<"Ladies 'N' Gentlemen...
Coming Soon/Take I":
The Reckoner>
Suggested Soundtracks:
"Living On Unemployment" (Newtown Neurotics)
"Sorrow" (Pink Floyd)
<Storyteller's Note: The following account, though strictly personal and anecdotal, is true. The names have been changed, masked or omitted to avoid retribution from the guilty.>
Reckoner's Note: For those just tuning in, we last left Yer Humbler Narrator struggling to transition from yet another small town paper (The Daily Retreader), to the advertising agency life. Will this time finally prove the charm? To read the previous entries, follow the link below (then click "Older Posts" to go back to the beginning).
<"Up Against It/Take I":
The Reckoner>
<i.>
You settle into a new routine, one imposed by the necessity of losing your assistant editor's job. The Daily Retreader kept its promise to be kind, at least. They didn't fight your unemployment application, a pleasant shift from the previous employer, The Daily Bugle, whose overdogs fiercely fought all of them. Management showed no mercy, not even for the pressman who'd injured his hand, as he tried to retrieve some material from the jaws of the printing press downstairs.
No matter. As long as you call in to the automated unemployment system, and report basic details -- like whatever new gig you're theoretically trying to land -- that $300-and-some per week will keep coming. You continue working behind the scenes at The Connection, the alternative performance space that you hope will blossom into the next CBGB's (or something like it). Who knows? Maybe those gigs that you're playing every month, or other month, will jump-start something, too. That's the idea, anyway.
Suddenly, you have more time on your hands, which makes itself felt in unexpected ways. You can lean into private pursuits, like writing songs, and hanging more often with your small circle of progressive friends. With no right-wing boss glaring over your shoulder anymore, it's safe to join the local peace and justice group. That move feels good.
You can take the wife to more of her favored activities, like garage sales, which felt hard to squeeze into the second shift grind that's defined your life for 15-odd years. The weekend loses its meaning, "because every night around here is Saturday night," you joke.
To your great surprise, life after unemployment looks and feels a lot like life before it. The only difference is, your benefits come with an expiration date, which you're not thinking about right now. Whatever your checks don't cover, you can acquire through your bartering skills or connections, not to mention your eye for a bargain. Now that you've finally got some time to think, why not use it? That's the theory, anyway.
<"Up Against It/Take II":
The Reckoner>
<ii.>
Here's the problem with most theories, though: those head-on collisions with reality can be rough. For one thing, your little town, Highlandville, is slowly coming apart at the seams. Four major employers closed their doors, right around the time The Daily Bugle voted you off the island, taking almost 1,000 jobs with them (mostly auto-related). There's plenty of free time for everybody, but it makes for an unnerving picture. Suddenly, the image of calm, self-assured small town stability that drew you here seven years ago just seems like another mirage.
You continue to survive on federal unemployment extensions, as the national economy begins taking on water. You know it's a tough town when the local oil change place closes. If the local economy can't support something so basic, what's that mean for everybody else?
The answer comes just as your job search bears unexpected fruit. An ad agency in your old hometown needs a copywriter (or Senior Brand Writer, as they're calling it). Your brain ticks off the pluses. An annual salary that's one and a half times what you made as a reporter. A better overall benefits package. The chance to enter a different field, at a growing company, with roughly 200 employees at three different sites.
The minuses? You'll lose all the social connections you've made these last seven years. Moving sucks; it's grueling and stressful, though the agency, Rock 'Em Sock 'Em Studios, is paying $500 toward those costs. Nobody's done that for you before. Your wife feels far less enthusiastic, because it means starting over yet again, trying to make friends, and figure out what's going on.
You're not exactly keen on that prospect, but sticking around raises its own problems. The unemployment extensions are about to run out, and most of Highlandville's gainful gigs are retail, restaurant or telemarketing McJobs. Sticking around might mean toiling for way less money than ever, which is a non-starter.
What's more, Rock 'Em Sock 'Em's job offer is number one on a list of one. If you pass, it's not clear when (or if) the next shot might roll around. So you swallow your doubts, cross your fingers, and roll the dice. It's just like the Okies did in the '30s, minus the moving truck. You've had to gamble before, so what else is new?
