by
Janis Susan May/Janis Patterson
A writer’s mind is a funny – and
sometimes fearsome – place. I was all set to write about deadlines and the
havoc they can wreak on our lives, but yet we must adhere to them almost as
much as the laws of God. I was going to tell how I learned to respect (and
obey) deadlines while working in my parents’ advertising agency, but then I
would have to tell you I didn’t just start out working with deadline
responsibilities – hey, I was only nine, so my first job was as a stripper.
If you want to stop a
conversation dead in its tracks, just say that your first job was as a stripper
when you were nine years old.
Now to save my late parents’
reputations, I must say quickly that the job had nothing to do with removing
any article of clothing. I did, however, sometimes wish to, as being somewhat
spectacularly challenged in the dexterity department I got excessively sticky.
You see, in those antique days
ads were built up with a great many pieces of paper put down with rubber cement.
There was no point-and-click-shrink/enlarge-with-a-single-motion in those days.
You had clip art (line pictures of all kinds of things which you bought in big
books) or photographs. You had headlines and copy, done on a manual (in our
office at least) typewriter, which was then sent to the typesetter to be set
and printed in the font you had chosen. You had the size of your ad, generally
enlarged proportionately on the working board so you could work on it easily.
Then you had to figure out just how big/small each element had to be. Once that
was done you sent each piece to the photostatter, to be reduced/enlarged to the
desired size. So – hopefully - when everything was sized and pasted down the ad
looked the way you wanted.
As we were a very frugal family,
the elements that could be used again in other ads – clip art, some headlines,
logos, etc. – were stripped off by using acetone, which dissolved the glue and
rendered the whatever ready for use again. These were tacking in a big
looseleaf folder divided into general categories, using just a small drop of
glue to hold the paper in place. We could use an element sometimes ten or
fifteen times before it got tatty, especially if it was of a standard size,
saving the typesetters’ and photostatters’ fees each time.
Chosing the size of each element
was done with a little tool of the Devil called a proportion wheel, which did
exactly what it sounds like – told you how much bigger or smaller something had
to be to fit in the space. God help you if you made a mistake, because getting
things photostatted was expensive.
I have always been mathematically
challenged (and why doesn’t someone do a telethon for those like me?) and the
first time I got something wrong was on one of my first layouts when I think I
was around twelve. I still stripped, but had received a sort of promotion to
doing simple layouts. The first time I goofed Daddy took the time to walk me
through it again and showed me every step several times, even giving me a written
checklist.
The second time he docked my pay
for the cost of the photostat. Yes, I received a paycheck – a token one, to be
sure, as child labor is cheap – with social security and all taken out, just
like a grownup. I have seldom felt so rich as the time I received my first
paycheck – which Mother (the company bookkeeper) had to cash, as the bank
wouldn’t believe that a nine-year-old child had her own paycheck. (And I have
never used that bank since. Yes, I do hold grudges!)
After that I was very careful to
get everything just right, usually by begging our real staff artist to do the
calculations for me without Daddy knowing. As time went on I became more and
more experienced and proficient, so by the time I was in high school I was
working after school and weekends, and earning the same hourly wage as a
regular artist.
That equality in my young years may
be the reason I have always loathed school in spite of loving learning. (They
are most definitely not the same, and a lot of the time not even close!) In
high school I had to raise my hand and get permission from the teacher to go to
the restroom, but after school I would take the bus downtown to the office
where I could pick up the phone, call Tokyo and on voice order alone get over
$5,000 (real money in those days) worth of ad placement. Heady stuff indeed.
Another memory. Most of the time
in high school I dressed grown-up, in little Chanel-style suits or nice dresses
and simple black flats, as after school I would go to the office where there
might be clients – always have to project a business-like image, you know.
Well, we had a period off in school once a day – they called it study hall, but
it was impossible to study as everyone was so noisy. I quickly learned how to
check in as present, then sneak out and go to the teachers’ lounge, which was
usually empty and quiet so I could study in peace. The school year was almost
half over before someone figured out I was a student and not a teacher and
summarily ejected me. Sigh.
Strange how the pathways of
memory will subvert even the most sterling of ideas and plans. I had been going
to talk about deadlines, not stripping. Oh, well… maybe next time.
