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Then he’s tasked with polishing forks. Fucking forks. And Richie’s ego begins to learn the most valuable lesson of all - it’s not about feeling important in the eyes of others, but about taking pride in oneself for the time and effort one puts into the details.

He then finds Chef Terry (exquisitely played by Olivia Colman) peeling a pile of mushrooms. Fucking mushrooms. He’s baffled. She quietly tells Richie that mushrooms do not, strictly speaking, need to be peeled: “It’s just a nice little fun detail so that when the diners see it, they know that someone spent a lot of time on their dish.” And now he gets it. Be of service. And care. Really fucking care.

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Taste then isn’t merely about unaccountable subjective preference. Taste involves making judgments about quality - which is why it should matter a very great deal to marketers, brand-builders, and communicators.

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People who live in bubbles. People who don’t know they live in bubbles. People who don’t care they live in bubbles. People who deny they live in bubbles. People who hang out with people who agree with them. People who don’t travel outside the confines of their own minds. People who don’t travel outside the confines of their own habits. People who don’t travel outside the confines of their own culture. People who travel outside the confines of their own culture and compare everything with the culture they stepped out of. People who are uncomfortable being outside their own culture. People who can’t wait to get back to the familiarity of their own culture. People who can’t change their minds. People who won’t change their minds. People who don’t like their faith in the reality they’ve constructed for themselves being even mildly shaken. People who aren’t up for revising their most cherished beliefs.

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In other words I was being asked, how - when working in advertising can so often feel like some kind of Groundhog Day experience in which we encounter the same kinds of stresses, frustrations, and disappointments again and again - could I keep going?

Now I will be the first to acknowledge that I’m ill-qualified to dispense life lessons. I’ve made too many mistakes and failed too often to credibly peddle success recipes. They’re mostly (as I’ve argued elsewhere) the work of unreliable narrators anyway. And I’m a slightly better provider of brand advice than personal development advice. That said, I think I can be bold enough to argue that if you want to have fun and be of help and value and do so consistently, over the longer (or even very long) term, then cynicism is the best strategy for failure.

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