<"Ladies 'N' Gentlemen,
Coming Soon/Take II":
The Reckoner>
<iii.>
Fall of '06. The first couple months pass uneventfully. Your mind loses irself in the nitty-gritty that accompanies any new beginning. Getting to know your new colleagues, as the lay of the land unfolds. Learning the house rules. Working out the fastest ways of doing things, because they're throwing a lot on your plate, just like your other employers did.
Your first major project involves writing copy for a series of water filter ad layouts, which undergo an endless cycle of revisions, that you spend an equally endless amount of man-hours checking against a PDF file that seems barely different than the last one, than the last one, than the last one, and so on. At a certain point, it feels like highway hypnosis, as your eyes glaze over the latest minor revisions.
You stifle the inevitable pangs of disquiet. Didn't they promise this job would raise your creativity to new heights? Sure doesn't seem that way so far. You feel more and more like a glorified layout artist and proofreader, and less and less of a writer, which isn't what you had in mind.
Every company has a power center, and a pecking order, regardless of its rhetoric ("Hey, man, we're one big happy family. Together, everyone achieves more"). But it's hard to tell what your new workmates actually think about these issues. Most of your conversations are friendly, but superficial, and offer few clues about the reality behind the Rock 'Em Sock 'Em curtain.
Shortly before Christmas, the water filter project finally wraps up. Dominic, your boss, offers a few congratulatory clucks about your contributions. "You realize, you're gonna have to get insanely familiar with all these water filters."
You maintain your best poker face, while your brain is already ticking off into fullblown anxiety. The red lights in your brain start kicking in: Jesus, I hope he's kidding. If not? I'm in serious trouble.
<"The Hammer Drops.../Take I":
The Reckoner>
<iv.>
Trouble doesn't take long to burble up, once the inevitable warm 'n' fuzzy Christmas holiday buzz wears off. You and your colleagues are now spending a lot of time working up endless minor variations on all those eye glazing PDFs. The days of freely brainstorming ideas, like potential names for brands of garage storage organizers, are long gone.
Instead, Dominic starts telling you what kinds of categories, names and related items, like potential makes and models, are potentially acceptable. He tells you that the clients are getting pickier, so your game to needs ratchet up accordingly.
How interesting, you muse, since Rock 'Em Sock 'Em has one major client on a list of one, Pynwheel Corp., which makes washers, driers, and refrigerators. Oh, yeah, and exotic accessories, like garage storage organizers. With roughly 4,000 workers, Pynwheel is also your new hometown's largest major employer.
Various minor clients and projects come and go, but through all of the usual corporate churn, Pynwheel remains the constant at Rock 'Em Sock 'Em Studios. They're also an increasingly stressful constant, judging by the ad reps' hangdog expressions as they return from their dreaded weekly "status conferences," across the street from your office. They all look like they've been rolled hard, and put away wet.
Various minor clients and projects come and go, but through all of the usual corporate churn, Pynwheel remains the constant at Rock 'Em Sock 'Em Studios. They're also an increasingly stressful constant, judging by the ad reps' hangdog expressions as they return from their dreaded weekly "status conferences," across the street from your office. They all look like they've been rolled hard, and put away wet.
You cross yourself and shudder, thank God I don't look like that. But soon, your eyes start to glaze over anew. Deadlines wax 'n' wane, but you get different answers about what's due when, which means you make some, but miss others. Dominic and his sidekick, Wendell -- who doesn't oversee your department, but insists on parking his stringbean physique at your meetings, anyway -- start to grouse about your progress.
A good example comes in mid-February '07, when Dominic bitches you out for not answering his latest email right after its arrival. He breaks that news by sending yet another email. You hear Dominic's huff ring out in your head, as you read to yourself, silently: "The Rock 'Em Sock 'Em way is speed, speed and more speed. You need to keep this in mind, going forward."
You sigh aloud, and do what any sane person in your predicament does: take longer lunch breaks, and more frequent bathroom breaks. Hell, it's a flexible schedule, right? So you wring whatever flexibility you can out of it, for dear life. How else are you going to stay sane?
You know you're losing interest, but can't bring yourself to admit it. The siren song of sunk costs is awfully hard to ignore. Maybe this advertising lark will work out, if you get past these bumps in the road. Then again, you probably stand a better chance of spotting a pig flying past your window. If you close your eyes, you might just make it look shiny and sleek enough, if only in your imagination.
