Isn't it ironic, don't you think?
OK, so this woman that I've been doing freelance work for? Let's call her 'Dixie.' She was a VP at the hospital where I used to work. I worked with her a lot there, but I never actually worked for her. Three years ago she left and started her own PR firm. She's also in local politics. She's an elected official. So she gets a lot of political candidates as clients. She doesn't run their campaigns, per se, but she'll do design work for them (logos, yard signs, hand bills, etc.) and handle the PR for the campaign. (Some of 'em need it more than others, if you know what I mean - politicians and all.)
Now, this agency that I used to work for? That laid me off? Let's call him 'Joe.' They had one political candidate as a client - a high-ranking county official who is running for re-election; we'll call him 'Rob.' When I left the agency, we were only doing design work for him (mostly invites to fundraisers thrown by various local well-knowns) but 'Joe' came to my office and asked if I'd done any political PR and said that we were getting this client and I should plan on doing PR for the campaign as the time came.
You can see where this is going, right?
So Tuesday I was downtown at 'Dixie's' office. We'd just had lunch with a new client that I'll be working on for her. And she gets this phone call while I'm sitting in her office. And she's making all these faces at me and mouthing 'NEW BUSINESS!!' and pointing at the phone. And I'm listening to the conversation and thinking that this sounds big. So I go ask the girl who answered the phone, "Who is 'Dixie' talking to?" And she says, "'Rob.'"
So, the long & the short of if (mostly long, sorry. Are you keeping up so far?) is that 'Rob' called her directly - himself - and asked if he could talk to her about doing PR for his campaign. And I'm all "Well. Huh. What happened to 'Joe'?" 'Rob' asked to meet at a breakfast meeting tomorrow morning. AND....he's bringing 'Joe' to the meeting.
From what I can gather, 'Rob' hasn't historically done well at the polls with women. And there's a pretty strong female candidate running against him. So that's probably why he wants a woman's PR company to work on it. (Funny thing is, he's a republican and 'Dixie' is actually a democrat....as am I. But we're businesswomen first so we can put that aside.)
So today I get an email from 'Dixie' and she says, "You wanna sit across from 'Joe' in a breakfast meeting tomorrow?" And that Alanis song starts playing in my head.
Because maybe it's a woman-thing, or maybe 'Joe' could have done the PR for the campaign his own self IF HE HAD ENOUGH STAFF TO HANDLE IT.
Either way, looks good on MY resume, baybee.
