80 booklets

Before any of it, there was a door.

Visited the grad show a few weeks ago. Watched the work on the floor and it pulled me back. Sixteen years ago I was standing where those students are now, holding eighty booklets, terrified. Here’s what I remember.

My passport was almost up. A month of job hunting and nothing. I had spent it applying to the wrong things, art director roles and senior posts, a fresh graduate aiming at jobs built for people ten years ahead of me. None of them wrote back.

So I had a choice. Pack up and go home, or try the last thing I could think of.

I opened Google Maps. I searched for every design studio in Vancouver and counted. Seventy-eight. I printed eighty booklets, small ones, the kind that fit in a jacket pocket. Two extra, just in case.

The first door was on Granville Island. Summer. I stood in front of it holding the booklet in both hands. I wasn’t scared of being rejected. I hadn’t gotten that far. I just didn’t know what to say. My English wasn’t good yet and I had no opening line, no idea where to start or why I was even there. I thought, it’s my first run, let’s see how far I get. I rang the bell.

Then I did it seventy-seven more times.

Most were a regular no, maybe next time, not what we’re looking for. One I can still see. A studio on the edge of downtown, well known, the kind of place I actually wanted to be. Someone let me in. The owner was coming out of a client meeting. He gave me one glance. I handed over my booklet and said why I was there. He didn’t say anything. He walked away.

That was it. Thank god he didn’t hand the booklet back.

By the last studio I was deflated. I wanted to give it my best shot and I also knew the shape of this by now. Door opens, polite no, walk to the next one. I went in thinking, okay, here you go, last bet.

It was on Granville Island. Same place I started. Same island my school was on. I had crossed the whole city and ended up back where I came from.

The owner greeted me. A senior designer too, curious why I was knocking, how I found them. I gave my quick intro. Fresh grad, looking for work, here’s my portfolio. The owner went through the booklet. Then he looked up and asked if I was Korean.

I said yes.

The first thing he asked me was what I thought of yesterday’s Korean match at the World Cup.

I didn’t know how to answer. No owner had asked me anything that wasn’t about work. So I just told him. How I felt about the match. He listened. Interested and not interested at the same time. Then he said maybe I could come back tomorrow and show him what I could do.

I left and felt nothing. Not happy. Numb. I didn’t know how to process it. Seventy-eight doors, and the last one said come back, and I walked out not sure what had just happened.