<"The Hammer Drops.../Take II":
The Reckoner>
<v.>
A month later, the hammer swings, and then, it drops, this time, for good. Dominic and Wendell summon you for a closed-door sitdown, one they've booked with no stated purpose. Uh-oh. Your gut knots up in the familiar fight or flight response. Oh, shit, here it comes again.
The sitdown begins uneventfully enough. "How do you think things are going so far?" Dominic asks, without the confrontational tone he drops, when he wants something from you (which is, most of the time).
Dominic's invitation allows you to kid yourself momentarily. Oh, you think, maybe they're setting up the next evaluation. Still, you try to play it cool, and noncommittal: "Seems like it's going okay, as far as I know. What's up?"
Dominic and Wendell swap squint-eyed glances. They don't really believe you, and you don't really believe yourself, either. It's the classic "don't ask, don't tell" dance that the employer-employee relationship, in all its feudal confines, currently requires.
"Well, that's not what we see going on," Dominic responds. "I really wanted this to work out, honestly. I really did..."
Your ears block out the rest of Dominic's fuzzy warbles, with the odd reinforcement from Wendell, contented with playing Robin to his buddy's Batman. Basically, you're getting voted off the island, with little more than a "thank you, and good luck," for your trouble.
Still, you push back where it makes sense to do so. "Guys, you had me schlep out here twice, to interview. You weren't sure if my background was a good fit then. Now, all of a sudden, what gives?"
Dominic holds his poker face, and restates the party line. "I really wanted this to work out. But it's not working out."
They ask if you want to clean out your desk, but you say no. You wouldn't let them parade you around like a whipped dog before, and you're not starting now. You shuffle out into the 40-degree April sunlight, wondering what you'll tell the wife, and what the next move feels like.
All those beautiful hipster kittens, who wanted to make you feel like your new best friend? All those superficial sidebar conversations by the water cooler? All those seeming coos of approval, whenever you dropped an idea that somebody claimed to like?
You didn't see them baring their fans, until it was way, way too late. They left you stranded on the midway, with your pockets emptier, and your spirit poorer, because you didn't pick the right shell, or the right pea. Now that you've been taken for a ride, yet again, it all feels so grubby and cheap.
<"Hipster Kitty's Farewell Address":
The Reckoner>
<Coda>
You're in line at the Post Office, a couple months after parting ways with Rock 'Em Sock 'Em Studios. You're standing in line, getting ready to ship out an eBay package or two. Your selling is yielding mixed results, but every little bit helps, as they say. Especially in your current situation.
You pay the clerk, pocket the receipt, and turn around to leave. Just then, you're face to face with Bailey, whom you first worked under -- churning out copy about the wonders of Pynwheel's various accessories, like its garage door openers -- until Dominic came into the picture.
You blink, and you stare straight at her. Bailey blinks, and stares straight back. Finally, her lips start moving, but not the way you'd expect. There's no, "How are you doing," "What's new," nor even, "What are you doing now?" Instead, you get something like this:
“You're not
missing anything.”
"Huh? Excuse me?" Are you hearing what you're hearing? You want to make sure.
Bailey edges closer, as the line moves along. Then she repeats herself:
"You're not missing anything! Really!”
For a moment, you both stand there, frozen in place. You're not sure what to do. Let her have it with both barrels? Well, your issue's with Dominic and Wendell, not Bailey, so that's out.
Spit out something vaguely snarky, like, "Thanks for the scraps?" Again, you're not mad at her. But even if you were, she probably wouldn't get it. Anyway, what are the odds of seeing her again? Not great.
So you take the middle option, and say something along these lines: "Oh, gee, thanks for clearing that one up, I guess. See you later." You know the drill by now; it's what the "don't ask, don't tell" dance demands.
You can't take the absurdity of these last few months seriously, especially when the freelance life is beckoning. Some promising new leads are popping up, mainly from local correspondent work, so with a little bit of footwork, you might beat the bastards yet.
You might be able to forge ahead without putting the Daily Bugles and the Retreaders and the Rock 'Em Sock 'Ems in charge of your life, ever again.
Another thought strikes you, as you leave the Post Office. Whatever happens now, you'll probably see a flying pig before you take stock in any of these people again.
And next time, when those hipster kittens start calling? You'll know better. You'll know enough to leave them to their devices. Maybe then, they'll actually start leaving you alone. --The Reckoner
Links To Go:
Jobs To Nowhere (Takes I-IV):
No comments:
Post a Comment