The recession was still raging after two years of my pushing around a book cart [at Chicago's Marshall Field's department store], wearing a smock. There were no openings in the
store’s art gallery as I had hoped. My thoughts of becoming a gallery or museum
curator were quickly evaporating.
One of the exciting aspects of working in the book
department was its regular public book signings, hosting such luminaries as novelist
Gore Vidal, hairstylist Vidal Sassoon, conductor Sir Georg Solti, thinker and
inventor Buckminster “Bucky” Fuller, baseball great Yogi Berra, former NYC
Mayor John Lindsay, actor Bob Hope, chef Julia Child and many others. All
arrived because they had just written a new book, be it fiction, a cookbook,
autobiography or philosophy, giving my then callow self a chance to meet and
interact with these successful writers from varied professions.
In addition to customers, certain employees from
different departments would often gather around to purchase books and get them
signed by the visiting authors. Among the regulars was Mary Ann, the copy chief
from Marshall Field’s advertising department, who I also greeted and chatted up while she waited in line to get her books signed.
“Marshall Field’s has an advertising department?” I
later asked one of my coworkers. “Where do you think all the newspaper ads come
from?” one answered. “You mean all the ads in the Chicago Tribune and Sun-Times
come out of here?” I said. “Yeah, they don’t use an agency, the advertising
department is in-house,” she answered. A light went on for me.
Before long, I found myself taking the escalators up
to the advertising department on the 9th floor, holding a small sheaf
of my poems. I asked the advertising department receptionist if I could see
Mary Ann. When she came up to small waiting area, I stood and explained how I
was interested in working in the advertising department as a copywriter if they
had an opening.
“We don’t have any openings now,” Mary Ann said. “In
fact, we just hired a new person.” I suppose I looked a little downcast, but
mostly embarrassed. Was I out of my league here? “Do you have an advertising
degree?” she asked.
“I don’t,” I said. “I have a degree, but it’s in art
history.”
“No degree in English?” she asked.
That smarted. What did I think I was doing up here! “I
don’t have an English degree, but I’m a writer,” I said.
“You’re a writer,” she asked, dubiously. “Do you have
a portfolio?”
“I have written these poems,” I said. “Maybe you can
read them.”
“Poems?!” she said, looking incredulous, but trying
not to be rude at the same time. She let me hand them off to her as I extended
the sheaf sheepishly her way.
“I appreciate you coming up here, and I know you’ve
been working in the store for awhile, but I’m not sure poetry quite matches up
with what we’re trying to accomplish with our advertising copy,” she said.
I thanked her for her time, took the escalators back
down to the book department and felt totally humiliated from making a fool of
myself. I later avoided sitting anywhere near her if I saw her in the employee
lunchroom, as I was embarrassed by any of my earlier suppositions that I’d be at least qualified to work in advertising. If I saw her getting onto an
escalator, I waited until she was far enough away for me to get on, too,
without her seeing me. And when she visited the book department on occasion, I
gently tried to sashay the other way or find a reason to duck into the stock
room.
One day, someone told me I had a call waiting on our interdepartmental
phone. I walked over and picked up the receiver. It was Mary Ann. “Cynthia, can
you come up to the advertising department sometime today,” she said. “I’d like
to talk with you.”
“Sure,” I said. “I have a break in another half hour.
I’ll stop up.” I hung up and tried to catch my breath. What did she want to
tell me? I didn’t know what to expect.
When I arrived up by the advertising reception desk,
Mary Ann again came out to greet me. “We have an opening in the copy
department,” she said. “Someone just left. She took a new job at an advertising
agency.”
“She did?” I
said, not knowing what else to say.
“I read your poems,” she said.
“You did?” I
said, not ever feeling she would even glance at them after I had handed the
sheaf off to her several weeks before.
“They’re actually quite good,” she said.
“They are?”
I said.
“I think you have potential,” she said. “And because
you already know the store so well after working here a couple of years, I’d
like to give you a chance if you’re still interested.”
A chance? Yes. As a copywriter? Yes. Yes, I was still
interested! I started a couple of weeks later, sitting at a desk and typewriter
in a room among 10 other copywriters, an all-women staff from whom I learned so
much, hung out with after work and formed friendships with. I wrote newspaper
ads about shoes, jewelry, cosmetics, purses, lingerie, even books. What a
thrill to see my copy in print in Chicago’s newspapers. Almost as exciting as
seeing my poems in print (but not quite!).
The break I received at Marshall Field’s was the start
of my career as an advertising writer. This chance has continually fueled my
livelihood over the decades. It’s still hard for me to believe even today that
a small sheaf of poems, but mostly a generous woman willing to take a chance on
me, has made such a huge difference in my life. Thank you, Mary Ann!
If there’s anything I have to share with others about
this experience is this: When breaks come, be there for them. When the desire
of your heart fires up, follow it. When opportunities and meetings of people
arise, follow through. As the songwriter Steve Winwood wrote, “While you see a
chance, take it!” Not everyone or even anyone will have the same experience I
did, but you will most definitely have your own
experiences, your own chances, your own opportunities. Be humble but upfront
in pursuing them. Make the most of them.
The excerpt above is from my reference, memoir and creativity guide Frugal Poets' Guide to Life: How to Live a Poetic Life, Even If You Aren't a Poet.
Note: Looking back, I sometimes feel like my experience was similar to the character Peggy Olson on the Mad Men TV show, ie. someone drawn from the office pool to dive into advertising copywriting. Four years and two jobs after Marshall Field's, I finally did land a job in an actual advertising agency.
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