In the early ’70s, fresh from two years with Volunteers in Service to America and faced with the need to get a full-time job, I applied for a position writing commercials for a television station in Little Rock, Ark. At the time I knew only two things about TV ads: There seemed to be far too many of them, and the volume usually spiked when a program gave way to a chain of commercials.
Cleverly, I didn’t mention either of those opinions during my first interview. Instead I focused on my degree in English from the University of Arizona, and expressed confidence in my creativity and my ability to process information and meet deadlines. After all, if I could crank out a 10-page paper on Melville or Thoreau, how hard could it be to write 30 seconds about a furniture store? (Spoiler alert: far harder than I thought.)
This wasn’t the production manager’s first rodeo — or interview — so after a brief discussion of my qualifications, he handed me packets of information about a jewelry store and a car dealer. Then he told me to come back in the morning with polished commercials in both 60- and 30-second formats.
After a fortifying meal of celery sticks, potato chips and onion dip, I sat down at my manual typewriter and began. Within an hour I had successfully crafted a commercial. Unfortunately, even when I motor-mouthed my reading, I couldn’t get it under three minutes.
So, as night fell, the moon rose and the world turned, I chopped and sliced, replaced and revised. Finally, as dawn broke, I typed clean copies of my efforts.
Powered by a cool shower and hot coffee, I returned to the TV station and presented my ads. The production manager read them at the speed of glacial progression. I tried not to squirm with embarrassment and attempted to keep my legs from jittering and my fingers from tapping.
He finished, shuffled the pages, frowned, read one page a second time, and frowned once more.
“These aren’t very good,” he said after a lung-emptying sigh.
I slumped in my chair.
“But.”
I sat up straight and held my breath.
“They’re better than what anyone else did. And we need someone right away. So, the job is yours if you want it.”
Did I? After a night of shoveling sentences only to hear “these aren’t very good,” I wasn’t certain I wanted this job. But I needed a job. And soon. “I want it. Yes. I want it.”
He was a bear of a man with a deliberate way of nodding. He did that twice. “We’ll give you some training. Can you start this morning?”
“This morning?” Never mind that I’d been up all night. Never mind that I anticipated my energy level would plummet before noon. Never mind that I’d parked with my front bumper six inches into a loading zone. “Sure,” I said. “No problem.”
“All right. My secretary will show you to your office. And I’ll work on getting that training for you.”
Had I been paying close attention, the use of the words “work on” might have given me pause. But I was already mentally spending my first paycheck on frivolous stuff like groceries and rent, so I followed his secretary.
My office was a windowless room crammed with file cabinets and a gray metal desk. It looked as if the previous occupant departed in a paper-slinging, film-unreeling, projection slide-bending huff. The secretary turned and skittered off on 4-inch heels as if she feared I’d scream and clutch at her like a drowning woman.
While I was stashing my purse in a drawer and trying to convince myself cleaning up wouldn’t be as difficult as spinning straw into gold, a short man in a plaid polyester suit scurried in.
“I just sold a toy store,” he crowed. “I booked the studio for 2 p.m.”
My exhausted brain tried to make sense of that. He sold a toy store? He booked a studio? Was he planning to celebrate?
“They’re bringing over a load of toys. I need commercials.” He waved three pencil-scrawled pages torn from a yellow pad. One was either a bad drawing of a doll or a good drawing of an amoeba. “Two 30s and a 60.” He checked his watch. “By 1 p.m.”
In a cold sweat, I checked my watch. That gave me less than four hours. The probability of creating three passable spots was slim. Heck, I’d be fired by the end of the day.
But, wait! “I’d like to help you, but the production manager told me I’d get training before –”
He took off, racing for the front office. Peering down the hallway, I saw him making an arm-waving pitch to the production manager. I noted head shaking, more arm waving, head scratching, and finally one of those signature slow nods.
Crossing my fingers and telling myself this couldn’t be what I feared, I scuttled to my one-armed desk chair. A minute later, both men crowded into my office.
With a triumphant grin, the salesman dropped his scrawled notes on my desk.
“I guess this will be your training,” the production manager said with a pained and apologetic expression.
With the foolhardy determination of a woman longing for a set of tires with more than one millimeter of tread, I got a cup of coffee and got to work.
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