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Home / Etcetera / Snobs and Daft, UPDATED

Snobs and Daft, UPDATED

Etcetera

Back in my 20s, I worked for an ad agency off Chicago’s Michigan Avenue. Every morning I’d take the bus from my Lincoln Park walk-up to a busy stop across the street and up a few from Henri Bendel, then ride the elevator to four floors of the most self-absorbed, morally corrupt, home-wrecker establishment for at least 3,000 feet in any direction. I gotta tell you, I had the high times at this place, but if someone wasn’t leaving his or her spouse for a nubile receptionist every couple of days or so, there was a magnetic disturbance in the sleaze force.  

I’d come to the agency from another one — brought there by a woman my age who I assisted with assorted PR detritus. One day, I entered her office to give her a fax, and found her sobbing at her desk. We’d never really talked much before — I found her icy and off-putting — but I am human after all, and so I put my arm around her and asked what was wrong. After a few prodigious nose blows, I discovered that our mutual superior fired her because the boss lady was threatened by pretty, strong females (I may have postulated that). I listened to my newfound friend describe the injustice of her dismissal for several long minutes and wished her luck. I knew she’d be OK. She already had a job after all. Hired right back at the agency she’d come from a few months prior.  

Well sure I heard the news of how she’d come to my agency. A 25-year-old secretary who had an affair with the married CEO, instant promotion to Director of Communications, wife who threatened to take the kids if the other woman didn’t leave. So now here she was, about to go back to the scene of the crime. And if you must know, I didn’t believe the story anyway. I thought people didn’t do stuff like that. I really and truly believed that the affair and all the accompanying juiciness was a rumor; a story spread by jealous people. I mean if it really happened, the CEO wouldn’t be so daft as to hire the mistress back. I know. But what can I say? I was a Catholic schoolgirl to the bones and thought people weren’t jerk-offs.  

So off she went. And about a week later, I received a phone call. Would I want to come work with her? Did I want to leave the mean girl-hating boss who currently employed me? Was I ready to take my partying to the next level? I couldn’t believe my luck. A better position, more money, opportunity for advancement. And all because I was nice to someone and she remembered! Catholic schoolgirls rule!  

Boy was I in for a surprise.  

I showed up for the interview inside a glass-enclosed, modern-esque office with inhabitants that looked like the set of Friends bred with the set of Melrose Place. Blonde bots patrolled the halls, Rachel haircuts were de rigueur, men had names like “Dash” and “Phillipe.” I believe I wore a mini-skirt to the interview, which naturally meant I got the job. Later, I discovered that the crying woman who’d worked with me at the previous agency — let’s call her Trissa — insisted the HR lady give me the position. She could do that see, because she was the “Director of Communications.” All 26 years of her. And sure enough, I started at Snobs and Daft a few weeks later, assisting both Trissa and Trip, the Director of Global Client Relations, with PR and administrative tasks.  

I sat outside the CEO’s ample office, which I noticed Trissa visiting often, always closing the door behind her. An hour or two later she’d emerge, looking ruffled, but still I thought the two of them were going over the latest ad campaign or maybe heatedly discussing client billing. I didn’t dare ask the CEO’s standoffish, but ultimately loyal, assistant because she was good friends with Trissa and I didn’t want to overstep any boundaries. So on it went. Trissa showed up to work in Ann Taylor suits, drove a Jaguar, and had French manicures. She lived with her boyfriend in a hip part of town, but I never saw him save for once. (Imagine the appearance and demeanor of Mutt Lange.) Meanwhile, I’m traipsing up and down agency floors in gold hoop earrings and chunky heels, eating left-over client lunches and surveying the Dashes and Phillipes.  

In my elevator travels, I discovered that probably a full one-quarter of the agency were cheating on their spouses or had just left a wife or husband for someone they worked with at Snobs and Daft. The CEO’s assistant was dating an account supervisor who was in the midst of divorcing his wife, another account supervisor left his pregnant mate to be with yet another account supervisor, and so on and so forth. Nearly every day some new illicit affair would reveal itself, almost as frequently as the agency had parties, which was frequent. Being that I was not married nor in a relationship, there was much fun to be had. I recall “picking out” my new boyfriend; a sandy-haired specimen who worked as an account executive. One day we took the elevator together and I thought, “Hmmm. Seems athletic, has a nice smile, is tall. I’ll take him!” Maybe he noticed my eager beaverness and mini skirt or maybe he felt sorry for me. Either way, we began to date — becoming yet another Snobs and Daft relationship, different only in that we both were single when we got together.  

I think it was after the legendary Snobs and Daft Holiday party that I began to feel icky. Respected agency personnel got blind drunk, fell into lobby Christmas trees, and went home with other people not their own. I began to coin the agency “Sodom and Gomorrah” in my head because it was so hedonistic and antithetical to my Catholic leanings. But darn it, sometimes a young gal’s got to spread her wings, you know? So I continued to work and date and avoid church.  

