I soon jumped ship and landed in the West End, next to the BBC HQ and the flagship branch of Top Shop, in the dark heart of recruitment advertising. My colleagues were all male, witty and self-deprecating. It was the first place where I felt I belonged to the gang, and our day-long banter detracted marvellously from the demoralizing work. Together we filled our days with useful activities: one tapped away at a screenplay laid out on his monitor to look like ad copy; others stood by the window, spotting stars going in and out of the BBC building, before joining the head of copy at the Dog and Pickle around noon. Later in the day we’d make paper costumes or throw things at each other, running up ads whenever there was a lull in activity.
My favourite client was Sun Valley, a chicken-processing plant in Yorkshire. Sun Valley was a great place to work for three reasons:
1 You got paid.
2 You got a free pair of rubber gloves and a hat.
3 You might not have to deal with giblets.
It was my job to convince unemployed locals that this was a marvellous career opportunity. I churned out dozens of variations on a feathered theme: Your beak break! Give us a wing! Our boss, the creative director, would descend unpredictably from his penthouse, and pace about, making us all nervous. One day, after I’d been there a couple of months, he leaned over my shoulder and said gently, ‘Could we have a word?’ I followed him into a small, cold room with no windows, where we sat down. ‘Linda,’ he said, ‘it’s been noticed that you leave work at five p.m. almost every day.’
‘Yes,’ I acknowledged. ‘That’s what’s on my contract.’
‘Ye-e-s,’ he said, ‘but it’s supposed to be a minimum.’
‘But I’ve always got my work done when I leave.’
‘Ye-e-s, but is it done to the best of your abilities? It’s about giving one hundred and ten per cent here. So, this weekend, I want you to ask yourself if you really want to work here at Jobfab.’
I was stunned. Nobody did a stroke of work after five. It was all right for the boys, but could I really stand another eight hours a week of indoor cricket, Tomb Raider and free beer?
On Monday afternoon, I met up again with my boss. I’d spent the morning in the loo with stress-induced diarrhoea, and I had nothing left to lose. ‘So, Linda,’ he began, ‘did you think about what we said?’
I nodded. ‘I guess I’m not as committed as the rest of the creative department.’ He made a ‘yes, indeed’ face. ‘I mean,’ I said, ‘you can tell that straight off from my Tomb Raider rating.’
‘Tomb Raider?’
‘Face it, my score’s way below the others. I’m no good at cricket, and I can’t drink half as much beer.’
‘So … ?’
‘So what I’m saying is, I think it would be best for everyone if I left, and tripled my income by freelancing at other agencies.’7
‘Now, hold on, Linda, let’s not—’
And thus began the next stage of my career:
Linda Robertson Nomadic Copywriter
Exorbitant rates * No job too risible
This led to the same old rubbish, but at three times the pay. I’d sit in gloomy offices with sagging ceiling tiles, waiting for an account-handler to brief me on how to promote pest-control jobs with Hackney Council. I photocopied novels so they looked work-related, and read my way through the long, grey days, taking grotesquely extended lonely lunch breaks.
That was the past, and Tina was taking care of the future, right here in San Francisco. She got me an interview at her marketing agency, Think! ‘They’re all Mormons,’ she explained, ‘but they’re OK. Except David … He’s – well, you’ll see.’
David Aarse was her boss, and two weeks after my arrival in the city I found myself perched next to him on the San Francisco waterfront, blinking in the dazzling white light. The bay shimmered blue and white, and a fresh breeze tickled my arms. It was like having an interview in heaven – if this kept up, I’d get a tan. I took a deep, refreshing breath and turned to face my interrogator. The sun glowed like a halo through the bleached remnants of his hair, and black shades masked his eyes. As he flicked through my embarrassing portfolio, he muttered: ‘Crap … crap … crap … Art direction’s terrible … Now, that one’s OK …’ I tried to begin my spiel, but each time, he held up a silencing palm and flicked on through the book. Then, suddenly, he snapped it shut. ‘Well,’ he said, ‘you can’t write, but I like your accent. Linda, are you funny?’
‘I think—’
‘Don’t think, do. That’s the Think! motto. Listen, Linda, we’re putting together an Internet movie, and we need an interviewer. Can you do it?’
‘Um, yes,’ I said, and cleared my throat. ‘I was told fifty to seventy dollars an hour is the going rate.’
David turned his face to the sky. ‘Well, Linda … I can only do twenty-five – an intern rate, I know, but it’s going to be worth it. You see, we’re in … what you might call an interesting situation.’
I asked him what he meant and he took a deep breath. ‘Linda, we have no clients. That means we don’t make any money. However, it offers huge creative freedom. Think! is a very exciting place to work right now. It’s a true challenge.’
I accepted the challenge and the 75 per cent pay cut and returned home with a spring in my step – David Aarse wanted me Think! ing ASAP!
The very next morning I travelled purposefully downtown, gazing up at skyscrapers that jutted into flawless blue.
‘I like your pants!’ said a passer-by.
I reeled, and then I remembered: Americans talk to strangers; pants = trousers.
Soon I was gliding in a gold-plated lift to the Think! reception area, where a young woman sat reading a magazine in the shade of a gigantic, asymmetric blaze of tropical flowers. She looked up and smiled, gesturing for me to proceed. I found myself in a space the size of a football pitch, in which enough people to make up two teams swivelled listlessly in thousand-dollar ergonomic chairs. The place was heaving with the latest technology and the fridge was stocked with organic smoothies. I wondered vaguely who was funding all this, but then Tina came up and showed me round and I got distracted by all the activity. I was working on a website that would have been for Comedy Central TV if they’d commissioned it, but as they hadn’t we had to keep it a secret in case they sued us for using their logo. The website spoofed the X Games8 – taking place a few blocks down the road – using tiny skateboards and bicycles from cereal packets, and served to demonstrate the Think! flair. By the end of the day I had the Think! system pretty much worked out:
A week later, I was standing on the pier in San Francisco, surrounded by X-treme sports fans with grey hoodies and outsize jeans melting over their sneakers. In my red polka-dot blouse, I felt like a cross between a clown and a traffic cone.
David Aarse interrupted my thoughts. He was preaching to his acolytes. ‘A great creative solution isn’t just about pretty pictures or witty strap lines. Never overlook the importance of the financial