“Yes, I did, Mr. Rogers…”
Copy chief required a spiffy hat…Dane could design it: An eyeshade with rolls of paper sprouting from the band.
“Gee, that’s great, Deirdre, thanks for thinking of me,” Dane said.
“Anything for my favorite junior copywriter. Oh, excuse me, my favorite copy chief.” Deirdre shimmied her shoulders as if shivering with excitement at the mention of Dane’s elevated status.
“By the way, Dane, what did you think of that bed and breakfast brochure?” she asked. “You’ve traveled, haven’t you?”
“I was in the Peace Corps twenty years ago, if that’s what you mean.”
Just then, Maury Wittman opened the door. “Deirdre, can I see you about those reports?” He turned to Dane. “How’s the body copy coming?”
“Great!” Dane said. “I’m down to 18 words.”
“Super, drop it off on my desk when you’re down to 15.”
45. WELCOME TO MY RICE PADDY
The first response to Dane’s first act as copy chief came one day after the memo announcing his promotion.
It was an unqualified disaster.
Dane had no idea what he was supposed to do.
SPACEFINDERS complained about the brochure he had reviewed. A paragraph from page 10 had not been moved to page 15, per agreement. A “the” on page 12 had not been moved to page 10 and changed to “an.” Meanwhile page 13 had not been switched with page 9, thus impeding the flow of ideas. It was a communications mess!
Now Dane had no choice but to be initiated in the tribe of WIF—he too must take his turn as scapegoat and become a trusted, if not respected, employee. He must undergo Paul Wittman’s eye-rolling interrogations and have his intelligence belittled on a daily basis—in open meetings, behind closed doors and behind his back. Yet, Dane viewed his fate with perspective. If young boys of an Amazon tribe were willing to insert their hands in gloves infested with biting ants as a rite of manhood, he reasoned that he could endure the WIF rite of passage to feed his family.
A year had passed since Dane became a professional copywriter, yet he felt less substantial now, not more so. Each day he seemed lighter as if there were less of him. Was his spirit leaving his body? No doubt.
One Monday morning, Dane found his office flooded with black water. Kenny, a collections specialist from Trinidad, who once assured Dane that no one ever got fired at WIF and then was let go a few months later, had occupied this space. Dane recalled Kenny’s complaint that the room flooded when the air conditioner was shut off on weekends. Dane removed his shoes and socks and waded in. He could not use the computer while standing in the swamp, so he squatted on his chair. Deirdre Ryan admonished him. “Dane Bacchus, get down! You can’t work that way. It’s unprofessional.”
“And this office is professional? What else can I do?”
Dane made a spectacle of himself, hoping his intolerable work conditions would shame the Wittmans into improving them, although there was no precedent for this.
“Get out of there. It’s against WIF rules. Have you read the manual?” Deirdre reproached him.
Dane vacated his office until the building’s maintenance man sucked up the water with an industrial vacuum cleaner.
When the mephitic liquid was drained, the office reeked of moldy synthetic carpet. Dane inhaled the noxious air as Maury Wittman changed the copy on the seductive woman ad again. The indecipherable black scribbles on the paper looked like disgusting nematodes. One year after starting this career, Dane reflected that he had regressed financially, his creative writing had atrophied, and he was now transcribing the doodles of an egomaniac in a mildewed, glass-walled office. It was time for lunch.
He went out for yogurt and returned to find an unexpected message on his voice mail. It was from Ella Bolden, the beautiful recruiter who had encouraged Dane more than a year ago but had not returned his calls since. Her message was garbled but Dane understood this much: Ella had something interesting to discuss with him so he should call her back immediately. Dane was more perplexed than excited. Excitement requires background and anticipation, and this message was without precedent.
“Hello!” Ella greeted him warmly, effusively like she always knew they would be having this conversation. “Do you know anyone at Green Advertising? No? It’s a pharmaceutical agency. They’re interested in seeing your book. Are you interested?”
Interest did not come close to describing Dane’s emotion. Later that afternoon Ella phoned him again. She had searched all over for Dane’s book when someone from Green Advertising informed her that it had already been delivered to them and they wished to interview Dane immediately.