Some months after I joined the company, I stopped by Trissa’s office to drop off a fax and saw an enormous bouquet of white tulips on her desk. She looked at me shamelessly and said, “You know, right?” And that’s how I came to know. Yes, she was indeed sleeping with the CEO, yes, his wife did give an ultimatum that she would take the three kids and herself and leave him if he took up with Trissa again, yes, those mid-afternoon office visits were more than heated client billing discussions. Holy holy. Not only was I upset that she and he were doing this to their loved ones, but also that she undeservedly climbed the ladder from secretary (his, natch) to “Director of Communications” simply because she slept her way to the top.  

Now, I was in it. Since my desk were so near to the CEO’s office, I was privy to it all. I heard his wife call, smiled at her as she visited her husband, and listened as the CEO’s assistant made a reservation for him at the Four Seasons for “an extended stay.” Once even, the CEO gave my boyfriend and I his seats at a Bulls game and the next day, I was embroiled in controversy as the wife thought I were Trissa and my boyfriend a decoy. All day, the CEO’s wife called and demanded explanations. I had to prove my identity and non-Trissa-ness and holy cow, it was all getting so old.  

Then one day, after an all-afternoon street festival, my boyfriend and I did something horribly, terribly wrong. I’ve never ever told anyone about it because we hurt the wrong people, but it was a knee-jerk, drunken reaction to all the sneaking around and lying we’d witnessed.  

TO BE CONTINUED here…Please get the password from me  

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January 4, 2011 · 17 Comments

Sure I’d love to see you again

Previous Post: « Snobs and Daft
Next Post: Snobs & Daft: The Terrible, Awful, No-Good Thing Edition »

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Comments

  1. La Jolla Mom says

    January 4, 2011 at 4:22 pm

    I just love that you used “daft” in the title. I haven’t seen that word in print since I left England.

    Yes and finish the story already! Just kidding.

    Reply
  2. Birdrockfab says

    January 4, 2011 at 4:49 pm

    The suspense is killing me! Can’t wait for next post

    Reply
  3. Rima says

    January 4, 2011 at 5:48 pm

    You’re killing me! I can’t believe you’ve kept this story from us all this time!!!

    Reply
  4. Mama Mary says

    January 4, 2011 at 10:15 pm

    Oh no you di’n’t!

    Reply
  5. Cactus Petunia says

    January 4, 2011 at 11:40 pm

    Whoa! A Terrible, Awful, No-Good Thing? Can’t wait!

    Reply
  6. Ferd says

    January 5, 2011 at 5:36 am

    How terrible! A culture of decadence!
    I’m glad that as a young person, you could see the wrongness of it. It sounds like one of those turning points in life where you can go one way or the other. Can’t wait to read the end of the story, though I already know which way you went! :-)

    Reply
  7. green girl in wisconsin says

    January 5, 2011 at 10:35 am

    Oh, I could not have handled the stress of all those lies and secrets and cannoodlings….

    Reply
  8. Ann Stanland says

    January 5, 2011 at 3:23 pm

    If you write a chicklit novel I’m going to buy it!

    Reply
  9. Bejewell says

    January 5, 2011 at 5:41 pm

    Oh, MAN. I need to know the rest of this story, like, NOW.

    You’ve pretty much described the scene of every high-tech startup in Austin during the 1990s, and I would know, because I think I worked at most of them. Hedonistic company parties were practically mandatory, and “Beer Thirty” was the norm. It all made me want to gag.

    Can’t WAIT for the next installment! You’re brilliant!

    Reply
  10. Jack says

    January 5, 2011 at 6:21 pm

    I used to call on a number of agencies in Chicago. Spent most of my time at one on Wacker- it was quite a time.

    Reply
  11. Jack says

    January 5, 2011 at 6:21 pm

    I used to call on a number of agencies in Chicago. Spent most of my time at one on Wacker- it was quite a time.

    Reply
  12. Sherri says

    January 5, 2011 at 6:42 pm

    Oh, the suspense…damnit!

    Reply
  13. mommabird2345 says

    January 7, 2011 at 9:12 am

    Now I have to know what happened. I don’t like cliffhangers. ;)

    Reply
  14. Maria says

    January 10, 2011 at 9:41 pm

    Aaah! I, too, want to know what happened! (New visitor, got here from following the link off someone’s blogroll … Mamarazzi, I think?) May I have the password, please??

    Reply

Trackbacks

  1. Tweets that mention San Diego Momma » Blog Archive » Snobs and Daft, UPDATED -- Topsy.com says:
    January 4, 2011 at 2:12 pm

    […] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Michelle Silverman, JenniferfromLaJolla. JenniferfromLaJolla said: @SanDiegoMomma I already read it… not talking to you. You are whatever is worse than a tease. http://bit.ly/hWHu7E […]

    Reply
  2. San Diego Momma » Blog Archive » Snobs & Daft: The Terrible, Awful, No-Good Thing Edition says:
    January 5, 2011 at 9:37 pm

    […] « Snobs and Daft, UPDATED    |    Pansy » […]

    Reply
  3. San Diego Momma » Blog Archive » Pansy says:
    January 8, 2011 at 11:28 am

    […] too much of a pussywillow to publicy post the no-good, perfectly awful thing I did more than 15 years ago. Can I still be sued for desecration of property? For improperly […]

    Reply

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