How I Escaped from The Parking Lot

I was highly motivated to leave the parking industry.  The weather in New York at the time was hovering near 15 or 20 at mid day.   It was one of the coldest winters on record.  I also hated working the night shift in a neighborhood that felt really dangerous, even though nothing ever happened.  It was always so quiet.  I was sure I would die there.   Then there was the pay.  Even though this was back in the day, $2.26 an hour was still not a happy salary.  I combed the classifieds every morning and applied for lots of jobs that never responded at all.   But one day I found an ad that said exactly this:

                                                    Doyle Dane Needs Three Copywriters.

I always loved to write and figured I would make a fairly good advertising writer.   But I had never done it and I had no way to prove my suspicions.   Nevertheless, I got an interview with Leon Meadow, who was in charge of hiring for the DDB creative department.   This was in the days when DDB was the ONLY creative agency in the world and, I later learned, everybody wanted to work there.  My interview with Leon lasted two hours.  We liked each other and had lots to talk about.  His politics were almost identical to mine.   He and I also had the same view of various awful campaigns that were then running on tv.  I was in a good mood that day and found it easy to make fun of these commercials and I made Leon laugh a lot.  And somehow, some way, he decided to take a chance on me.   He asked me how much I was looking for in terms of salary.   I tripled the parking lot salary and Leon jumped at it.  Later I found out I might have gotten quite a bit more.  But at the time, I was in pig heaven.  (MORE LATER)