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A Creative Director's Life, Part 17, Is This a Joke?Passing thought:An update on my brother Daniel, the brainy one in the family. Remember he chose acareer in electrical engineering while I went on to become a huckster. Dan is nowa hot shot consultant with Booz Allen Hamilton. From a recent news release " BoozAllen Hamilton has been awarded a $149.5 million, multi-year delivery order toprovide technology, program management and engineering support to the U.S. Army’sSpace and Terrestrial Communications Directorate under the Strategic ServicesSourcing" Dan Hampel Program Manager said " This project is the largestmodernization effort in Army history and one of the most complex networking ofsystems across the joint services." Whatever that all means but it sounds reallyimportant. All I can say is we can all be grateful Dan is on our side.Let it be recorded that I contributed to increased recruitment for the U.S. AirForce with the advertising slogan, "Aim High." Dan and I always competed goingback to those fiercely contestedcribbage games we played in the bedroom we sharedon 23rd Street in Paterson. Last time I looked he was beating me by hundreds ofgames. But you had to count holes and he was always strong on math. I was a wordman.Late in the summer of 1957 after a brief vacation in Fire Island, I returned hometo find a letter from Young & Rubicam waiting. This can't be, I immediatelythought. Y & R writing to me? As my trembling fingers tore at the envelope Iimagined all kinds of scenarios. Could this be my first rejection notice from themost prestigious New York ad agency even before I was interviewed? But then again,a rejection from Y&R is better than an acceptance from Ted Bates. Go figure. Theletter requested that I call for an appointment. Dorothy recalls that I startedcelebrating as if I got the job. "But just a minute", she reminded me. The letteris signed by a Harry Rubicam and isn't he dead? This has to be a joke. Someone isplaying a trick on me. True to his word, Walter Weiner passed my resume on to theright person at Y&R. Or did he?Sure enough there was a Harry Rubicam, head of human resources for the creativedepartments. He turned out to be a nephew of Ray Rubicam, one of Y&R's founders.He was a grandfatherly gent who talked to me about the greatness of Y&R and what awonderful place to work. Like I needed to be advised. Harry Rubicam introduced meto Bob Work, manager of the copy department. We had about a fifteen minute chatand browsing through my resume he asked why I had moved around so much. "No sir,those are not places; they're the accounts I have worked on." Bob Work wascompletely bald and much younger than he looked. He was a beloved friend of thecreative departments and a senior member of the all important plans board, thebody that had final approval on critical campaigns for the agency's leadingclients. Bob Work offered me a job in sales promotion at a starting salary of$8,000 a year. The cliche that I would have paid him to work at Y&R in anycapacity could not have been a more accurate expression of my elation as I leftthe building at 285 Madison Ave. that sunny summer afternoon. Look ma I made itand I didn't have to work my way up from the mail room, one of advertising's moretraditional starting jobs. So what if I started out in sales promotion, atangential department that helped supplement the more glamorous media of print,radio and the fledgling medium TV. I was in the house and that was what mattered.For days I walked around my old neighborhood and places where I used to worklooking for friends and anyone who would listen, "Yeah I got a new job at Young &Rubicam. You've heard of it right?"My early impressions: Every day I commuted by bus from Wayne, New Jersey and laterRidgewood to the Port Authority bus terminal and a walk east on 41 St. I couldn'twait to go to work in the place I considered a cathedral of creativity. Not a new
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Rubicamwriting

Harry Rubicam was my grandfather. Looking forward to reading more.

reply04 / 01 / 2010
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