Most people don’t get jobs by defacing property. Sammy Sackett ’25 isn’t most people.

“I was just being a little bit silly,” Sackett told The Argus.

For weeks last fall, Sackett would sneak up to the letter board sign outside of the Cardinal Tech store in Usdan and rearrange the letters to create a new announcement. 

“‘Come in for prizes!’ became ‘Come in for pies!’” Sackett said. 

After a month, the store manager concluded that one could not beat Sackett—one must join her. The next time Sackett slinked towards the store’s sign, she saw a different type of message.

“Hey!” her future boss had written. “If you’re looking for a job, you should email me, and I will hire you.”

And just like that, Sammy Sackett, a chemistry major with a taste for mischief and a penchant for humor as stylish as her sidecut, found herself employed as a paid vandal. Regarding the other aspects of working at Cardinal Tech, Sackett was content.

“It’s not that bad,” Sackett said. “I’m lowkey built for retail.”

A weekly paycheck hasn’t beaten down Sackett’s desire for the unusual, though. Does she ever pitch a sign idea her boss rejects? 

“Most weeks,” Sackett said.

Once, given the inspiration of a 20% discount on the store’s pink items, Sackett came up with “Pretty in pink: shop our pink wall, and I’ll give you a kiss on the mouth.” As proud as Sackett was of this sign, the powers that be didn’t feel the same.

“The next day I got a text from my boss,” Sackett said.

Similarly, editorial outcry changed the proposed “We sell cigarettes to minors” to “Legally, we aren’t allowed to say that we have evil ibuprofen.” “We’re proudly tiger-free as of April 17th, 2024,” the sign read on Wednesday. “Campus store deal of the week: please buy my car. It’s been a month,” read another.

Sackett’s signs aren’t always widely loved, she admitted. Her first ever sign drew hordes of angry theater majors into the store:

“Campus store fun fact #6: Len Manuell Maranda went to Wessleyan.” 

And who says advertising doesn’t work. How does Sackett maintain her prolific creativity?

“The signs come from the angry god of chaos that lives in my brain,” Sackett said. “And I’m really good at [the New York Times’] Connections.”

And yet, Sackett also cited the practical limitation of block letters on a signboard as integral to free up her creative process. Creatives often cite the importance of such limitations. Joan Didion famously wrote “On Self Respect” to a specific character count. Hemingway famously (and probably apocryphally) penned a classic short story in six words. This reporter famously writes his College of Social Studies essays in the morning hours of their Friday due date.

Sackett sees her transformation of eyesore to eye-catching, mundane to marvelous, usual to nothing-but as part of a STEM major’s civic responsibility.

“It’s about putting the humanities back into STEM,” Sackett said. “When I write for chemistry, I write very casually. I think that’s needed.”

For me, Sackett’s signs inspire an urgent desire to observe and share the world’s ordinary comedy, a fondness for the unusual, and a hankering for a “Wesleyan Mom” hat.

Thomas Lyons can be reached at trlyons@wesleyan.edu.