The Competition

There’s a special feeling that comes with the shifting of responsibility from oneself to others, especially when the others involved have way more money and talent than all of one’s good looks and charm combined. After over a month of robust, yet fruitless, blogging about Wieden+Kennedy, I have resorted to Plan B: Another ad agency.

Just Getting So Cosmic

Sometimes when I’m worried that my pursuit of Wieden+Kennedy isn’t going so well (Do they even know that I exist? Did I come on too strong with the life-sized cardboard cut-outs?), I do what tweens with relationship “prollies” have always done:

My Credentials

1) Studies have shown that if I do not discover an outlet for my creative energy I might spontaneously combust, possibly extinguishing the sun in the process and inflicting bad overcast vibes on all of humankind. All Wieden+Kennedy ad campaigns will have to revolve around the limited surviving materials: radioactive cockroaches, SPAM cans, and Denzel Washington in The Book of Eli.*

I Could Be A Real Asset

One thing that they certainly know for certain at Wieden+Kennedy is that you can’t just expect people to work all day and never hook their office chairs to motorcycles to set new Guinness World Records, aka “team building.”

Weighing the Odds

Today it occurred to me for the very first time that I might not get a job at Wieden+Kennedy. But then I realized that the odds of me not getting a job there are about the same as the odds of me falling out of my bed tonight and breaking my head open.

On My Experience

Post-college, sim to Winona Rider in that home movie she made about reality being a really great snack, I found myself working in retail despite my Bachelor of Arts degree from a questionably accredited liberal institution. It was a chain resale store that gave people cash for their “gently used” clothing, thereby attracting a steady stream of meth addicts, kleptomaniacs, and recent widowers.

Before I worked there, I sometimes sold my old clothes there, and I had always assumed that buyers based their selections on 1) how cute my outfit was, and 2) whether or not they were on their periods.

Makers: Jesse Malmed

Jesse Malmed is a Portland-via-New Mexico video artist, curator of Deep Leap Microcinema, and creator of my favorite innovative cell-phone blog, “What Seems to Be Going on at Lauren and Patrick’s House.” This interview is the first in a series of chats with Portland “makers” about getting jobs, being an artist, and whether it’d be fun to work at Wieden+Kennedy.

MJ: Remember when you and Raven first got here and we all went out to Thai food? That was a nice but probably exhausting day for you. First  impressions of the “Portland Art Scene”?

Things I Will Often be Overheard Saying at Wieden+Kennedy

“Funny you should ask. I happen to be mentally constructing an intimidatingly nuanced perspective on that subject as we speak.”

I Already Live Here Anyway

In the spirit of keeping my “friends close but potential employers closer,” today I watched the Wieden + Kennedy “Don’t Move Here” series, which is I guess an advertising campaign about not moving to Portland:

Day ?: J-O-B

Well, an unknowable number of days into my aggressive campaign, Wieden + Kennedy still has not given me a job. Yesterday, I woke up significantly prior to the noon hour, and felt zero motivation to work anywhere. Who wants a job anyway? I wondered.

I went to go see my unemployed neighbors at Sowing Circle Farm: