Welcome to the Monkey House - Kurt Vonnegut [92]
"One of the big shortages in this country," said Dilling philosophically, concentrating on lighting a cigarette, "is men who know how to do things, and know how to take responsibility and get things done. I only wish there were better openings in advertising and sales promotion than the ones we’ve got. They’re important, interesting jobs, understand, but I don’t know how you’d feel about the starting salary."
"Well, I’m just trying to get the lay of the land, now—to see how things are. I have no idea what salary industry might pay a man like me, with my experience."
"The question experienced men like yourself usually ask is: how high can I go and how fast? And the answer to that is that the sky is the limit for a man with drive and creative ambition. And he can go up fast or slow, depending on what he’s willing to do and capable of putting into the job. We might start out a man like you at, oh, say, a hundred dollars a week, but that isn’t to say you’d be stuck at that level for two years or even two months."
"I suppose a man could keep a family on that until he got rolling," said David.
"You’d find the work in the publicity end just about the same as what you’re doing now. Our publicity people have high standards for writing and editing and reporting, and our publicity releases don’t wind up in newspaper editors’ wastebaskets. Our people do a professional job, and are well-respected as journalists." He stood. "I’ve got a little matter to attend to— take me about ten minutes. Could you possibly stick around? I’m enjoying our talk."
David looked at his watch. "Oh—guess I could spare another ten or fifteen minutes."
Dilling was back in his booth in three minutes, chuckling over some private joke. "Just talking on the phone with Lou Flammer, the publicity supervisor. Needs a new stenographer. Lou’s a card. Everybody here is crazy about Lou. Old weekly man himself, and I guess that’s where he learned to be so easy to get along with. Just to feel him out for the hell of it, I told him about you. I didn’t commit you to anything—just said what you told me, that you were keeping your eyes open. And guess what Lou said?"
"Guess what, Nan," said David Potter to his wife on the telephone. He was wearing only his shorts, and was phoning from the company hospital. "When you come home from the hospital tomorrow, you’ll be coming home to a solid citizen who pulls down a hundred and ten dollars a week, every week. I just got my badge and passed my physical!"
"Oh?" said Nan, startled. "It happened awfully fast, didn’t it? I didn’t think you were going to plunge right in."
"What’s there to wait for?"
"Well—I don’t know. I mean, how do you know what you’re getting into? You’ve never worked for anybody but yourself, and don’t know anything about getting along in a huge organization. I knew you were going to talk to the Ilium people about a job, but I thought you planned to stick with the paper another year, anyway."
"In another year I’ll be thirty, Nan."
"Well?"
"That’s pretty old to be starting a career in industry. There are guys my age here who’ve been working their way up for ten years. That’s pretty stiff competition, and it’ll be that much stiffer a year from now. And how do we know Jason will still want to buy the paper a year from now?" Ed Jason was David’s assistant, a recent college graduate whose father wanted to buy the paper for him. "And this job that opened up today in publicity won’t be open a year from now, Nan. Now was the time to switch—this afternoon!"
Nan sighed. "I suppose. But it doesn’t seem like you. The Works are fine for some people; they seem to thrive on that life. But you’ve always been so free. And you love the paper—you know you do."
"I do," said David, "and it’ll break my heart to let it go. It was a swell thing to do when we had no kids, but it’s a shaky living now—with the kids to educate and all."
"But, hon," said Nan, "the paper is making money."
"It could