Friday, November 7, 2008

What Do I Do


I don’t know why people feel compelled to find out “what you do” when they first meet you. Technically you do a lot of stuff, you miss trains, over sleep, avoid the land lady, pile your plate with more than you can eat and occasionally throw stuff at strangers from a window no one can see. But if all these details were to be divulged, you’d be considered NIMHANS-worthy, so it’s just safer to say Copywriter.

I say that with some pride.

However the reactions I meet with when I give out this precious little nugget, must be discussed. I’m assuming everyone who reads this blog knows what a copywriter is. (The one who writes pseudo intellectual status messages on face book.)

But let’s not digress. So, whenever someone asks me what I do. I say I’m a copywriter. Typically, the ones who don’t know what a copywriter really is, but don’t want to seem stupid, just nod politely and look away.

The ones who are really really curious (read mother’s friends, father’s friends and people who have a lot of time to kill) will ASK YOU QUESTIONS. Prepare to say, No, you don’t write jingles. Oh wait, yes you could, you might in fact…but it’s not the only thing. You didn’t write Utterly Buttrely Delicious either. You were born in 1986. (Do I meet terribly stupid people?) And your agency is not Orchid. It’s Orchard like the fruit bearing Orchard. And the people who work with you are not all alcoholics. Not all. You don’t know what your future is either. “ It’s definitely NOT bleak uncle.”

You always roll your eyes at your mother at this point.

I think the worst ones are the know-it-alls. They are convinced you are a lawyer. Like Copyrighter, copyright laws? Get it?

There are some who know that you are a bloody sell out. Americanized, mercenary, cheating the common public with surreal claims.

Bambi eyes don’t work on such people, I can tell you.

But I still I’m brave and I explain what I do, and most times people are simply jealous.

That makes me very happy.

6 comments:

malted socktail said...

well i tried the same... and have been met with the same answers.

if 've got the time to kill too, cuz the only time i meet dad's friends, mum's friends, family friends, every kind of friends, except for ures...its usually at a family function, wher i have nothing to do except act smart ... so i turn around and give them verbal diarrhea from a to z of wat we do, wat all is involved... till they realize the magnanimity of it... and feel small in their miserable lives.

if however, the questioner is a woman (the desirable kind or in any other way i want to make an impression upon, even if its a gang of people) i just say writer...
bcuz u could write anything in the world... and it sounds vague, yet beautiful, something they know but dont really know either . . .
and well, the chicks usually say "ooooh nice" , , , tho with the rest of me... that 's as far as i get

:P

Usha said...

i know...writer is usually my word of choice as well :

vimal said...

u could lie

S said...

hey hey hey...
u have worked with Orchard?
Bangalore?

I'll be there too in a few weeks time? How's the place? U enjoyed while u were there?

:)

Usha said...

I used to. My first agency. Your joining as a writer?

S said...

Nooooooooooooooo!!

as an intern.
m doing my MBA in advertising from SIMC. Howz the place like?