Would Agency A have won the client if they had just shown one strong ad alongside the deck? That is the real test here, because maybe the deck was not the problem, maybe the lack of any finished work was. Your story makes me wonder how many of those 38 slides came from a template they reuse for every pitch.

My buddy swears by plain old bar soap on his hinges.

Bought a game last month knowing full well I still had four sealed ones from two years ago sitting right there. My shelf is basically a museum of good intentions at this point. I keep telling myself I'll get to them when work slows down, but then a sale hits and suddenly I own three more. At least the boxes look nice.