{"id":1212,"date":"2016-05-08T02:44:12","date_gmt":"2016-05-08T02:44:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/paulsyng.com\/blog\/?p=1212"},"modified":"2016-05-08T13:44:59","modified_gmt":"2016-05-08T13:44:59","slug":"how-i-got-my-first-job-in-advertising-part-two","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/paulsyng.com\/blog\/how-i-got-my-first-job-in-advertising-part-two\/","title":{"rendered":"How I got my first job in advertising (Part two)"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"job2\"<\/p>\n

Read part one first.<\/a> Before the one bedroom hall kitchen there was a room. Not just any room. It was a classroom at the end of a hallway on the third floor of a school. Yeah, thats right. You heard me right.<\/p>\n

The room was divided into three parts, appropriated with a bed without sheets, a temporary bathroom the size of a port-a-potty and a bucket for bathing, a little kitchenette and common area littered with plastic furniture.<\/p>\n

There were two windows, the one in my room looked into the corridor and the one in the common area overlooked a terrace with trees for pubic hair. On days when the moon took centerstage that terrace begged to be used for\u00a0dating.<\/p>\n

“Hope.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

This makeshift arrangement was meant for temporary guests of the school. But, by any stretch of imagination, this wasn\u2019t anything more than a roof over my head. There were no kitchen supplies either so I\u2019d eat \u201cpure\u201d vegan food and champion a glass of watermelon juice down a neighbouring restaurant.<\/p>\n

“Bathing twice in the night to stay cool under the breath of an aged ceiling fan was my version of a wet dream. It was fucking hot. I slept topless, knickers torn.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I\u2019d be woken up to the incessant chatter of pubescent kids in the hallway and classroom inches from my door. On occasions, when I slept in, I\u2019d be greeted by stares and giggles through the corridor window. With the staircase on the other end of the hallway I\u2019d have to walk across all the classrooms on the third floor every morning.<\/p>\n

A stretch best described to walking across a railway platform with bogeys stuffed with kids- preparing for departure. Little had they known, for some of us, the next station was beside science class.<\/p>\n

“Did I mention schools smell funny? And it was hot and humid in Mumbai at the time. Most of my batchmates felt I was a princess and borderline pretentious. Don\u2019t fucking think so. Pretentious one hundred percent. Back to the story.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

While I was struggling to stay afloat, my friends (who were, also like me, struggling to find work) and I had decided to keep spirits high and not lose sight of our goals. Every other evening we\u2019d gather at The Queen\u2019s Necklace (Marine Drive for those virgin to Mumbai) to share each other\u2019s stories. We\u2019d laugh the hardest by the sea. It was medicative. Unperturbed by agency rejections, we\u2019d keep our pencils sharpened at all times.<\/p>\n

Our evening theatrics entailed fantasies of conquering the agency world, earning accolades and awards, and driving BMWs. We were a bunch of pompous kids with only chewing gum in our pockets. Those days ended at Crystal, a Punjabi food restaurant, before boarding a local from Churchgate station. I think it was Punjabi.<\/p>\n

Kindly note only I wanted a BMW<\/u>. The other guy wanted a Porsche. Trust me, you don\u2019t want to know what the third guy had in mind. A horse. He wanted a fucking horse. Told you so.<\/p>\n

Every night I\u2019d show up to a deserted school with a security guard perched at the gate. We\u2019d become accustomed to crossing paths at such odd hours. With all the kids gone there was only deafening silence. I\u2019d walk up a flight of stairs to the third floor and walk down the hallway towards the end of my path. Spooky as fuck.<\/del><\/em> I knew I had to stay strong and not let the weight of my backpack get to me.<\/p>\n

The final part coming shortly.<\/em><\/u><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Read part one first. Before the one bedroom hall kitchen there was a room. Not just any room. It was a classroom at the end of a hallway on the third floor of a school. Yeah, thats right. You heard me right. The room was divided into three parts, appropriated with a bed without sheets, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_coblocks_attr":"","_coblocks_dimensions":"","_coblocks_responsive_height":"","_coblocks_accordion_ie_support":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[57],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1212","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-psd"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/paulsyng.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1212","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/paulsyng.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/paulsyng.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/paulsyng.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/paulsyng.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1212"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/paulsyng.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1212\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1215,"href":"https:\/\/paulsyng.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1212\/revisions\/1215"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/paulsyng.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1212"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/paulsyng.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1212"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/paulsyng.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1212"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}