Tuesday, August 16, 2005

Chapter 1: Nashville, TN

Personal circumstances brought me to Nashville. In a nutshell: The guy I had been dating for a few years was a song-writing major at a well-known music school. There were few places he might be successful and Nashville was one of them. Several of our friends, also music people, had planned to move down there at the same time. I figured, new scene, something completely different, could be fun.

I began to realize that getting freelance illustration work was not going to happen overnight. I was forced to kick it 9 to 5 in the meantime. I scanned the Nashville paper for job possibilities. I was thinking: in-house illustrator. But the closest I got to this was something called color separator. I saw the word color and thought I was perfect for the job. I had extensive training in color theory, not only understanding color relationships, but I understood the mixing part, too. I had my fair share of vermilions, cadmiums, cobalts, and siennas. If there was one thing I could offer the world, it was color. So, I quickly shot my resume off and waited.

I got a call from the head of human resources within a few days. The voice on the other end of the phone was perky and kind, very Southern. I pictured Minnie Pearl. She wanted to schedule an interview with me - I was thrilled. The pieces were all coming together now. A career in color awaited.

I went to the local Walmart to purchase an appropriate outfit for the interview (anything boutique-like and remotely glamorous and/or professional was not only out of my price range, but because I was new to the area, I was hard-pressed to find stores that didn't carry fringy cowgirl wear). I settled on a rust-colored top with brassy buttons and a matching floral-printed A-line skirt. I can't recall the shoes I wore, but I am sure they were hideous.

The interview went well, I thought. It turns out that Mrs. Andrews - aka Minnie Pearl - was not so mini. She was proportioned a bit more like Mrs. Claus, and even had her gentle features, down to the silvery bun. "I just loved your resume. That little bird was precious! I must admit, it's the reason I called you." Because we were illustration majors, we were encouraged to sprinkle a smidge of our work style into our resume. I had used toucans in more that one of my pieces, so I thought it would tie in nicely with the resume. Little did I realize that the bird would get me in the door to a vague job opportunity, something to do with color. "I thought, We could use this friendly little girl in our customer service department," she said and grinned. My resume, like most recent college grads, consisted of a string of ordinary jobs. You try to put a spin on them to make them appear more important somehow, but when all is said and done, there's nothing impressive to say about making bagels.

Mrs. Andrews then proceeded to give me a tour of the plant. I felt like I was in Willy Wonka’s Chocolate factory, except I had no idea what I was looking at. It was a high-tech dream. There was something called a Command Center. We walked through the immaculate halls, shining linoleum floors like mirrors at our feet. I had no idea what kind of activity was taking place around me, but one thing was clear: this was a tight ship. "Here is our Scitex Department. Everyone thought we were crazy for investing so much into these machines. Who's laughing now, I ask you?" She could have been talking about Ferris wheels. I was a perfect deer in headlights, wondering when she was going to show me all this color stuff. I nodded knowingly and tried not to look so naive.

The company's main objective was digitally enhancing and preparing pages for printing. I was amazed when I saw their list of customers - enormously popular newsstand publications. As we continued to walk through, I caught glimpses of the work on several monitors and noted the computer operators selecting parts of the images or text and clicking, pointing, dragging, dropping. I didn't really understand the goal, but it seemed like serious business.

I was offered a job as assistant customer service representative, or assistant CSR. Astonishingly, I had my own office. My responsibilities were mainly tracking things and making copies. All days blurred together. Copy, track, fax, pull papers, file papers, route this, package that.

I did, though, get a very in-depth understanding of digital file manipulation and color separation, and some of the things I witnessed blew my mind. Famous actresses and celebrities look good for a reason: Photoshop. I once saw a request marked on a photo to take a sliver or two off the thighs of an already dangerously thin-looking model.

Since the plant basically functioned on autopilot (something I truly took for granted when I was an employee), the only points of interest were my fellow workers. One gal, Jan, was the very picture of "woe is me." She could have been the inspiration for many a sad country song. At age 28, she was already divorced and remarried with 2 children. She had back problems and chronic migraines. Yet, Jan was a beautiful woman with icy blue piercing eyes and brunette locks to die for. She was sharp as a whip, extremely competent and fast. Jan was a bit of an eccentric dresser, missing the boat on what was deemed professional. I once saw Jan strut into the office wearing a turquoise, off the shoulder, tight fitting number with fishnet stockings and heels.

Jan also had a knack for exaggerating the truth, mainly to gain sympathy. She led a lot of folks into thinking that she was constantly on the verge of death (health problems) or involved in a dangerous domestic situation. Naturally, her 2nd husband was a supposed cheater with a PhD in verbal assault. Her wedding photo sat on her desk, next to a couple of framed shots of her kids. I didn't realize, until she told me, that the picture of she and hubby number 2 was taken on their wedding day. They were both outfitted in jeans and t-shirts and stood outside the City Hall.

Jan couldn't refer to any man without inserting "ole" before his name. Ole Roger. Ole Harold. Ole Randy. She used cliches - often. "I've got to pee worse than a Russian racehorse!" "Ole Jimbo? He's dumber than a bag of hammers!" "I'll tell you what – she's got one foot on a banana peel and the other in the grave."

It wasn't long before I grew a tad homesick. I thought the world of the company (still do), but after an amiable breakup with the song writer, I started my way back up north. Not ready to go back to Boston just yet, I decided on the greater Philadelphia area. I also thought that I would give my freelance illustration dreams another shot.

1 Comments:

At 2:11 PM, Blogger Jere said...

Cadmium yellow--ah, sweet memories of Bob Ross. Any titanium white at that place?

 

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