Methodist Church for John Wesley\u2019s job?<\/span>
\n Brown\u2019s former employers know it. Brown\u2019s job is where Brown is.<\/span><\/p>\n

Brown’s Job<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

http:\/\/youngisaac.typepad.com\/artie\/2007\/10\/browns-job.html<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

Salva<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Brown\u2019s former employers know it. Brown\u2019s job is where Brown is. For all its virtues, the Internet is unkind to those who must be digitized without profit. Robley Feland died without fanfare …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":149644,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[715,232,718,30,560,562],"tags":[712,713,714,716,522,717,3,605,4,719,20,720,721,722,723,724,725,726,727,728,729,123],"class_list":["post-360","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-arts-crafts","category-carl-william-brown","category-english-world","category-marketing","category-news-events","category-quotations","tag-advertising","tag-advertising-agency","tag-agency-propaganda","tag-bbdo","tag-brown","tag-browns-job","tag-carl-william-brown","tag-creativity","tag-daimon-club","tag-find-a-job","tag-fortattack","tag-fortattacks","tag-genial-bloggers-2","tag-genial-writers","tag-jobless-people","tag-mr-feland","tag-new-employer","tag-philosophy-of-advertising","tag-promotion","tag-publicity","tag-robley-feland","tag-unemployment"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t