Getting in at the ground floor

More from Børge Ring:

Walt Disney's Hyperion studio kept check on the output not only of each department but of each individual working in there. Department heads kept books answering questions like "Is he or she a companyman?" The books were bound and stored for statistic use.

Pretty and devoted Elisabeth Nerbovig.....you can find a picture of her in a publication by one of (what Shamus Culhane called) the Bernard Berensons of animation where she is painting a "live" wooden marionet of Pinochio, built to aid the animation......was a young girl who applied for a job in ink and paint.

She was accepted on proof for one week. On friday she got paId and was given a slip that told her whether or not to return on Monday. This proof period of one week with pay and slip was steadily renewed on and on for 7 (seven) years.
Then she was abruptly hoisted inside and made head of the department. "It was weird" she said "to sit there and read your own dossier over a seven year period."

She loved the studio and at one time she and Ub Iwerks shared one temporary "emergency office" and one telephone in a long aisle upstairs under the loft with curly wooden shavings on the floor, during one of the many rebuilds of the cramped Hyperion quarters.
Tingeling went the phone. "It's for you, Ub."