There was the time before I joined Young Blood and after. There is…now.
First encounter: You walked pass the poster and mistook it as some sort of school event. How did you discover that it was a recruitment for Young Blood? Don’t remember.
Second encounter: You weren’t impressed with the posters for the second installment. It didn’t matter. You’d already made up your mind that this was the place to be. You were like a moth throwing itself into flames.
Interview day: Heavy rain in the afternoon.
First day at work: You met the other 3. You were paired into team with your current teammate and assigned a brief right away. Lunch was ok. You and your teammate left the office at 8:30pm.
Second day at work: You and your teammate left the office at 9:30pm.
Somewhere in the middle: You LOVED your job! It was great. Ideation, copywriting, nice seniors, coffee after lunch with the other Young Bloods and everything. Just simply working, on the job, made every single drop of blood in your body tick.
Somewhere else in the middle: You HATED it all. YOU.HATED.EVERYTHING. Frustration with the job was one thing. Frustration with yourself was another. Quit! Let’s quit now! You wouldn’t have any of this anymore! Enough was enough!
One random night: ‘Mom, my job is very demanding. It’s normal for everybody to get home late, ok. But it doesn’t seem as awful as you think. Please don’t get mad. Hey, the food is so good today, mom! See, I’m having another bowl of rice!’
Another random night: The very first time you spotted your work on the street. It was a billboard, in its HD glory. You were exhilarated. You pulled over and stood there for ages. You just wanted to shout out: ‘People, that’s my copy!’
Somewhere towards the end: Your love for the job was growing strong. Your fear of not doing a good job grew also. You started to wonder about the future. You read books regularly to absorb the fine skill of the masters. You devoured movies to look for ways of execution. You analyzed ads and campaigns to understand their ideas and raison d’être. Still, nothing was enough.
One fine morning: You got the news that all of you were offered the job. You and the other Young Blood celebrated by ditching your homemade lunch to eat out. Lunch was ok. But the spirits were high.
Tonight: You’re no longer a Young Blood. Tomorrow you will officially start working as a junior copywriter. It will be another day like any other: 2 cups of coffee, bad jokes with your teammate, okay lunches, fun briefs, depressing briefs, amazing creative works found on the internet, cool music found on the internet, nail-biting thinking process, race against deadline, pride in good work, shame on bad work, on and on and on.
Thanks Young Blood for bringing all of this into my life.
Quyen Bao
- Copywriter