Confessions of A Naughty Girl

Molding The Minds Of College Kids...And Probably Warping Them

Never a boring day at work, I tell you. Last week, my friend who handles PR for our agency emailed me asking me if I could help him show around a group of college kids from Ball State's advertising club and give them a feel for agency life. I replied to his email promising to help only if the boys were hot. Mature. I know.

So this morning, a group of six of us met up with the kids and formed a "panel", where we would introduce ourselves and give the kids an opportunity to ask us anything and everything about agency life.

Life is full of surreal moments...moments that you never imagined coming to fruition that make you realize just how far you've come - or how f*cking old you really are. I had one of those moments this morning.

I remember that just last year (well okay, five years ago), I was one of those kids, poking my head around an agency - thinking that if I could score myself a cube in an agency painted orange with a motorcycle in the lobby and a foosball and pool room - I would consider myself having made it in this industry. And today - this morning - I was one of those people, except for that five minutes before the meeting in our orange cafeteria, I was in my cubicle screaming at a worthless rep who didn't send a copy of his newest issue to our client in time, and threatening to take his shitty magazine off the media plan if the client didn't receive the issue by close of business tomorrow. I was trying to complete this phone call without dropping the f-bomb (successful), having everyone around me hear this (unsuccessful), and spilling a cup of the toxic waste they call coffee all over my ironed-last-night-but-already-wrinkled white Oxford (semi-successful, although you can hardly see the stain because it was on my sleeve).

After a quick run to the ladies room to brush the ball of fuzz that was nicely flat ironed just an hour earlier, and slap on some lip gloss, I made my way to be a part of this "panel" of young, budding advertising people. I felt like a total f*cking fraud, but figured I would give it my best.

And give it my best I did. I took a seat next to my favorite resident crush, the Lobster, and dished out advice like Dr. Phil on Adderol. I managed to avoid a few slipups - like when someone asked about how to really break into the industry, I had to choke back my wiseass response of "give the big boys head" and tell them that networking helps. Or like when they asked what the toughest part of my job was and I had to choke back my wiseass response of "having to drink non-label liquors unless the client is paying because I make so little" and tell them that long hours aren't expected - they're required (especially during planning season, which unfortunately happens during the summer, when your non-advertising asshole friends are drinking mojitos at 2:30 because they have summer hours, and you're stuck at the office until 8 trying to populate an 8,000 cell Excel spreadsheet that will be edited over and over again for the next three months).

I wasn't all bad though - I did tell them that my job has its perks. Like the free lunches, the free dinners, the free sports events, the free concerts, the free venues...basically free lots-of-things. And I do possibly have the only job in the world where I have a comp subscription to dirty magazines that arrive directly to my office every month, and it's perfectly acceptable to be flipping through magazines filled with dirty whores, deciding whether or not it's a good fit for my client. How many other people can say that their boss encourages them to gaze with awe and disgust at Heather and her disappearing digits in the Penthouse centerfold on company time?

All in all, I feel I did a pretty decent job in giving them a "real" look at what goes on. And I happen to love my job, so it wasn't hard to come up with some really nice things to say, although my responses may have been skewed by the really hot guy that was sitting in the front row.

posted by KA @ 8:20 PM