Lessons Learned from Mad Men

While I eagerly anticipate the new season of Mad Men, here are ten important life lessons I've gleaned from previous seasons. Take heed. Because why not take advice from emotionally stunted home-wreckers who drink all day?

1. Remember what you are being paid for. 

Don: It’s your job. I give you money. You give me ideas.
Peggy: But you never thank me.
Don: That’s what the money is for!

2. Always have a backup plan.

“I’d have my secretary do it, but she’s dead.”
-Don

3. Set priorities and live by them.

“As far as I’m concerned, as long as men look at me that way, I’m earning my keep."
-Betty

4. Don't pretend you know what men do if you really don't get it. 

“You don't know how to drink. Your whole generation, you drink for the wrong reasons. My generation, we drink because it's good, because it feels better than unbuttoning your collar, because we deserve it. We drink because it's what men do.”
-Roger

5. Workplace safety standards are important.

“But that’s life. One minute you’re on top of the world, the next minute some secretary’s running you over with a lawn mower.”
-Joan

6. Tell it like it is.

“It wasn't a lie; it was ineptitude with insufficient cover.”
-Don

7. Blaze your own trails.

“If you don’t like what’s being said, change the conversation.”
-Don

8. Dress the part.

"You want to be taken seriously? Stop dressing like a little girl."
-Joan

9. Corporal punishment is bad. 

"My father beat the hell out of me. All it did was make me fantasize about the day I could murder him."
-Don

10. Take the time to get to know your employees.

"Well, I've got to go learn a load of people's names before I fire them."
-Roger

Here's me, Mad Men-ified, thriving at Sterling Cooper after taking all these lessons to heart.