I have always been leery of guys with three names. Presidents and serial killers come to mind. Into my doubting field of vision has wandered one more – Michael Gates Gill, and his book “How Starbucks Saved My Life: A Son of Privilege Learns to Live Like Everyone Else.”
Short version: He was a creative director at J. Walter Thompson, an ad agency in New York, and after 25 years, he gets the Boomer Boot and finds himself unemployed. He doesn’t know his own children because he’s spent his entire life in a high-paying, high-privileged job. So for some reason, after he’s tossed, he gets his extramartial girlfriend pregnant and coos about the child’s first words, “da da,” two syllables his own children apparently didn’t get the chance to utter since he was living the high life at the agency.
So he takes a job at Starbucks with regular people. The manager is an African-American woman. It seems in his previous cushy position, M. G. Gill wasn’t aware that black people existed in management positions. M.G.G. learns to mop and do all kinds of little-people jobs, including waiting for trains and such. Regular people are regular for a reason. In summary, his book gets reviewed in The New York Times Book Review and Tom Hanks buys the movie rights to this story. Chalk one up for a turnaround tale. He has managed to pull off what every creative in advertising wants to do: Write a book, sell it as a movie and get out of the business. I salute him.
I have worked in a lot of advertising agencies north to south, East Coast to West. I worked in NYC for several years as well, so I get the story all too well. I can see the Scrooge/Dickens movie angle now, with Ben Affleck as M.G.G., who finds the true meaning of life for average people after sucking at the teat of affluence for so long he forgets we all bleed. Funny how bleeding enlightens a person.
Can’t say I identify with his “Mad Men” characterization of creatives in advertising, but I know the type. My experiences in advertising cover almost every level, but no matter what level I was on at the time, it was never an option for me to forget my less-than-wealthy past in a economically struggling rural town in the Deep South during a time when you had no choice but to be aware of those who were culturally different. I know how it feels to get the snub from the privileged. It leaves a mark.
If the book and movie are successes, M.G.G can go back to that life he knew so well for a quarter century. And maybe this time, he’ll know his child better too. I hope so.
Meanwhile, I am writing a book titled: “How Starbucks Frappacinos Cost Me $4 a Day and Ruined My Meager Retirement.”
