Dr.Googles partial definition of “ bottom”: Ground foundation or lowest part.
She particularly liked that second word: “foundation” because within its gathering of letters was the word
“found”, and this part of her life was all about finding….finding her way in this first job, finding her next role, finding her next place in the world, finding…..well….finding her self.
Esther smiled ruefully, with the slightest up – turn of her thin lips, because she recognized yet again her need for definition. Whenever she encountered a word that somehow had resonance for her but held no clear path for action, she looked up its meaning, its derivation, on – line or in one of her many dictionaries or thesauruses she collected. Esther loved words.
She held them accountable.
She looked to them for guidance, as if a collection of letters were like a tarot deck, with keys to the next doorways she had to open…so, having just been told she must start at the
“ bottom” of the agency ladder, getting other people’s coffee and answering other people’s mail, picking up other people’s dry cleaning, she assuaged her immediate indignation by promising herself she would look up the true meaning, the helpful meaning, of the word “bottom” , She hoped she’d find comfort in looking it up, because otherwise, with only one day on her new job, she’d scream and walk out the door she had just walked through an hour earlier.
Because, you see, Esther’s ambition , her dream, was to become the most powerful agent in the entertainment industry- stage, television and big screen – and she held this aching ambition at her current tender age of 23. Even as young as she was, she knew she had a very long way to go to even get her own desk in the busy Marvin Gild Agency, not to mention her very own corner office with views of the Empire State Building. And first, she knew she must build a firm, attractive foundation upon which to build her career.
Esther’s ambition was as high as that famous old building, and right now she had no elevator access…she was permitted to use only the stairs to get to the fabled top, but get there she would…she just knew it, she counted on it, she bathed in the future glory of that ascendancy, and so she meticulously wrote down all of her superiors’ coffee preferences and swore to herself she’d find a way to include a little cookie with each afternoon pickup…it was all coming out of the office petty cash drawer anyway, so she wouldn’t have to even pay for her clever idea….for at this age, a tender 23, one considered all one’s own ideas clever…ok…call them calculated….but she was built to impress, and impress she would.
Meanwhile, making barely enough salary to pay for her East Side walk-up, she’d take full advantage of as many of the free tickets an agency “ person” could snag at any of the box offices around town that were offering them, and she would see EVERYTHING, meet EVERYONE, discover all the young talent in town that she would gather like flowers in a garden, and plant her own patch of clients that she judged would make the agency tons of money….and she would earn her own little corner of that skyscraper world called show business. She’d build her stable of talent and so her future would build as well
She would start at the bottom, sure, and in so doing, craft her own foundation in a cut throat business…she could practically smell the salt sea air in the Hamptons ! She’d even begun to design the house she would build there, with a foundation all its own, in an agency career all HER own.
Sure, she’d start at the bottom, but she wouldn’t be there long.
Speed with caution, speed with good taste, speed fueled by passion for the world of The Biz.
After all there was no business like it.