The First Day I Knew...

I had a hunch, when I first accepted the job here at Badvertisers, that I wasn't going to be completely satisfied with my new endeavor.

For one thing, I am working for online advertisers, more or less; but its not an advertising agency that creates the ads--that would at least be somewhat interesting--it's an online intergration platform for in-stream advertisements, with audience targeting capabilities... whoa there, huh??? I think I recall getting a college degree in literature and poetry.

Ironically, my writing skills are exactly what got me here in the first place. This customer I knew from Cafe Gypsy, a funny guy named Istanbul, had read my unemployment blog and liked my style. Turns out he's the CEO co-brainchild of some internet start-up, and he was looking for an office manager (glorified secretary), someone who would eventually fufill the duties of a publicist. He contacted me, offered me the job, a steady salary, health insurance, and a cubicle.

After a bout of cold feet, I accepted, with the only reservation being that I will, at some point, be doing something creative--writing press releases and copyediting. As I mentioned before, I'm grossly unqualified for this job, so I was happy to take it slow, to start out as a secretary.

Well, here I am, Miss Secretary, taking it real slow and running the menial, intern-like task of throwing a birthday party. It's Istanbul's birthday, so I was directed, by my supervisor, to purchase a couple dozen cupcakes and a few bottles of champagne. After running around downtown Manhattan, acquiring these festive components, I set up a little surprise party in the conference room.

As for the aftermath of this party... well, there wasn't really much of an aftermath. A few people tried a cupcake; two women split one; most people had a sip of champagne, but didn't request a refill; 90% of the office went straight back to their computers.

And for the first time, I'm certain that working with Badvertisers isn't the place for me. Who are these people? Who doesn't like cupcakes? Who doesn't like champagne? More importantly, who likes cubicles more than cupcakes and champagne?

I don't know, maybe they just have real work to do.

I, on the other hand, just a lowly secretary, busy myself by putting the stray pen caps back on ball-point pens in the back corner of the office.

Nobody likes a quitter

Hmm… another month has gone by without a peep on my blog… but I, as always, have a perfectly legitimate excuse:

EMPLOYMENT.

That’s right folks, I have a job. Two, actually. In a time of personal discontent and national recession, little did I know that quitting my job at Café Gypsy would not, in fact, be a bad idea.

Before I even had a chance to settle into unemployment, potential employers came out of the woodwork; shot their flare guns at me, wrote me Petrarchan sonnets, poked holes in their condoms so that they would become pregnant with my baby…

Well, maybe I’m exaggerating a bit. But I certainly wasn’t looking for work. I was hoping to maintain a stable and healthy unemployment, living off my Café Gypsy savings, until at least September.

But I just couldn’t follow through. The temptation to be employed, especially without so much as having to raise a little finger to print out a résumé, proved too irresistible.

Needless to say, employment, for the most part, has led to my temporary demise: when I accepted the job with Badvertisers, I did a really bad thing; I quit this blog and everything else that I had gained from quitting Café Gypsy. It’s not that I haven’t had anything to write about; I just wasn’t sure if I should write about it. After all, my job could be at stake, even if I covered my tracks by conjuring up clever code names for characters in my stories.

And more importantly, I’ve wondered, a lot, if it makes me a bad person to accept a job offer from people I really like—not to mention, for a job I’m totally unqualified for—while naming their company “Badvertisers” for a silly blog. Would my disingenuousness as an employee reflect a deeper disingenuousness of my own character? Perhaps I am, at the core, a self-serving, egotistical bitch.

But I’ve weighed the consequences of making enemies, of getting fired from Badvertisers, weighed it against the consequences of being a quitter in my own right, of quitting my reckless ideals and quitting writing—and I just can’t seem to justify playing it safe.

For better or for worse, it’s a risky mission, but it has to be done.