Long before I was Patrick Riley of The Lost Ogle—a revolutionary, groundbreaking, and highly influential figure in Oklahoma media who now spends his afternoons writing old-school blog posts in hopes some older wiseass will pay just 69 cents to read them—I was Patrick Riley the Creative Services Coordinator: a 26-year-old kid with spiky, salt n’ pepper hair who spent his afternoons designing and writing newspaper ads, brochures, direct mail pieces, and all sorts of other knickknacks for MidFirst Bank.
Although the pay sucked and my then-boss—some lady named Beth—was super strict about arriving to work on time, it was a great job. I’ve never been much of a manual labor type, so spending my days picking out fonts, photoshopping images, and explaining to higher-ups that, no, I don’t have the ability to convert a PDF to Word, was a solid gig.
In fact, the only real downside—besides making $12.50 an hour—was having to submit projects for approval.