HLP WNTD

“Are you tired of Dull Routine?” Come with me, then, to frolic in the HELP WANTED, FEMALE classified ads of my Midwest Sunday newspaper. How pleasant it is, there in the agate type!

All the bosses are young and dynamic, all the offices are plush, and carpet is everywhere — even, I like to think, on the ceiling. Every job has top pay, frequent raises, and a unique opp’ty for advancement.

And I myself, at my personal pushbutton phone, am poised and gracious, somewhere between the ages of 22 and 23, and totally unskilled, for here experience and training are of no account. My dynamic young boss would actually prefer to train me himself for my challenging new position, while I dream of my 75minute lunch hour, my 4-wks. vacation this very year, and “no deductions for time off, illness, anything.”

There are no awkward demands on my time. (“You’ll never have to work evenings as assistant to brite young doctor who is just entering his father’s practice!”)

But above all, things are “HUMDRUM? N-E-V-E-R!” There is, in fact, never a dull moment, for I am a girl who enjoys variety.

And that’s not all. I enjoy contact, too, which is probably the chief reason for my success (although, of course, I am also terribly personable). I enjoy all kinds of contact — interesting, diversified, daily personal, 100 per cent public (this is risky, but I lap it up), and, most of all, heavy. In fact, I am the lucky girl who qualifies right this minute for an exciting job solely because I do enjoy heavy contact galore.

I am alert. I am a live wire. And, consequently, my days are fun-filled. Look over my shoulder as I roll my big blue eyes at this one:

“FOREIGN INTRIGUE. Sophisticated cosmopolitan atmosphere awaits brite Girl Friday. . .”Here I slink around distributing colorful magazines in lovely offices maintained by a foreign ally. I receive visitors, who bow low to kiss my hand; I help foreign guests with travel arrangements; but I never, never reveal the top-secret information which I keep constantly clutched to my black-satin bosom.

Diplomacy is also most import, to me as I tentatively become PSYCHIAIRISE’S GREETER for a noted mental-health expert who wants me to keep his busy app’t schedule up to date, answer busy phones, and maintain case histories and a close mouth. I need no medical experience; I need only the tact “to know when to answer patients’ questions — and when to refer them to the doctors.” See me, a regular Fräulein Freud, as I listen to sizzling dreams over the dictaphone in ultramodern penthouse apt. offices with sal. open, very hi., even while trng., a real chance to break into exciting field right on the ground floor of psychosis.

But, hark! I may not be able to take this position after all, because a man who has built fifty-million-dollar empire in the business world, who travels constantly and is a member in good standing of the Who’s Who of international society, needs me to take over for him in his absence and try to keep pace with him when he’s in town. This empire builder prefers me single. Know why? Because he expects me to “practically ‘marry’ the interesting, challenging position” with him.

No, I am too conformist for this. I would, practically, rather marry a man, and so I think I shall investigate instead a position as a “reception trainee,” where the prospects are just a little more than unique.

“Loop dentist’s last girl married a patient!” the ad tells me, slyly. I can draw my own conclusions. She will be leaving him, and he must find a replacement as soon as possible to learn the ropes from her. These ropes would include “setting up the chair,” but might they not also include readying the noose? Who knows when romance might blossom between bicuspids? Typing would be helpful, but certainly is not necessary.

Actually, most of my would-be employers assure me that I can do the monthly statements, or an occasional letter from the boss, in longhand, or that hunt-and-peck would be OK. One of them suggests that I type only to help fill my “pleasant, never-routine days.” But a few do timorously request “Lite Type,” and I naturally assume that this means all lower case, with time and a half for punctuation marks and capital letters.

The majority also stress “No SH !” This, of course, means that I can talk as much as I want and do not have to know shorthand. Only the fuddy-duddies expect a competence in “Lite Shorthand” — or an ability to transcribe every third word — but in general no skills arc necessary because, as one ad explains, I am “much too busy greeting visitors and clients in beautiful Loop showroom.”

I can greet just about anybody I want to greet, provided I am able to carry on intelligent conversations with people from all walks of tife. I can consort with civic and industrial leaders, popular radio announcers and disc jockeys, major-league ball players, and world-famous designers. I can travel with expenses paid and red-carpet treatment.

The delirious choice is mine, contingent only on my neat, wholesome appearance, my charming manner, my good grooming, and my ready smile, if I am beautiful and quicklooted, as well, I can be a bunny in a key club; but even if I am not all these things, if I am a little less than alert, there are still, happily, some positions for which I can qualily, and at least two in which I could do well, even if only semiconscious.

In one lovely executive suite I can keep the magazine supply fresh and order flowers. Later, if I feel able, I can learn to handle the paging of executives. But, in another, friendliness counts, and there, if I can only remain upright at the main reception desk in the carpeted lounge, I can water the plants!

My green thumbs twitch at the prospect of this rare opp’ty.