Initiation

I chose to start today, not because I feel that “Today is the first day of my life” but because I have recently been informed (in rather crude terms might I add) that my writing needs a bit of work. Were I not a copywriter, I would have brushed off the suggestion as non chalantly as I would a jab at my cooking skills. To make matters worse, these observations were made by the man atop the hierarchy of my organization.

The incident went down like this. A veteran of his craft, the individual in the above reference (let’s just call him Jay) told me, as a teacher would, his pupil that I should dazzle him with an idea and hence prove that I deserve a more permanent abode aboard his creative ship. Eager to prove myself, I was. A week and half later (last evening) I paced nervously in front of his cabin, playing the presentation in my head. I was proud of my campaign. I surprised myself with some pretty cool thoughts, I felt. When I got the nod, I sat, I started and I presented, with all the enthusiasm of a 3 year old. Silence. Five minutes later I was given a slice of humble pie. And it was a serving that would have fed an African refugee camp for a month. Jay virtually told me, in equivocal terms that my compilation was “utter trash” and that he was surprised that I was even here in whatever capacity.

It’s safe to say that the rendezvous did not exactly go the way I had envisioned. It hurts when an idea you have been working on for a while is flushed down seemingly, along with the contents of a toilet. What stings more is that fact that he is probably right. I sit here today, vowing to find the courage and a good reason to go back into that dreaded cabin. The way things look now, I feel it will take no less that a completely brilliant-beyond-einstein kind of idea to redeem myself in the dude’s eyes. Hopefully first impressions are not what they are made out to be.