Company Blog

Perfect

by Adam Zack — April 22, 2015

¹perfect

adjective per·fect \ˈpər-fikt\

: having no mistakes or flaws
: completely correct or accurate
: having all the qualities you want in that kind of person, situation, etc.

I don’t know if there is a word that in the past 5 or so years has been more overused than “perfect”. “I’ll be home in about an hour.” “Perfect.” “I shampood the cat.” “Perfect.” “My feet don’t hurt today.” “Perfect.” “We are out of cheddar but we have American cheese”. “Perfect.” “I only found one mistake on this week’s ad.” “Perfect.” No, “not perfect”, that’s more “acceptable”, “Okay” or “good”. Maybe I am just a little too demanding. When I think perfect, I think I cannot do any better. Not one thing would make it better. It’s flawless. And flawlessness is one thing that doesn’t run in my family. We are a pretty confident bunch, and fairly competent too, but flawlessness did not dip its toe in our gene pool. I don’t think it was even in the same back yard. Our compliments tend to be more of “Not bad”, “Pretty good”, “Nice try” and for something really exceptional maybe a “Great! (with the exclamation point) or an “Excellent”.

See, perfect has worked its way into our everyday lingo and has lost its real meaning. When not screwing up something can be deemed perfect there is a disconnect. Perfect is a 10 score in Olympic gymnastics. It’s a no hitter with no walks. It’s getting every answer right on the SATs. It’s rare, and it’s an accomplishment to be honored and commended. Even awed over.

So where the heck is this all going? Well, perfection is what we strive for when we create for our clients. It’s that perfect 10. It’s the award-winning ad. It’s the website that communicates the client’s purpose and meets the customers needs. It’s what most of us shoot for every day. We want to be the best and be right. It’s what drives us. Sure we regularly get “Greats” and “Well done”, but how cool is it when we hit a “Perfect” and it actually means its definition.