It was a crisp late-March morning in 2014 when I arrived to my first day on the job at Vogue magazine in 4 Times Square. My title was Copy Director and I had an office. A real office, with a door and a wide window overlooking Midtown Manhattan. I wore a newly purchased blouse, an A-line skirt, and a pair of black leather Rachel Comey booties. I knew, sort of, what I was doing.
I’d had five interviews over the course of three months, and it had been made clear to me that I would manage and maintain the iconic Vogue voice across all channels, write and edit daily copy assignments, and brainstorm big ideas with a creative team of very talented people. If it was a print or digital asset for the marketing & sales side of the magazine, I would likely write it, edit it, or approve it. And the rest—well, I’d figure it out.
But there was one task that came up during an interview, one which I was upfront about having absolutely no experience: Speech writing. From time to time, I was told, I’d work with Susan, the VP of the magazine, on speeches she might give internally or externally to say…the entire corporate staff of Gucci.
“Just to be transparent,” I said over the phone to my would-be production director, “I don’t have speech writing experience.” I am all about faking it until you make it, but this was one skill I wasn’t about to lie my way through.
“Oh, it’s no big deal!” he said. “If you don’t feel comfortable doing it, we can always hire a freelancer, but let’s see how it goes.” His nonchalance told me that he either had great faith in my ability, or he did not care at all about the quality of these speeches.
So there on my first day, as I attempted to settle into my first-and-only real office, the nerves in my belly fizzing like Pop Rocks, I was reviewing old copies of Vogue when that same production director gave me my first task.
“We need a speech for Susan,” he said in his usual matter-of-fact address.
Ok, I thought. First task sounds…hard. Unchartered territory…
He continued, “About Anna.”
About Anna. The two words echoed in the hallway of my brain for a few seconds. The Anna? The most infamous, recognized name in all of the fashion industry since she took the helm of Vogue in 1988? The Anna played by legendary actor, Meryl Streep, in The Devil Wears Prada? The Anna that dominates the front row of every major fashion show that has taken place in the past four decades?
That Anna?
Suddenly my office—my big, brightly lit office—felt like a broom closet. No, it can’t be, I thought. Today is my first day. A day for dipping in a toe! For easing into the pool! Not a day for diving head first into deep, murky waters! But no, reader. It was that kind of day.
I spent the next eight hours talking myself off a ledge. You can’t do this. Yes, you can! No, you can’t. Yes, you can! I took water breaks. I even gently slapped myself in the face once or twice. I focused, I stayed the path, and whatever I wrote was OK enough for me to keep my new job. I don’t know how objectively “good” it was, but I knew I had done my best with what I had at the time I wrote it (under a viciously strict timeline).
When I find myself in a panic over a decision or a task, I lean on this mantra: Do the best you can with the information you have at the time you have it. I am not a perfectionist, but I want to do good work. Like everyone, I want to make the best decision. In my work, in my words, in life. But it’s easy to fret over big decisions, even small ones. To doubt our own capability.
At one point early on, Susan said—either directly to me or to a room full of impeccably dressed women and four men:
“No one is going to hold your hand. You were hired because we believe you’re capable. If you need help, ask for it. If you don’t know, find out. If you can help someone else, then do it.”
This is contrary to the assumption so many people have about what it’s like to work at Vogue. For me, it was the best, scariest, most intense and exciting day job I ever had, but that’s for another time. What mattered is that I was empowered. They demanded that I do good work, and I was not going to let them down.
While this experience has propelled me for a long time, in life, we don’t always have a crowd-commanding, pristinely-dressed boss telling us we’re capable of whatever task is before us. We don’t have a hype man. So we have to do that ourselves. We rely on our own high standards.
Countless times, speeches that I’d spent weeks writing and pruning were abandoned five minutes before Susan addressed her audience. Drafts of eight-page, in-book sections that I thought were the best drafts were scratched in favor of a version more this or that. Such is the nature of my job. But this is like climbing a ladder. Each draft gets you one rung closer to where you want to be—to the good work.
The last month or so of life has brought with it some career uncertainty, somewhat of a professional identity crisis, you could say. Opportunities presented, big internal changes, etc. I’ve been reflecting on my standards as a copy director, and wondering where I could be working harder, or smarter, or more creatively. I’m thinking about which decisions I make now will affect my career in the next 10–20 years.
I continue to write this newsletter because I enjoy it, but I am constantly worried about when I’ll run out of things to say. Each week, I feel an undercurrent of anxiety about what I’ll share next. Will it be good enough? Will people get bored? What keeps readers coming back? In this landscape of barely there attention spans and overstimulation, I fear that just being a regular (now middled aged!) lady with a few stories to tell will never be enough. That being a full-time working mother will never give me the time to write and share and promote all the things one must do to keep themselves visible in this modern age.
I’m still working on a novel, at a glacial pace, and wondering what it takes to write “a good book.” I read newsletters and listen to podcasts and follow agents and writers on social media who talk about craft and process and what it takes to get published. I want to finish this book, but just because I write it, doesn’t mean anyone will ever see it. Even if I write the book of my dreams, there is a great chance no one will ever want to publish it.
So what’s the point?
I’m a part of several online writer’s groups and a networking Slack channel; I read Substack writer support threads. In all these places, you will often see people sharing fears like mine or asking questions about how to stay afloat, how to achieve their goals. How can I advance my career? How do I grow my following? How do I get my book published? How can I make money doing what I love?
And every time there is at least one person, if not several, who all say the exact same thing. “Do good work.”
It’s no guarantee that you’ll get what you want. No promises that you’ll grow your following or get published or make any money in the process. Doing good work doesn’t always get noticed. That’s not the point. The point is the satisfaction of knowing that no one held your hand. You do it because you are capable. Because you believe in your ability, and you refuse to let self-doubt bury you. You are a Phoenix, a fighter. You are your own hype man, and sometimes that’s more than enough.
THAT ANNA?!? Haha I loved this piece a lot because I feel the same way about this dang process. I needed to read this. Do good work. That’s all I can do or aim to do and stand by it! So inspirational. And that office view!!!!
I am in awe of you! Wow!❤️