Recapping the Review: The $90 Turkey Sandwich

I arrived in New York on a Sunday. The book review was the following day at 10:30AM at the Young Ones HQ on the Eastern edge of Chelsea near the docks.

When I got there there was already a group of students waiting outside. Most were my classmates and there were foreign students speaking in tongues and a group of other pygmy-teen students with their printed portfolios at their sides. Apparently their school disapproved of Ipad portfolios. 

The doors opened and we were ushered into another line 80 students long. At the table sat three ladies. Each had a list. One was checking in students. The other two were checking in the recruiters. Only, there weren’t any recruiters in line.  Twenty minutes later, my name was checked off of a list and I received a nametag. Twenty minutes after that, the first recruiter showed up and was checked in.

We were told to get to into the next line and schedule our interviews. Each interview was to be 20 minutes long. Projected on the wall was the master spreadsheet which updated, in real time, student names as they were put in time slots. The first 10 students were given an interview every twenty minutes until 3pm, so about 8 or 9 interviews.

It slowly dawned on the organizers that they were quickly running out of time slots. Instead of recalling the students and starting over, they told the remaining 100 students in line they’d get THREE appointments. Have I mentioned that the review cost $90?

I got my schedule. Publicis Modem at 11:40, Ogilvy at 2:20 and R/GA at 2:40. The time slots ran out before they made it through half of the line. The rest of the folks would have to wait until more reviewers showed up.

The first interview went well overall. My feedback consisted mainly of presentation advice and “don’t put two masculine campaigns back to back” and “no, let us flip through the work and you just talk while we do it.” One of the reviewers was a Circus copywriter grad (woot), and the other was her Art Director partner. They were not recruiters. I thought they were going to be recruiters. They were not worth $30. I will say, however, that I put the presentation tips they gave me to good use during the rest of my New York adventure. Okay, $5.

My second appointment got cancelled because the organizers forgot to ask the reviewers what their schedule was before assigning slots. It’s hard to have a 2:40 appointment with R/GA when R/GA has to be Uptown for a 2:00 meeting. Also, the organizers forgot that the reviewers were humans and neglected to schedule a lunch break for them. We students, on the other hand, were awarded a deliciously plain turkey sandwich, chips and cookie. Some joked it was the best $90 sandwich they’d ever had. Personally, I thought the cookie was worth at least $25.

My third interview was with Ogilvy. Barbara was a delight. She had stayed for the entire review, and very well may have skipped her lunch in order to keep on schedule. She gave excellent feedback and totally redeemed the review for me. She went through every one of my campaigns and seemed genuinely interested in the work. As of right now, I still owe her a big thank you. *note to self.

And that was it. My three two interviews.

At one point I got desperate for feedback and poached an interview with a recruiter from a shop in LA and had a nice conversation with him. Actually it was incredibly awkward. At that point I was trying to get my money’s worth and my desperation came across more than anything else. He didn’t want to look at any of my work and instead we just chatted about whatever stuff we could. He asked me “Where do you want to work?” and I had a hard time answering the question. It was embarrassing. I named the best three shops I could think of and acted confident. Had he asked me the question after the agency tours during the week, I would have had a much better answer for him.

In the end, I would’ve preferred a Chicago-style portfolio review. That is, rather than the students picking the agencies they want to interview with, the recruiters pick the students. This way, if a student’s book is awful, or the wrong fit, the recruiter can save a lot of time and politely get up and go somewhere else. We would’ve had more interviews and gotten more feedback. 

- This is where I make sure to let recruiters/ad people who may read this know that I’m not a complete asshole –

Either way, it was a good, though somewhat frustrating experience, and I’m grateful for the recruiters and reviewers coming all the way out to New York to look at a huge amount of student work. 

It was not an easy review for the students, but at least we got to eat something. 

You love New York. You need New York. You know you need unique New York.

When people ask where I’m from I always say “New York.”  After all, I was born on Long Island. Sure, I only lived there 6 months, but I was born in New York. I’d like to think I’ve got New York in my blood, so the iron in my veins aligns to point me in the right direction down the avenues and streets of Manhatten like a built in GPS. Turns out, I need to learn where the hell I’m going like everybody else. And god forbid I enter the subterranean depths of the subway system. Luckily, I'm excellent at cab-hailing.

For how severely dangerous New York cabs are, they are, ironically, the only automobiles that I will completely ignore the seatbelt in. I mean, how helpful is it really going to be?  Even in the backseat with your seatbelt on you’re gonna go through the partition.  It’s less than a foot away to begin with. Face it, if your taxi is in a serious crash, you’re dead. 

NY cabbies take every opening, every opportunity to get where you need to go faster. Coming back home to Atlanta drivers after a week of taxi-ing was one of the more frustrating experiences of my life. It’s the opposite in Atlanta. It’s a race to see who can get where they need to go the slowest. Drivers in the South will purposely impede your progress to further their own secret goals.

