Down in the trenches with the new girl
You can tell a lot about a person by the way they treat those who serve them.
Michaela Futcher was working part-time at a cafe in Sydney’s Hunter Street while studying at the University of Sydney’s College of the Arts.
Lawyers would come in for a quick coffee before the next court hearing or client meeting.
One said to the waitress Michaela: “I’ll have a short-long black, sorry for the oxymoron. Do you even know what an oxymoron is?”
At the time it happened nothing came out of her mouth but afterwards she and her friends sat around coming up with many good comebacks.
Also frequenting the coffee shop were ad agency people from Lowe Hunt, headed up by Adam Hunt, something of an advertising institution at the time, across the road.
“They were absolutely fabulous and gorgeous people,” Michaela remembers. One day they came in doing vox pops about a makeup brand.
She told them: “I’ll give you a vox pop if you give me an internship.” She went on to do a stint as an account executive at the agency.
About 15 years later she became the industry’s Emerging Leader of the Year at the Agency of the Year Awards. She was up against fellow finalists Amelia Priday at Havas, Dan Richardson at Verizon Media, Mike Fraser at Isobar, Jye Smith at Red