Dane wore the only sport jacket he had—a corduroy blazer—to his interview at the pharmaceutical agency. It was the hottest day so far that year and he perspired heavily. Afterwards, his interviewer said he would get back to him.
The next Tuesday, Ella phoned Dane with a torrent of good news. Another creative director from Green Advertising had seen and liked his book and wanted to meet him. By freakish luck, Dane and this creative director had the same alma mater and both worked as teachers overseas after college. He interviewed Dane and promptly offered him a job.
46. RESIGNATION
Two weeks after his first interview for the new position, Dane appeared in Paul Wittman’s office doorway, careful not to enter.
“Do you have a moment?” he asked Paul with exaggerated respect.
“Yeah, sure,” Paul said, tilting his head. Dane seemed different. He wondered what had gotten into the junior copywriter.
Dane handed Paul an envelope. Paul examined the envelope quizzically and smiled at Dane.
“What is this?” Wittman asked, believing it was a practical joke.
“Read it,” Dane urged him.
After Paul read the letter, he studied Dane’s eyes like a detective.
“How long has this been going on?”
“How long has what been going on?” Dane asked.
“Your discontent. Have you thought out the consequences? You have a family, right? How will you support them if you quit?”
Dane laughed.
“I was offered another job.”
“What?” The stupefaction on Paul’s face almost made Dane’s thirteen months at WIF worthwhile. The reward for being underestimated is the chance to prove one’s value. A smirk twisted Paul’s lips. Of course, this was a practical joke. Or the world’s oldest junior copywriter was delusional.
“So how much are they paying you to leave?”
No stain is as hard to remove as a preconceived notion. Paul believed Dane was staging this resignation to grab more money. He would quote a figure only a few thousand more than his current salary, Paul would top it, and Dane would be back where Wittman wanted him—only at a higher price. No problem: he could fire him later.
“Sixty thousand,” Dane replied.
Paul’s reaction to the 100% salary increase gave Dane almost as much joy as his hire. Wittman was stunned and embarrassed since he would not and could not pay that much to keep Dane.
During the awkward pause, Dane lost his desire to flaunt his higher market value in Wittman’s face. He had been tortured for the better part of the year by his boss’s haughty indifference but before all of that, Wittman had given him his first “break.”
“I want to thank you for making this opportunity possible,” Dane told Paul. “You were the only person in advertising who gave me a chance. This new job, this bigger salary, is not against you—it’s because of you. And I’ll always be grateful.”
In Dane’s last two weeks, Maury made sure to change the copy of his seductive woman ad several more times to remind Dane of what he would be missing. Mildred Walters, who never gave Dane even a headline to write, stopped him in the hall, “So you’re leaving. How is Paul taking it?”
“Like he takes everything else. It’s business.” Dane said. “And by the way, why do you care? You haven’t given me any reason to stay.”
In fact
, Dane never considered Wittman’s feelings. He viewed the past year as an apprenticeship—a long ordeal to which he was deliberately subjected. Dane never thought his agony was only partly induced by WIF and Wittman. In the heady time of two weeks notice, the job world’s version of an international terminal between departure and destination, Dane sensed freedom, escape and progress. He enjoyed WIF when he knew it was not his destiny.
The next year, while driving in the city, Dane noticed his headlines stenciled on the shade of a SPACEFINDERS window and experienced an exhilarating split-second of immortality.
AD NOMAD 2
WRITER OF RECORD
Case 2-A
NO KENNEL FOR OLD DOGS
1. MIXED RECEPTION
Dane sat in the lobby of Green Healthcare Advertising as the receptionist paged his new supervisor several times without success. If Dane had not held the offer letter in his hand, he might have wondered if the new job was a fantasy in his head.
The office manager noticed Dane becoming a couch fixture and concluded that he was an office equipment salesman. She asked Dane his business with dry formality in order to dismiss him. She grimaced when he said he was the new copywriter waiting to start his new job. Something was terribly wrong, she said, as she disappeared behind a door.
