Years ago, I did a gig at a "virtual" office that had no walls except four glass slabs housing the workings of a futuristic-looking server, an object of such curiosity in those days that visiting clients always asked to see it. "What if it breaks down," I heard a client wonder. "It won't," assured the management supe giving the tour. (It did break down, of course. But only when I was on deadline.)
It was memory of this that made me imagine the interactive floor at a big agency as kind of a futuristic Willy Wonka factory, all chrome and steel and glass housing for spinnning parts and uber-smart, uber-youth pecking at keyboards.
So it was a surprise to show up for my first day this morning and discover a warren of small cubes and dark offices, even smaller and darker than the office I spent the past four months complaining about. In fact, I wasn't given any office at all. Interactive is so crowded, I'm assigned to a cube. I sit secretary-style just outside my boss's (window) office and use an IMac with a monitor the size of a cineplex screen, so that gmail and posting are out of the question.
Most of my first day was spent writing copy for what looks like a web quiz to determine what is your body type, but in actuality, drives respondents to the same conclusion: that they need not just one diet product, but six.
Luckily, I'm an avid reader of DearJaneSample or would have outed myself as a digital poser, first thing. Reading my copy, the art director wondered which blocks were meant to be corporate, which meant to be Jane. Jane who? I thought, but remembered in time. The other term that almost tripped me up was "offline" which is how everyone refers to what I've always thought of as print and TV.
Monday, February 25, 2008
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