I’m not used to being bad at my job. So far I’m stinking up the joint. I’m sluggish and amateurish. I do not know the lingo and miss most of the references. I’ve never worked in advertising before and in fact have spent most of my life actively loathing it. I may have misrepresented myself a little when, during my interview, I answered the question “Are you a lifelong student of advertising?” with “Uh-huh.”

I had to work yesterday, Sunday, the day I typically like to spend worshipping mine own personal god, namely the Tears For Fears centerfold I carefully removed from the October 1985 issue of Star Hits. We finished up the day around 10pm with this one guy chewing out me and another copywriter for our disappointing work.

(Note I say “chewing out” and not “yelled at.” I always sort of furrow my brow when people say “My boss totally yelled at me” or the like, because I’m pretty sure they weren’t actually yelling — I mean, were they? Like: “You’re a loose cannon, Mendoza!!! You’re off the Bucko case!!!”)

Anyway, as I drove home last night, veering into oncoming traffic because of the intensity of my crying jag, cursing the Chewer’s high-tech sandals, it occurred to me that I’ve never been chewed out at a job before. Or if I was, it wasn’t serious enough for me to remember. Is this because I was so uniformly stellar at my other jobs or because my other jobs, borne of the dotcom boom, were pretty lax? A little from Column A, a little from Column B, that’s what I’m going to say.

Aspects of copywriting that are in direct opposition to my own personal writing style: 1) pithiness, 2) directness, 3) exclamation points.