Writing Boots

On communication, professional and otherwise.

A last bit on first jobs

06.05.2009 by David Murray // 2 Comments

Hey, you know that Executive Communication Report I write every Friday that you should subscribe to immediately because it's full of useful information and it's free?

Well, in this Friday's issue appears the following yarn—which you would already have read had you listened to my earlier entreaties to subscribe—cribbed from Roger Ebert's Journal*. Journalist and Ebert pal John McHugh remembers an early job with an outfit called "Arab Pest Control, crawling under houses and spraying around bug poison."

One day it was about 98 degrees, and a trap door opened above my head. It was the lady of the house.

"It must be hot down there," she says. "Wouldn't you like some nice cold lemonade?"

I say I would. I stand up through the trap door but don't climb into the kitchen because I'm all covered with sweat, dust and cobwebs. She pours me out a nice big glass from a pitcher from the icebox. Then she calls her little boy into the room.

"Junior," she says, "you take a good look at that man. If you don't study hard and go to college, that's what will happen to you."

* Reading Ebert's blog—he appears to be using it in part to compile a memoir—you'll be astounded to discover what we've known in Chicago for years: Ebert's lovely writing style and good-humored intellect can handle a hell of a lot more than movies. And now that Studs Terkel is gone, he's as close as we've got to a living literary saint.

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Comments

  1. Ron Shewchuk says

    June 6, 2009 at 11:37 am

    The Ebert story reminds me of a great TED talk by the host of the show Dirty Jobs, Mike Rowe. If you haven’t seen this, you must watch it. It will give you new respect for working people everywhere. http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/mike_rowe_celebrates_dirty_jobs.html

    Reply
  2. David Murray says

    June 8, 2009 at 8:48 am

    Fantastic, Ron. Thanks for the steer.

    Reply

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