“By terribly wrong, did she mean me?” he thought. It was plausible, but Dane was too excited to be disheartened. After 15 months in the agency above Papaya Dog, Green Healthcare was advertising as he pictured it. Even the lobby exuded intensity.
When Dane had waited long enough to hear the young receptionist’s prolific domestic troubles, the woman who mistook Dane for a salesman led him to his new cubicle, apologizing profusely for the inhospitality he encountered.
“This is not how things are done at GHA!” she exclaimed as if there had been better days before. “This won’t happen again!”
It was a safe promise, Dane thought. How many first days could he have at Green Advertising? Dane did not take his indifferent welcome personally. After thirteen months at WIF Advertising, he was inured to being treated as insignificant. He viewed it as a first impression he had to overcome.
Dane sat in his cubicle along a row of cubicles in a vast fluorescent-lit room. He was impervious to the lack of space and privacy. His cubicle was no smaller in his mind than a launching pad. Around him sat attractive, youthful people, including a petite woman with a gold post in her nose. They all sipped coffee and stared at computer screens. Everyone looked relaxed and no one seemed to work.
This was how Dane had visualized office life years ago when he was scuffling on the street as an aspiring writer: a clean, carpeted paradise where attractive, well-educated people enjoyed AC. Only now he could not fully savor the moment because he experienced it a generation late.
2. MEET YOUR MENTOR
Landon LeSeuer, a.k.a. The Savior, the suave man who hired Dane, suddenly appeared by his cubicle and gave him a warm hello. “So, there you are! Sorry I wasn’t here to meet you. Everyone knows I don’t show up before ten.”
Landon was handsome and neat; he wore faded jeans and a polo shirt that fit perfectly. Landon “fit” in every way. He had a corporate face. Each feature was naturally selected not to stand out as an individual but to work well in a team. As a teacher and world-traveler for years, Landon had a ready-to-wear diplomacy that smoothed away every hard edge of human interaction. Within seconds, Dane forgot that Landon had made him wait an hour, and anticipated becoming his friend.
“There are two kinds of writers in this business,” Landon told Dane in his office. “Consumer writers like us and science writers, who bond with molecules. Yes, they are mutants who love data, footnotes, annotations, p values. Now, now! Don’t look so worried. It isn’t rocket science. You’ll be fine. What you’ll be working on isn’t high science. We’re putting you on medicated diapers and a heartworm medication for starters. Don’t worry, I’ll protect you.”
“Why do I need protection?” Dane wondered. “Does he think I have diaper rash or heartworm?” As strange as these suggestions were, he could not imagine any other reason for needing protection in this convivial environment with carpeting, cubicles and a cappuccino machine.
A young man in a cubicle outside Landon’s office fretted over a clinical article. Austin Weebler was a junior copywriter and Landon’s protégé, a recent college grad with a BS in chemistry. Youth and academic degree partly explained why Weebler was a junior copywriter—pedigree did the rest. Austin’s mother was a legendary copywriter, whose thirty second commercials convinced Americans that soda was a wholesome beverage and that dogs preferred gourmet kibble. Landon was grooming Austin to be a science writer while he tutored him in advertising.
Dane received his first assignment: to rewrite a brochure about a heartworm medication. It was a simple task and Dane attacked it with disproportionate vigor to impress his supervisor. Landon reviewed Dane’s work that afternoon and told Dane he had done well. He asked Dane to write several headlines and taglines for the same product. Dane complied and Landon praised him again. Yet Dane did not feel he had broken a creative sweat. Were these small assignments Landon’s way of gently breaking in his new copywriter and imbuing him with confidence before a major trial?
At day’s end, Landon told Dane he would be out of the office on business for a few days and for two weeks on vacation. While he was out, Dane could introduce himself to other groups and help out if necessary.
The next day Dane’s heartworm medication copy came back to him in a layout scrawled with red circles and unintelligible words. The editor had proposed alternative phrasings and inserted punctuation changes. Emboldened by Landon’s praise, Dane stormed to the editor to protest. She was bent over her desk and stared up at him as if to say, “Who are you and why are you disturbing me?”
