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Orianda Guilfoyle

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Posted Monday, Oct. 25, 1999, at 9:00 PM ET

Edna Tilley is reading me her ad for nude haircutting. "Do you like the proximity of a beautiful woman?" she dictates. "Next line: As she nurtures and shapes you. Bold: NUDE HAIRCUTTING." I never find out who is nude, Edna or the haircuttee--clients, as she prefers to call them. Edna charges the ad ($43.50) to her credit card and hangs up. By then I have two messages waiting in my inbox.

Today is deadline day in the Classifieds Department. The calls begin at 8 and do not cease all day. Many people have changes to make. They want to add a hyphen or change their phone number. I take hundreds of ads: We provide a unique form of physical therapy, using horses. You may be an experienced horse person or just have seen horses grazing on the side of the road ... 2BR condo for rent NS/NP [No smoking, no pets] ... Local Lusty Ladies Seek Sex in the Next 5 Minutes ... At 4 p.m. our last ads will be entered in our rickety, DOS-based ad-taking program, and the Production Department will begin to lay out the ads. Until then, I'll stay by my phone and do my best to keep up with the constant flow of calls.

A hallway separates Classifieds (Classy) from Editorial, where I always thought I'd be. When I took this job, the publisher made no bones about what kind of work it entailed. "This is not a writing job," he warned, pointing to the publishing internships listed on my résumé. And then: "How do you feel about working with sexually explicit material?" I told him, fine, no problem, I was so not offended by that. In college, when I interned for a New York publishing house, I believed that I was "paying my dues" and that a bright editorial career was beckoning, full of expensed lunches at Michael's, book parties, and those blissful "early Fridays" of summer. Then, after graduation, I drove out here on a whim and my job prospects, both real and imagined, changed. Suddenly I found myself applying to be an "Account Executive" on the grounds it would spare me from the injustices and silent humiliations of administrative-assistant-ship--the puncture wounds of paperclips, the hovering of tyrannical office managers.

At 10:24, I'm behind on my voice mail, a frightening thought. Once you're behind on deadline day, it's extremely difficult to catch up. Not only do I have to return all calls, I have to re-solicit from a list of advertisers whose ads are expiring this week. It's rare to fall behind; I've pretty much mastered the art of controlling the conversation and gently getting people off the phone once I have those credit-card numbers. In my first week, I spent 45 minutes helping a self-described shaman decide if he should describe his business as "a place of healing" or a "counseling forum." I didn't have the heart to tell him that I'm working on commission and that the entire call would yield me 45 cents. Later, I was advised on ways to increase my turnaround. "Don't chat with them," a sassy middle-aged ad rep named TJ told me. I like TJ; I'm not sure if I trust her. I think she just stole one of my accounts, a display ad promising "Big, SQUEEZABLE women tonite!" When I figure out the commission at stake ($10), I decide to let the issue slide. Tensions get high when you point fingers, especially surrounding new accounts. We're a territorial bunch, here in Classy.

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Posted Monday, Oct. 25, 1999, at 9:00 PM ET
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Orianda Guilfoyle works in the classifieds department at an alternative weekly in the Pacific Northwest.
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