Paying Your Dues or The Most Forgettable Parts of My Career (so far)
Author of this post: Brockett Horne | About Blog Authors »
Brockett’s first interview suit, worn with the sales tag tucked in the pocket.
Inspired by Chris Costello’s post.
I’m uncertain if sharing my career pitfalls with intimidating, unidentifiable readers is threatening or liberating (in the same way that launching my thesis document from the 9th floor of the design building was thrilling). But Chris, you’ve inspired me, so here goes:
Yearn to kern:
During the first day at a dream job, the creative manager introduced me to team members as Miss Home (rather than Miss Horne). The kerning on my resume was so poor that the “r” and the “n” fused together, generating for me a new last name. It was an embarrassing error to correct, for both of us.
Mis-faxed:
As a recent college graduate, during my first job hunt, I spent an overnight at Kinkos faxing resumes and cover letters. Buried in a heap of papers, the associate mixed numbers, sending a package marked “DDB” to Leo Burnett and vice versa. Neither called me back.
Figure drawing gone awry:
During one my first teaching jobs at a community college, the model did not show up one night for a figure drawing session. I suggested that the students take turns modeling in 30-second poses, but one student enthusiast immediately stripped off her clothes and climbing onto the model stand. What a team player!
A long studio critique:
When teaching a typography class a few years ago, I somehow wound my leg around the stool and flipped over with my leg stuck within the chair legs, knocking over two students and a table of concepts as I went down. I was mortified, and very much appreciate the kind student that gave me a hand to stand up.
Projected nightmare:
In the dotcom era, during an information architecture course, I had prepared a lecture comparing search engines. I was rattling on about navigation on home pages with my back to the projection screen, when the students gasped. I had launched “hotbod” rather than hotbot.com. You can imagine the sort of imagery on the homepage of hotbod.com.
Make friends with the receptionist:
One of the biggest mistakes I have made was to assume that the person answering the phone would not transfer my giddiness, mania, or disorganization on to the creative team. Once, I called the receptionist three times for directions when late to an interview and then cringed when the voice on the other end of the phone turned out to be one of the two designers. I didn’t get that job.
