This is a dumb story that pertains to my last post which was about the eradication or individualism in the world today. There's no larger point to it, really, just a recollection of a lovely woman and a different time.
When I was at Ally & Gargano almost two decades ago the petty cash woman was named Betty Hubble. She was a character that seemed to have stepped right out of a Joe Sedelmaier commercial. A bona-fide, central casting eccentric who bumbled through the halls with a smile, a kind word, a hug and a charm you don't often see. If you spent $7.80 for a taxi cab to an edit, Betty would run down and bring you your money and hand you a laugh while she was at it.
Betty had a "face" and was even cast in a couple Sedelmeier commercials and a few print ads. Then there was the story about how Betty got hired at Ally. I heard it from Betty herself, so as apocryphal as it sounds, I'm taking it for the truth. Betty was going for an interview in the building Ally was in and got off on the wrong floor--onto Ally's floor. Someone, presumably Carl Ally himself fell in love with her and hired her. That was the story.
With stories like that she became something of a legend. Part of the core of an agency.
I left Ally & Gargano in April, 1995, and the place closed a few months later. I wish I could say I knew what happened to Betty. I wish I could say I heard she won the lottery and is living on a 92-foot boat, but I really don't know.
Maybe I'll find her on Twitter and follow her.
One day, I'd had enough of the Ad business and I resigned from Ally, moving clear across the country to California. Whenever my friends would mention my name in Betty's presence, she'd ask them gently, "if you talk to him again, would you ask him to please return his ID?" Five years later - and she was still asking.
ReplyDeleteTwenty years later, I still have it.