There’s a weird phenomenon going on in the city. I did as much research as I could, within reason, but I couldn’t figure out for the life of me what was going on:  Even completely sober, every single NYC bar and restaurant bathroom feels like it’s on a ship at sea. No matter where it was, the entire room seemed to pitch and yaw.  I examined the floors and they did not appear to be funhouse-style, but I could never quite get my footing. Why would someone design a bathroom, the one room where balance is the most important, as wobbly as possible? Luckily, years of video game playing, and urinating (not at the same time) has given me excellent hand-eye coordination.

Recap of the review to come. Happy Mother’s Day Y’all.

IV: Good Pill Bad Pill

I have the unfortunate habit of scheduling my flights early in the morning.  I’m not a morning person. Waking up is terrible. My body says, “I am tired,” and I obey. In college I took a running class at 830 because I thought it would be a good way to start the day. It was awful. I used to be certain there was nothing worse than running but I was wrong – running early in the morning is the worst possible thing a human could do. You’ve just come from the most comfortable place imaginable and you’re suddenly in the most distressing one. It’s the equivalent of plunging a hot glass into frigid water.

My flight to Newark is at 930AM tomorrow morning. From there my companions and I will trek to the city for a day of exploration, food, and most likely, napping.  

I trust no one. That’s why I will not ask anyone if my portfolio is “good.” At some point, either you know it or you don’t. Which is why I’m particularly scared.

I started taking acting classes because I went to plays and I thought to myself, “I can do that.” And then I went to the movies and I thought the same thing. So in my junior year I took acting classes and ended up staying an extra year to major in it. In my [second] senior year I was considering moving to Los Angeles and I needed to know if I “had it” or not. It was a hard question to ask and I’m sure an even harder one for my professor to answer. She said I did. She said I had “it.”

So I moved to LA and promptly spent six years failing at acting and life.

Either she was being very nice (because I put her in a tough position) or I didn’t follow through. I think it’s a little of one and a lot of another.

I’m no longer confident in my portfolio. I’ve looked at it too long. Everything has blurred together like a long smear. Monday’s review is going to be like a mystery pill – after you swallow it you have to wait thirty minutes to see if shit starts moving.

Part III: Book-learnin' and such.

I’ve always been a writer. 

In the fifth grade, for an assignment we had to write a short story. I was reading “The Sword of Shannara” at the time (a great book if you’re looking for one) and wrote an epic tale of magic, sword-wielding and, well, lots of walking around.

‘Far as I can remember, the story had a lot of dialogue about “what to do next.” Should we go up to the castle or run around in the Misty Forest? Oh look, an orc. Then, four detailed pages of the epic battle between the adventurers and an unfortunate, foolhardy orc. He never stood a chance.

The story was supposed to be two pages long. I filled an entire spiral bound notebook. It was wide-ruled, but still.

I blame my brother. He’s 6 years older than me and he corrupted my soft impressionable brain with fantasy novels and D&D.  To this day, I’m obsessed with role playing games and have a weird obsession with dragons. Even my business cards a friend designed have dragons on them. We’ll see how those go over in New York.

Had I not read the first Shannara book in fifth grade (it took me all year – it was something like 700 pages), god knows where I’d be now. So, thank you, Warren.

If I were to sit down and try my hand again at penning a fantasy novel, I’m not sure I’d be better than I was in fifth grade. There really is a lot of walking around and deciding what to do. It’s like my family of Jews at lunch talking about what we’re going to eat next and where.

After I read “Angle of Repose,” by Wallace Stegner, a Pulitzer  Prize winner from the early 70s, I knew that it was true – older people are smarter, wiser, and better. I don’t know how old Stegner was when he wrote the novel, but he may as well be a 1000 year old tortoise with opposable thumbs. I bring it up because the book relaxed me. It relaxes me to think about it now. Here’s why.

There’s such a pressure to be the most original, inventive, creative person and be the first, the youngest, the prodigy. But “Angle” is none of those things. It’s just a book of wisdom from someone who knows more because he’s been through more. I’m not sure when the tide turns and your age starts working for you. It hasn’t for me, yet, but when it does I imagine my writing, my work, and my life will become better, wiser and more introspective.

With the review looming, it calms the nerves to remember that everything happens in due time. And though I may not be the youngest, or the first, or the prodigy, I have a lot more experience to draw for this game, and a lot more time to get better.

All right, time to go walk around and fight some orcs.

Part II: Workin' Hard for the Money

In about one week, I’ll have just completed my second portfolio review.