She was not Dane’s preconceived idea of an editor. She wore a turban, a polka dot dress, a circle of scarlet lipstick, and had a boa draped over her cubicle partition. He asked the flamboyant editor to explain her changes, which she was in no mood to defend. “If you don’t agree with the changes “stet” them,” she said.
Dane had won his first skirmish, defending his stylistic integrity in a paragraph about heartworm.
3. FOSTER PROTÉGÉ
Dane did not lose an opportunity to bond with his benefactor because he had none. Landon LeSeuer promised to take Dane to lunch, introduce him to colleagues, and show him the neighborhood, but always exempted himself at the last moment due to a meeting or prior engagement. Landon had worked at Green Healthcare Advertising through several corporate incarnations and name changes. He was popular, knew everyone, and booked himself for lunch weeks in advance.
At twice his former income, Dane was a foster protégé again—hired by someone he rarely saw and plunked down among strangers with whom he had little in common.
Landon wished to reward and develop Dane’s talent, not befriend him. He delegated the big brother role to Austin Weebler, a man half Dane’s age. The junior copywriter took Dane on a grand tour, pointing out departments and places of interest, in particular the men’s rooms, where Dane heard the unmistakable sounds of retching, gagging and moaning.
“What is that?” Dane asked young Weebler.
“Oh, that? Men puking their guts out,” his guide replied casually.
“Is there a bug going around?” Dane inquired.
“Nah,” Weebler answered. “It’s just a business pitch and a few product launches. Barfing is fairly normal around here. Everybody does it. It’s like part of the culture. They say you’ve only truly worked at Green when you’ve thrown up at least once.”
“Interesting,” Dane said queasily.
He had misgivings about Weebler’s reliability as a guide. Young Austin was bright and affable but he sniffled like a cocaine addict. He was pale, blinked frequently, grinned for no apparent reason and guffawed in response to serious statements. Austin had other quirks. He preferred to stand even while reading, due to Gluteal Defic
it Disorder, a condition that caused painful sitting. Weebler explained that it was a rare side effect of his anti-depression medication.
Austin guided Dane through the Flatiron district. It was one of the perks of working at Green. This job meant more than money or a title; it also provided a vibrant street life and great lunches. WIF had Papaya Dog, miso at a Korean deli, and supermarket yogurt, but Flatiron offered Dane a world of lunch choices—market buffets, brickoven pizza stands, artesenal sushi, organic Chinese, Syrian falafel, and Thai “to die for.” During the walking tour, young Weebler invited Dane to break California rolls with him at an expensive sushi place. Dane declined with the excuse that raw fish was suspect during summer months. The real reason was that Dane’s low-income apprenticeship at WIF left him with a permanent spending disability, Hand-Wallet Disease, a post-traumatic stress syndrome related to poverty. Despite doubling his salary, Dane retained the mind-set of the oldest living junior copywriter who could not afford more than a cup of a soup and a slice of bread.
Dane asked Austin to break falafel with him but the junior copywriter said Middle Eastern food was contraindicated with his medication. Austin ordered sushi to go while Dane salivated on line for a $3 falafel sandwich from Sunshine Falafel. With his fat sandwich tightly inserted in a bag, Dane found a bench in Union Square and ate a herniated pita full of deep fried garbanzo balls. Rivulets of tahina poured between his fingers and tomato bits tumbled on his pants as dogs frolicked nearby.
Weebler confided to Dane that he was clueless about advertising and was “standing on feet of jello.” Despite his illustrious advertising mother, he reached out for guidance. Dane admitted that he, too, was trying to figure it all out. He was reluctant to play Austin’s advisor since Landon probably reserved the role for himself. It was a scruple Dane would pay for later.
4. THE BOYS AND THE PRICE OF NUDITY
This teeming new world was irresistible to Dane. He explored the entire floor like a tourist in an exotic capital. Weebler, a veteran of six months at Green Healthcare Advertising, teased Dane that he behaved like a puppy. Dane was mortified. He was too old to be frisky and wide-eyed, but this at last was big-time advertising with a wide array of humanity and he could not temper his enthusiasm.
Ad Nomad Page 12
