So, Do You Guys Have All of this Stuff at Your Building?

A couple of years ago someone asked me at a trade show, “So, do you guys have all of this stuff at your building?”

I was kind of thrown by the question. Where would we put all of that stuff? There’s no way it would work! I responded with something like, “Well, no. We’re not a store. The people who place the ads own these items, and they keep them until they sell it. If you want to buy it, you make arrangements with them, go to their place and pick it up.”

But this got me to thinking; what if we did have all of that stuff here at the Want Ad offices? How much fun would that be? There was an ad for a life-size John Wayne statue in the magazine a couple of years ago. There’s no doubt in my mind that I would have put that in my office, with his six-shooter pointed at the life-size statue of the alien from “Aliens” or maybe at the life size hand carved wooden bear (also real ads…). My office walls (which are plain white, pretty boring for a Graphics guy) would be covered in neon signs, or maybe flat-screen TVs.Pinball machines would be placed next to the desks of all Graphics staff. My desk chair would probably be an ATV. There’s a Honda Fourtrax ad running right now that looks pretty cool. The possibilities would be endless.

Of course, I’d be sad when these items sold, as my office would have to be cleared out. But there’s new stuff showing up each week, and I’m sure I’d find a way to borrow it for a few days. The Graphics staff would be redecorating the department constantly, finding the newest “most unusual item” to display in our workspace. We’d probably make a competition out of it, turning it into an on-the-clock scavenger hunt.

Then again, it’s probably a good thing that people keep their items for sale at their place. While it would be fun to have access to all of this stuff, we’d never get the magazine to the press on time, and then where would we be? No magazine means no new ads which means no cool stuff.

Oh well. Reality crushes yet another fragile dream.

Until next time,
Matt