By next week, I may have met a professional suitor. I may have gotten a job offer and a week later find myself back in New York for my first day of work as a copywriter.  Of course, the alternative is much more likely – I’ll be exhausted, deflated, hung over and itchy from bedbug bites.

Clearly, I’m feeling confident.

I currently have 12 pieces in my portfolio. I’m told that I will have time to show maybe 5 of them. They say I need to make sure 5/5 of the pieces I bring are perfect. They say if only 4/5 of them are perfect I am telling a creative recruiter that I do bad work 20% of the time. Which makes sense.

They say don’t grow attached to your work, but I am choosing which 5 of my 12 children get on the boat.  Some are more crippled than others, sure, but they are just as sweet, their smiles just as bright.

Showing your work is like introducing your children to strangers. You want to show everyone how smart your kids are, and hope they don’t embarrass you. But inevitably one farts or bites the stranger’s leg and it’s done – your children are idiots and so, by association, are you.

If this portfolio review is anything like the last one, I’m going to have to work on my posturing. As the CDs roostered around the room and scanned the tables for the next lucky student, I did my best to look disinterested and confident. Some kids opted for the “pick me! pick me” bright-eyed look. In general, the attractive girls won the attention. 

I had to play the seduction game while across the table like I was trying to attract a conjugal visit, a hooker fieldtrip to prison. It was uncomfortable. Do I make eye contact? Do I wink? I imagine it’s how the window-girls in Amsterdam feel. I’d much prefer a more anonymous form of review:  a glory hole the CD puts his hand through and I give him the pleasure of my portfolio. After several minutes he gets excited and awards me with the honor of a job, and the bittersweet realization that while my school career is over, the real work has just begun.

A Review Before the Review. Part I

If you tell me I am a competitive person, I will fiercely deny it to the point where I will do anything to convince you otherwise. That is an argument I will never lose.

I just have a knack for finding competitive careers. It started in Los Angeles when I moved there to be an actor. Hollywood mostly defines “talent and hardwork” as “luck and luck.” So naturally, I got too famous too quickly and became disenchanted. I thought selling toner to bored, lonely secretaries would be more my style. It turned out I was just as bored and lonely as the women on the other end of the phone.

That was almost two years ago. Enter advertising.

After nearly 2 years in advertising school, I’ve found something that I can sink my teeth into that doesn’t buck me off. What a glorious invention, advertising – giving creatively driven people with zero direction a focus and a reason to feel useful. It’s all games but it’s definitely not all fun.

Advertising is a one dollar carnival game with three lead bottles and a foam ball. The odds are against you from the start, but when you knock all three of ‘em down with the perfect pitch, you’re on top of the world. You're a genius. And then you get your styrofoam filled elephant, they reset the cans and ask you to do it all over again. But now you’re broke, there’s a thousand faster, smarter people playing next you, and you suddenly feel very stupid and very afraid.

Actually, that's pretty much exactly what next week’s Portfolio Review is going to be like.  

Untitled Short Story. This is not a title. Dammit.

"I don't want to fucking hear it."  It was her go-to line whenever she didn’t feel like talking.  It was usually followed by a quick turn like a pirouette and a brisk walk into the bedroom. 

And the fight was over.  I cut into an apple and started eating.

I have never been confrontational. Not as some part of a clever strategy, I’d smile or laugh when a bully pushed or threw a smart remark my way.  I didn’t blame them for pushing me around.  If I were them, I’d do the same thing, I thought, like a perversion of the ubiquitous Golden Rule.

When I was 13 my best friend and I used to shoot off his pellet gun. It was old and rusted but fired true.  My parents would never have let me have one let alone shoot it around the neighborhood. They were too worried about me and my indiscretions.  It was my favorite part about going to Greg’s house.  His face was positioned all too close together and somewhat bug-like Kafka's Gregor.  He had the unfortunate habit of sucking his teeth as he breathed through his mouth like a trough.  Anyway, we’d take out the pellet gun and shoot cans, mostly, in his backyard and aim impossibly at black birds as they swept by. Out of birds and tired of cans we looked for other prey to satisfy our predatory child-instinct. I grabbed the rifle and lay prone like I’d seen in the movies and took aim at a white rabbit fifty yards away.  I was a lousy shot.  Greg took aim and crouched right next to me and got it with the first pellet. 

We stood over the tiny spasming bunny. Its eyes were wide in terror and confusion like I’d seen people do in the movies. A rich redness pumped out of its neck in beats. He’d hit it square. We just stood over it and watched it for a long time. I hadn’t shot it myself, but I had killed it too.

It was a good green apple.  Not too juicy, because I don’t like juicy apples.  I like a firm meaty apple.  I think about that rabbit all the time.  And my little bunny, pouncing around the bedroom, eyes wide with passion about something. I think about the rabbit and I get some small relief with the knowledge that I can pretty much kill it whenever I need to.