First Impressions

The week I started my first job out of college, I spent an afternoon creating appliance ads for the Gas Company, crawling around on a vintage 1950's metal desk in a tiny office (labeled a storage closet on the "You Are Here" emergency escape map by the elevator).

This was before the rise of electronic publishing, so I used press type (letters you rub off with a stick), tracing paper and border tape. Of course, I didn't intend to stay an "Advertising Assistant" for long, so, like all the other up-and-coming-twenty-somethings, I wore a dark suit, starched dress shirt and tie to work. At the end of the day, I rolled my sleeves down, put on my coat and tucked paperwork in my leather briefcase (a graduation present), shut the door to my office and joined a crowd waiting for an elevator. Thinking I looked very junior-executive-like, I nodded and spoke to everyone. People looked at me funny.

With a dozen co-workers, I made the trek through the lobby, out onto the sidewalk, across the street and over a block to the parking garage where everyone from the Gas Company parked, still getting a cold shoulder. Oh well, I was young and green and perhaps unaware that junior-executives just didn't talk much in transit. I tossed my briefcase in the back and slid into the driver's seat. When I glanced in the rear view mirror, smack dab in the middle of my forehead was the capital letter "A" coming along for the ride, a stray piece of press type. No wonder I got such funny looks. I'd made the A-list, after just one week on the job.