Looking Back On Peggy's Olson's Career
- Sep 18, 2015
- 4 min read
I hope you’ve seen Mad Men. It’s one of my favourite shows of all time. Don Draper is, of course, the protagonist who the entire series revolves around, but the most interesting character by far is Peggy Olson.
In the first episode she’s starting her job as Don Draper’s secretary. She’s excited because she’s a country girl in the big city. She’s working on Madison Avenue. She tells all her friends she’s made it to the big leagues.
When one of her co-workers tells Peggy that Don likes to sleep with his secretaries, Peggy starts flirting with Don. She’s not romantically interested in Don but she thinks it’s what’s expected of her.
When I published my first book A Thousand Bayonets in 2011, I was terrified. I thought of all the people who would judge me. I was so scared they would sneer at me, ‘You want to be a writer?’ The fear was crippling me. It took great effort to show anybody anything I wrote.
I was lucky I always had a supportive family but I never told anybody about my book I was so paralyzed with fear. Back then, like Peggy, I probably would have slept with Don Draper just to fit in and not be ridiculed.
The director of my film Josias Tschanz was the first person to really push me to go for it. He was the first person outside of my family who I felt really believed in me. He gave me the confidence to publish my book, to set up a website, to get my name out there.
As Peggy gets comfortable in her new environment she realizes she doesn’t just want to be a secretary like most of the other girls in the office. She wants to write copy and she discovers she’s good at it. Peggy gets push back from the other male copywriters who think she’s just this dumb secretary trying to do a man’s job.
But Peggy doesn’t give up. She fails occasionally but she eventually gains the confidence that she’s as good as anybody else out there, perhaps even as good as Don.
I have just published my third John Webster book called Signs of Horror. The protagonist, John Webster, is a journalist and former war correspondent who is sent to Toronto because a bomb has just detonated in a school, killing seven people and he is the only reporter who has experience dealing with terrorists.
I would like to say the journey from film to first book to the third has been a smooth and easy one.
It hasn’t.
Just like Peggy, I have often had to fight for a lot of things. However I didn’t think the most difficult fights would be with myself.
Self-respect was slow in coming. More than once people have told me to give up. As anybody can tell you, that isn’t a pleasant thing to hear, especially when they are the people closest to you.
It’s not easy being a struggling writer when everybody around you are getting degrees, moving onto big important jobs, having families. You feel left behind. You have huge self-doubts. Can I really do this? Do I have the talent?
When you don’t have enough money to pay the bills or support yourself, it really hits your self-esteem more than anything else. I know because I've been there.
I’ve learned having a career in writing is really a career in mental toughness.
Now my books are sold across the world and in bookstores. I’m an award-winning writer both in film and novels.
Looking at where I am now, I have to say I’m extremely excited for the future. The John Webster film may be on hold for now but I’m working on two non-fiction books, one about crowd funding and another with Hussein Hallak, an entrepreneur and marketing expert, on how to write a business book.
We are also doing our first workshop November 7th.
I have gone from an unpublished writer to someone who people seek out for career, marketing and writing advice. I run the Writers’ Marketing Academy where I help other writers with the exact same problems I went through.
On top of that I’m halfway done the first draft of John Webster 4, The Tiger Eats Last, as well as a John Webster graphic novel Out of Frame.
I have an amazingly supportive girlfriend and her family are some of my biggest fans. I have a lot to be thankful for.
I feel like Peggy at the end of Mad Men. She won’t go to her new agency until she gets an office. Peggy could be accommodating and just work at some desk but she holds firm. Eventually the ad agency resolves the problem and gives Peggy her office.
Peggy enters the building like a conquering hero with cigarette and sunglasses, moving fluidly down the hallway with a huge grin on her face. The boys watch her as she passes by.
Peggy has arrived.
Joel Mark Harris is an award-winning author and filmmaker. You can buy his latest novel on Amazon HERE
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