Disagree about the self worth part too. If you don't think the head of hr is as important to a company as a creative director you've never worked in an office before, or never worked at an office that had a good hr director before. There's a reason roger calls Joan post haste at the end of season 3. She's effing good at that job and there are very few ppl that are.

In some businesses, yes. Equating Joan's value to Don's in a cutting edge creative driven business is highly lol. She's probably worth five or maybe ten cents on the dollar if you count the intangibles her looks have on client morale when they stop by the office. Regardless, your outlandish valuation of Joan's skills doesn't account for the fact that they don't transfer for her whatsoever to the waters she has been wading in of late.

She has to hire secretaries for ego maniacs that can handle them, and that the egomaniacs can stand. She has to take complaints from people all day and making sure the secretaries all do their jobs. She has to make sure all the client meetings are properly catered, and the actual running of the office **** like buying all the cigarettes and the liquor for the partners offices and the ****ing pens and paper. All while getting no respect. The struggle is real, yo.

Joan has never done anything that merits being a partner except spreading her legs for that Jaguar pig. She's an efficient albeit mean-spirited office manager and a wannabee account person.

Peggy deserves a partnership more than Joan does.

Arguing about the importance of Joan's job is meh but I also don't know why you guys are holding Joan to some loyalty standard. It's been outlined itt why Joan turned on don anyways and there isn't another character at scdp that hasn't back stabbed someone they cared about on the show.

lol ya i love all the hating on joan for "backstabbing" and "being unloyal" when pretty much every partner has cheated on their spouse multiple times.

double standard much?

Come on dude, cheating on your partner is a totally boss thing to do, whoring yourself is not. Unless you fondle a gay guy's balls so you can keep his account, now that kind of whoring is totally acceptable.

#2p2think

The core point has little to do with loyalty, it's about killing the goose that lays the golden eggs. All she did was try to cost herself and everyone else a bunch of money, the avoidance of which was her whole motivation in the first place. If you're going to be an unloyal backstabber in business it's best to advance your interests in the process rather than hindering them. It just makes her look like a dumb whore.

Also, for all the things Don is away from the office he has pretty much been loyal and straightforward in the office, one of the many reasons he generates success for the company. There is certainly a juxtaposition of personal indiscretions to weigh against Joan's professional ones, but that does nothing to invalidate the argument that Joan's character took another nosedive on the likeability and competence scales. Don takes as much or more than his fair share of **** from other characters and viewers for his flaws. In what world does that let Joan off the hook for hers? The only difference is that Joan doesn't have exceptional talents to serve as redeeming qualities elsewhere, outside of her looks and how she uses them of course. Which puts the 'whore' in the 'dumb whore' image she's cultivating.

It wasn't her idea. It was an idea presented to her by the partners of the company. The partners of the company presented the idea to her as though the fate of the company rested on this. They were presented as a united front - I imagine this was very important to Joan, because anyone who thought that this was a bad idea would no doubt hold it over Joan, and she's smart enough to know that. Then Don Draper threw the account away because he thought he was doing the right thing.

One of the major themes of Mad Men is ingratitude. I feel like I wrote about it either earlier this season or during last season. In theory, everyone on Mad Men owes their livelihood to some shepherd - Don rooked Roger Sterling into getting his foot in the door, and could've easily been thrown out by Cooper and company when they discovered he was Dick Whitman. I mean, when Roger Sterling made a pass at Betty in Season 1, shouldn't Don have been cool with it? I mean, Sterling was the guy who gave him a chance. Don rocked the boat when it came to the PPL merger and almost quit because of his refusal to sign a contract - where's the gratitude? Peggy got in thanks to Freddy Rumsen and Don, but she turned on Don for a good while there, with cause. Joan's been done plenty of good turns by Don, but all that matters are the bad turns, and that's true of basically everyone on the show.

And of course let's not forget the indignation the SC boys had at Sal for refusing to put out when Lee Garner Jr. came on to him.

Not true. At first, only Pete presented the idea to her, and that´s where she didn´t say "no", but something along the lines of "you can´t afford it".

As for the rest of the argument - it seems like you´re saying that she isn´t a whore because pimps talked her into it. Um, ok, makes sense ...

I'm not saying she hasn't sold her body for money. She has clearly done that. What she did is not deserving of the reductive term of 'whore' and all the pejoratives that come with it. 'Oh, well, she's sold herself for money, so all her motives are garbage and she's garbage'.

You're right about how it went down, I have to watch that season again - I think the 2nd meeting about it, it was presented the way I'm suggesting.

All this quibbling aside, I think this comes down to the fact that there are Don people and there are Joan people. And if you're a Joan person, may God have mercy on your soul.

Yes, that's what it comes down to. Hopefully someone reminds me to unignore you when the show's over.

You're a trooper, Triumph.

If she is a whore, shouldn't people be calling the other partners all pimps?

Don and Roger are straight-up pimps, fo sho. Pete not so much. Pete's more of a John.

Pete is a pimp.. A grimy little pimp

This line, combined with her expression....

Grunching but please say this is a level. Buying cigarettes is equal/on par with the importance of the creative director of one of the nations largest ad agencies? Lol

MAD MEN THREAD SRS BSNS

Also FYI the show is over for like 11 months

Confirmed not a level.

Brah, Joan's job isn't easy and she worked hard as head of staff and has a savvy that makes her good at it... but there's a million people that could do head of staff, and probably a thousand people that could do it at least as well as her.

This

Didn't she transition that role to Dawn? What exactly IS Joan doing at the firm these days?