How to succeed in business without really trying

In order to fully understand the madness that is this article that runs today in the Boston Globe, you need to know the following five facts:

1. I was never interviewed specifically for this story.

You see, several months ago, I was contacted by an associate of Penelope Trunk in regard to an upcoming article that Ms. Trunk may or may not want to write about me (and my day job as Special Projects Coordinator with Whittard of Chelsea). Delighted at the prospect, I agreed to participate, and a few weeks later had an extremely 'intense' conversation with Ms. Trunk over the phone. This was an 'informational' interview, where she grilled me for material with which she might (or, in all honesty, might not) use to craft one of her 'Climb' columns that run twice-monthly in the Jobs section of the Boston Globe.

It was during this initial conversation that I, excited at the prospect of chatting about my pending book with an established and respected author, started talking about my own writing. Ms. Trunk was confused. Why, she wondered, was I trying to focus on my writing if I wanted to be a singer, too? Well, I responded, I love singing and it's what I studied in college, but it is one hell of a hill to climb, and the more I struggle with landing good, respectable opera gigs the more I find solace and enjoyment in writing about these trials and tribulations. For me, I said, writing about opera has started to become more enjoyable than slogging through auditions and dealing with the constant disappointment of flopping after a career that may, or may not, be right around the corner.

We talked more about the troubles of a young, struggling singer, my frustrations with finding a suitable day job to compliment my operatic pursuits, and finally came to rest on the concept of 'respect' in the workplace. I mentioned that a recent experience with Whittard had really touched me; upon promotion, my superiors not only included work info in the company-wide memo but also added a link to my opera website, what I thought was a very nice and personal touch. Ms. Trunk loved this concept, the idea of 'respect' in the workplace, and our conversation ended, literally, right there. She thanked me for her time and told me in no uncertain terms that she would contact me personally to schedule a proper interview around this new focus point.

I never heard from Penelope Trunk again. In fact, she even stood me up for said follow-up telephone interview, which was scheduled by a third party. (Picture, if you will, me sitting at the kitchen table, notes in hand, staring at my cell phone and thinking, 'Surely, she's gonna call, right? RIGHT? I was like a jilted ex-girlfriend. Very pathetic.) Said third party assured me, as soon as last week, that Ms. Trunk would be getting in touch very soon to interview me for this article. Yeah, that never happened.

2. That adorable picture of me? Taken at 1pm on the day I arrived, via cruel, cruel red-eye, from Portland to Boston. Why did I take a red-eye, and hustle my ass straight from the airport to an apartment, with virtually NO sleep (thank you, screaming baby), scrub off the airplane-stank in the shower and then brave cross-town traffic to get myself on location so that I could be photographed doing things that are, technically, no longer in my job description (I don't work in the Whittard store anymore, I work offsite creating event, operations and ad copy)? Why, because I'm going to be featured in the August 19th edition of the Boston Globe, silly! I'm ready for my close-up!

Imagine my surprise, then, when August 19th came and went, and my cute little mug was nowhere to be found in Ms. Trunk's Climb article. I inquired, and of course was told that the article had been pushed back.

3. Let's play a fun game. I call it, Dissecting Made-Up Things. The bold text is me:

Erin Pullen works at Whittard of Chelsea, a shop that sells high-end tea and coffee. This is partially true. As stated above, while I do work for Whittard of Chelsea, I no longer work at Whittard of Chelsea. At the time of this photograph, the only Whittard store in the US is on Newbury Street in downtown Boston. I live in Portland, Oregon. That is one hell of a commute.
It isn't at all what Pullen had in mind when she was in school, training for her dream job. She studied performing arts, I studied opera and expected to be a soprano. As Shirley Q. Liquor might say, 'That's ig'nunt!' One can't really expect to be a soprano- you either are or you aren't. I am. Thanks, Erin's physical structure! (No thanks needed for you, ability and/or happenstance!) I think what Ms. Trunk means to say is that I expected to be a 'Professional Opera Singer', a designation that applies to approximately .005% of all classical singers in the world right now, if we take 'professional' to mean 'full-time and salaried'. Then she realized her dream job was to advocate for performing artists rather than to be one. I can only guess that Ms. Trunk came to this conclusion based on the brief exchange I outlined above. But she also needed to pay her bills, so she took the job at Whittard. To say I only took the job at Whittard to 'pay the bills' is unfair to Whittard, I think. It sounds like I was living on foodstamps and praying for salvation in the form of the British Tea and Coffee fairy. I actually already had a good job when I interviewed for Whittard, but was so tickled by the people and the company itself that I decided to ditch the Real Estate Receptionist gig in favor of managing the first-ever Whittard store in the US. Pretty cool, eh? Not necessarily the stuff of desperate-bill-paying.
Now Pullen has discovered she really likes the job, Again, unfair to Whittard, since it implies that I was planning on really not liking the job, which I wasn't. I knew I was going to like it, which would be why I left the darn Real Estate job and one of the big reasons she cites is that the people she works with show her respect. Well, duh.

