Looking For a Job

Boy, has it been a while since I've looked for a job. I've had one interview with a school for a music teaching position for two times a week. We'll see what happens with that. I've also been looking at some of the big corporations down here. Lots of companies have their corporate headquarters down (or up) here. There is Russell Stover, Applebees, AMC Entertainment, Sprint, and my favorite- Hallmark. I really had no idea about how the Hallmark brand came about, so I did a little research. Oh, and I also applied for a job there... so we'll see. Before I get into that though... apparently Harry S. Truman is from here too. I didn't know much about him either besides he once was a president. I found out he was president during WWI and he is the dude that ordered the A bombs on Japan. He had a wife nicknamed Bess and a daughter that became a mystery novel writer. Anyway... on with the story of Hallmark.

In 1910 Joyce Clyde Hall (were names different then?) stepped off a train in Kansas City, Mo., with nothing but two shoe boxes of postcards under his arm. He had little money – not even enough to take a horse-drawn cab to his lodgings at the YMCA – but he had high hopes.

Hall printed some invoices and started sending packets of a hundred postcards to dealers throughout the Midwest. A few of the dealers kept the cards without paying. Some returned the unsolicited merchandise with an angry note. But about a third sent a check. Within a couple of months, the teenage businessman had cleared $200 and opened a checking account. He was in business.

Now apparently there are around 6.4 billion greeting cards sent each year in the US. Wowser! He claims the idea of wrapping paper and now things like crayola and silly putty are connected with Hallmark. I love silly putty.