My First Job

Many people might think that I was born at my current place of employment. The truth is, I did have a previous job at a different company for 10 long months. “I can smile about it now, but at the time it was terrible,” as Morrissey once crooned.

I’d been hopelessly unemployed the summer after I graduated college. I started out applying only for jobs in New York City, which wasn’t particularly easy from suburban Maryland in those days when Al Gore hadn’t put the finishing touches on the Internet yet. Days turned into weeks turned into months. In the basement of my parent’s townhouse, I tried to teach myself to type on a typewriter borrowed from my friend Sean. I slowly widened my search radius: New York or Boston. Then New York, Boston, or Philadelphia. New York, Boston, Philly, or D.C., or, OK, Pittsburgh too.

Finally, that October, I ended up in glamorous Ewing, New Jersey. The company used “Trenton” as their official address; I should’ve realized that invoking Trenton to make a place seem more sophisticated was an immediate red flag. Along the same lines, the name of the place was the Burridge Center (actually, that is not the name, but I do not wish to be Googled and LinkedIn with the business’s proprietor). And I soon learned there was no Mr. Burridge; our boss Rich just thought it sounded classy.

The Burridge Center was a marketing/training firm located in an old house. Now, any business that’s in a house is probably another sign of trouble. But since I lived in the basement of an old house, just being above-ground seemed prestigious. We were a four-person operation: Rich, Steve the account exec, me, and Anita, my co-conspirator, commiserator, and friend. Were it not for Anita during those 10 months, well, I don’t know what would’ve happened, but I cannot rule out arson.

I was hired as a “copywriter,” but much like “Trenton” or “Burridge,” I soon discovered that the title was mostly for show. As a goof, I typed up a more accurate business card for myself, and also used my self-given title on a subscription to the trade magazine AV Video.

(Whoops, I’ve revealed the company’s actual name. Oh well.)

My actual duties included:
• Packing up boxes for the UPS guy to pick up
• Filling out UPS forms
• Inhaling chemical fumes while struggling to operate a “stat camera”
• Driving to the nearby MotoPhoto shop to use the fax machine there, as we didn’t have one. (I didn’t mind this, as I soon became friends with Bob and Samantha who worked there, and became a humor columnist in the zine they published.)

• Driving to the not nearby-at-all office of Ed Blaustein in Pennsylvania, who made slides for us in those pre-PowerPoint days.

There was some writing, of course. The Burridge Center was like Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce but if they’d never had Lucky Strike in the first place. Our clients were:
• Yale Industrial Trucks
• New York Life insurance
• Six Flags Great Adventure
And that was about it. So I’d write: scripts for cheaply produced forklift training videos, scripts for inspirational audio tapes for forklift salesmen, arcane manuals for insurance hacks, dry proposals to prospective clients who we never landed, and the low-level projects Six Flags would throw our way, including my proudest piece of work:

Rich also had some Mad Men-esque notions about style. I was required to wear a tie to work every day, though no one from the outside world ever came into our dingy little office. (Well, except my UPS buddy.) And one day Rich had the nerve to chastise me about the knit tie I had on. (“You should be wearing… nice ties.”) Though I couldn’t really frequent Brooks Brothers on the 18 grand a year I was pulling in.

I grew to despise Rich: his ridiculously inflated sense of his place in the world, his pathetic attempts to act “cool,” his preponderance for saying stupid things like, “This reminds me of when I worked for the state—three guys standing around watching one guy work.”

I had to get out. My mind was atrophying. I had thought I’d work there very briefly: Prior to starting the job, I’d learned of an opening at Children’s Television Workshop’s Ghostwriter magazine. That was right up my alley. When I learned I did not get that job, depression and desperation sunk in. I applied for any job I could find. I’d use “I’m planning my five-year high school reunion” as a reason to leave the office for the occasional interview I’d land. Then I’d drive behind the local Stewart’s Root Beer, change into my suit in the car, and make a mad dash to the train station to head to Manhattan.

The rejections continued to flood in.

I didn’t know what to do. I took the GRE and did not score well. I sent out poems, short stories, TV and movie scripts to publishers and producers, and those were all turned down as well.

And then in August I got a call. From a company where I’d interviewed and been rejected. Another staffer had given notice, I’d been the runner-up for the first position, did I want this job? I did. And just like that I was free.

I can’t say I wasn’t a little sad to go. Account-guy Steve was a blowhard, but treated me with respect and—with his one Manhattan client—reminded me there was a bigger world to strive for. There was an older guy in my final months, Ron, who was brought in to get more accounts. He was incredibly nice to me—and I’ll always remember this—even after I’d left the company, he mailed me a copy of a Zoot Sims album he’d mentioned. I do appreciate kindness. To this day I’m still in touch with Anita; she’s good people.

But I needed to get away. I was 23 years old. It was time to leave the area where I’d gone to high school, reinvent myself, and never look back.