4. This brief tidbit of writing about yours truly implies that my new dream job is either A) advocating for the performing arts, which could mean anything, or B) working at Whittard. If you've taken the time to read my About page, you know what my dream job was, is, and will forever be. If you haven't, go do that right now, and force yourself to believe it, despite what you may read otherwise.

5. I love my job at Whittard, and I love writing. But, sorry Ms. Trunk, I am an opera singing-badass who looks forward to taking-no-prisoners this competition season with my 'expected' soprano voice.

I'm not normally one for sour grapes, but this ill-informed article that bears my mug and my name is just plain bad reporting and bad writing. Ms. Trunk had MANY opportunites to actually TALK to me, but she chose not to- literally, she made the choice to not call my cell phone when she said she would and use some pretend 'facts' instead. I could just write it off as a bit of laziness on her part, but the trouble lies in the details: I still rely heavily on Boston-area contacts for opera gigs, and this article doesn't exactly paint me in the rosiest working-singer light. In fact, it makes me look like a washed-up quitter, which I am not. If you're as peeved at the distortion of fact as I am, or if you just plain can't stand an established and respected writer naming the number-two most important thing you can do to ensure on-the-job happiness as being 'A thermostat you can control' then please feel free to drop Ms. Trunk a line at: Penelope@Penelopetrunk.com (seriously? A thermostat!?)

While you're at it, can you please tell her to stop advocating extreme, dangerous weight loss on her blog? Thanks!

Comments

[Leigh]

I've been interviewed a handful of times by different university papers and it's always a disaster. In college, they referred to me as a "he" the entire time, despite running a photo with the article that clearly showed that I was a woman. That was only the most flagrant foul, but the rest were similar hatchet jobs.

Thanks for all this clarification!

[Andrew Richardson]

Erin
I think you're absolutely right in everything you say in your dissection of Ms. Trunk's fabrication. I can actually remember when the idea for getting the piece done came up, and I thought it was a fantastic idea - great propmotion for you ... and as you have correctly stated above, your employers have indeed always shown respect - I thought it was a great bonus for Whittard to be able to show the world, as well as the corporation at home in the UK that we had an accomplished opera singer in our midst ... thats why I included that tidbit of info in the information we published at the time.
I will try to write Ms. Trunk, with the suggestion that it may perhaps be time for her to pack said item, and move on to something like the National Enquirer, where her skills may be more appreciated !
Meanwhile, I just wanna say - miss ya loads - keep up the great work, and hope to see you again soon Erin :)
Hugs n Kisses !
Andrew

[Erin]

Leigh:
I'm sorry that you've had your own share of journalistic quackery to deal with! Thanks for stopping by, and many thanks for the kind words.

Andrew:
Sigh. You just made me laugh loud enough to wake up my husband from a nap. I miss you.

-Erin

[jpp]

You know, as a writer and editor (and admittedly, a husband) watching this whole entire experience unravel disgusted me. When I'm 2 minutes late for an interview I apologize profusely. That Ms. Trunk not only never rescheduled the interview baffled me, but her not apologizing after she misrepresented Erin's opera career blew my mind.

Still, you'd think these types of errors would not make it into print, because surely the Boston Globe (which has had repeated problems with fabrications in their columns) fact checks their columns, right? Well, actually they don't--at least not this column. Had they called Erin to confirm any of these 'facts,' they might have unearthed the fact that Ms. Trunk did not properly interview Erin for this article.

Well, at least Boston is a two-paper town... but there's only one place to go to get fine tea and coffee, of course.

[jefffred]

Wow. Thanks for writing this. I keep reading bad comments about P Trunk's articles on Yahoo. But this really shows the details about how bad P Trunk is as a writer. I want Yahoo to get better writers. All the CXO level people at Yahoo who left forgot to pull the plug on PT, but why does the Globe still employ her?

By the way, I found this through her latest disaster of a piece. http://finance.yahoo.com/expert/article/careerist/55410?count=30&start=126#dtk-cmtscnt A comment from a reader directed me here.
Yahoo! Finance User - Thursday, November 29, 2007, 3:39PM ET
Overall: 1/5
For those people quibbling about PT's meteoric rise up the corporate ladder in her 20s (after graduating from college with a history major at 24, living off Mom and Dad until moving to California to play volleyball at 27, then going to grad school until age 29), LIGHTEN UP! So she fudged a little. Okay, maybe lied. That's called "marketing". Anyway, PT isn't above an occasional fudge. She wrote a blog entry awhile back about how people shouldn't whine about being misquoted in the media. A strange topic, you say? Not if you read this: http://dayjob-blog.typepad.com/day_job/2007/09/how-to-succeed-.html

[Erin]

Jeffred-

Thanks for the great comment, and interesting links. I definitely share your puzzled wonderment. This 'blog entry awhile back about how people shouldn't whine about being misquoted in the media" has my interest piqued; links, anyone? I've cruised around the Internets and haven't found it. This whiner is curious.

-Erin