Angry condemnation over the demanding culture of the advertising industry has followed the death of 27-year-old Indonesian copywriter, Ananda Pradnya Paramita.
The young woman who identified herself on social networking sites as Mita Diran tweeted, “30 hours of working and still going strooong.” She collapsed soon after and died in a Jakarta hospital the next day.
Her death has hit a nerve with those employed in the advertising industry as well as the general public, which have derided her employer for what they say is an unrealistic work environment.
Paramita was employed by the Indonesian office of Young and Rubicam, a global advertising firm that operates in 91 countries.
The company closed its office this Monday, the day of Paramita’s funeral, and on its corporate Facebook page expressed sincere regret for her loss.
But the post has generated mostly livid responses, with online users calling the company “pembunuh” or killers and accusing the industry of being obsessed with numbers at any expense.
Those familiar with the advertising agency here say 9-5 hours do not apply and all-nighters are an occasional occupational hazard.
Daniel Sunaryo who worked in a Jakarta advertising firm for more than a decade says the “toxic” environment of advertising agencies “sucks the life out of you.”
“It is the norm to work over your limit. Even if quotas are met it will never be enough,” he says.
Sunaryo said the glamour and “rock and roll” lifestyle of advertising was attractive but ultimately unsustainable. He quit to become a yoga teacher last year.
“The stress is paralyzing,” he says, “that’s how I discovered yoga. I don’t know how people survive.”
Paramita was also accustomed to long hours spent in the office, as regular updates on her Twitter account show.
“So it's 2AM, Friday night and I'm at the office, nibbling on junk food with 9 other creative. I'm actually okay with this,” she tweeted this October.
Other tweets point to her sleep-deprived, but seemingly happy life. Under the hash tag #AgencyLife, Paramita often tweeted about her grueling workload but she never suggested she had been forced into it.
On April 16 this year she wrote: “I was ideating last night till about 3am when my boss came up to me and said, ‘Why are you staying back at the office on your birthday?’”
Cynthia Agustina, a freelance commercial producer who has worked closely with the industry for the past 12 years says young people in the advertising world know what is expected of them.
“Despite what people think when people get into these industries, they know what they are getting themselves into and a lot of them don’t mind until a certain point in their life I suppose,” she says.
But Agustina says the industry is also slowly changing and advertising employees are seeking more of a work/life balance. Paramita, she says, was not a junior employee and would have known the demands and made her decisions accordingly.
“If you have a fun working environment and you’re 27, you’re are your own master, she says, “And I don’t know any company that says, ‘I don’t care what you do, just deliver.’”
According to Paramita’s mother her daughter died from a ruptured blood vessel in the brain, while a colleague has blamed her death on excessive consumption of energy drinks.
Y&R Indonesia says it operates in compliance with local labor laws.
“Up until now, we’re still trying to find out what really happened internally,” said Sie Zin Lie, a Young and Rubicam spokeswoman.
Paramita’s father Zafrul Sjahrial, also an advertising executive, told the South China Morning Post that he does not hold the company responsible for her death.
“If people want to blame anybody, it’s the whole industry, not one company,” Mr. Sjahrial said.
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