I'm a Real Artist Now!

Internships are great.  They give you opportunities to explore your future career path of choice, and they hook you up with loads of people who can help you along the way.  What they don't do, however, is pay you.  So although I've got a pretty sweet gig lined up for the spring, I need a paying job.  Because, like most relatively functional people, I've got expenses.

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**If we want to be technical about it, I'm not so sure that Boy counts as a real expense.  It would just be really nice to have to funds to treat him to a proper dinner out and such every so often.  And if we want to get even more technical, there is no flight to Portland booked at this time because I'm broke.

But that will all change soon, as I start a seasonal job tomorrow as an artist for an online ornament company!

I went to their office for an interview last week, all gung-ho and excited.  When I walked in the door, though, the first thing I noticed was how perfectly miserable every single employee looked.  Maybe it was the pre-Thanksgiving Christmas music droning on in the background, or maybe it was the overzealous middle-aged women walking around like overseers, pointing out several mistakes the Packers and Shippers were making in taping boxes together.  Trying to be optimistic, I decided that maybe I just didn't understand the specific situation at hand, so I took a seat by the receptionist's desk to wait for my interview with Loraine.  It was then that I saw this sign hanging by the door:

Did I say "overzealous"?

After about 10 minutes, Loraine came out to meet me.  Or rather, I assumed she was Loraine.  She never once introduced herself during the entirety of the interview.  Nor did she ask my name until about halfway through.

"So, your name is Kate, right?"

"Um, no, I'm Kimber."

"That's right.  I'm sorry.  Kim, Kate, it all sounds the same."

"I understand --"

"So you prefer Kim, then?"

"Um, Kimber, actually."

"Great!  Well, Kim, you don't happen to have a steady hand and excellent handwriting, do you?"

After restarting my brain, I managed a quick, "I think so."

"Well that's great!  We need more artists!"  Loraine replied.  "Why don't you have a seat here and we'll give you the test!"

"Ok, I can do this," I told her.  "I've decorated ornaments with my family for years!"

"Well, why didn't you say so, honey?!  We would've had you in here weeks ago!  We need more artists!"

I decided it probably wasn't worth the effort to mention that I had written exactly that in my cover letter.  Which was required in the application.

At any rate, when she said "artist," I thought maybe I'd have a chance to paint the ornaments, which would be super fun.  I was wrong.  As Loraine sat me down and laid several ornaments out in front of me, I realized that the position of artist actually just meant writing customers' names (and maybe a special message) neatly onto cheaply decorated, mass-ordered ornaments made in China.  But the trick to it, Loraine explained, was that you had to make sure that the text didn't overwhelm the artistic value of the ornament.  The original design's integrity had to remain intact.  Though we were allowed to put little flourishes around the names, which would be left up to the artist's discretion.  For example:

"Are there any specific names I should write on these?" I asked Loraine.

"Nope, your favorite names will work just fine," she said, walking away.


I set to work, writing ornaments for my housemates and my neighbors.  Once finished, I was feeling strangely proud of my handwriting, and I went to find Loraine, who in turn went to find the owner and president of the company, Mary.  Mary took a long, hard look at my samples, eventually deeming them acceptable.  But, she pointed out, I would need some training.  Apparently, the large space at the bottom of one of the ornaments that was clearly meant to be completely filled with text was not actually meant to be completely filled with text.

"But that's ok," Mary reassured me.  She then grabbed a box of defective ornaments and began sorting through them so that I could have a take-home practice kit.  She instructed me to go on the company's website to use those designs as templates.  As she carefully scrutinized each piece, she tried to strike up a friendly conversation with me, asking if I went to school.  I told her that I had recently graduated.  She asked from where, so I told her.  This surprised (and apparently impressed) her, and she didn't hesitate to make that fact known.  In front of a room full of employees.

Ornaments in hand, I booked it out of there before anyone could have a long enough look at my face to recognize me on my first day, for which I was given a starting time, but not an ending time.  I asked, and the reply was, "Let's just see how it goes."  Right.  Nor was I told what my hourly wage would be, come to think of it.


I drove home and got started right away on my assignment so that I wouldn't forget about it.  I browsed through the company's site, and holy shit, their stuff was awful!  It reminded me of the ornaments CVS used to give out for free if you spent a certain amount on Christmas decor.  Once the initial wave of nausea passed, I sat there pondering what kind of people would actually order these things.  And at $15.00 a pop?!

But a job is a job, and I'm not going to complain, so I sat down and began writing, figuring that at the very least, I could use this pile as gag Christmas gifts for my housemates, neighbors, and boy.

I still felt like maybe I wasn't preserving the natural integrity of the ornament's original design, so I went back on the site.  Finally, it occurred to me that maybe the text should just match the cheesiness of the ornament.  And yep, that was it.

Though I'm not sure my sanity will be as well preserved.