User talk:2604:2000:1105:44E0:146F:7710:4C6D:966D

Regarding Otto Bettmann of Bettman Archive, I worked for the old man in 1979, the year the "Portable Bettman Archive was published.I was 19 and had already studied painting at the Art student's League.

I was basically a file clerk who did phone reception, referring all calls to the five others including Bettman, Anne and her son Mel. I initially filed the returned materials and was later allowed to search for materials from the many file cabinets of work.

Anne and Mel were about the most miserable looking people I have ever encountered. Mel interviewed me, and the one question I remember him asking was 'do I have a boyfriend?' His tone was so aggressive I did not feel that he was hitting on, me but that I wouldn't be hired if I had one. I didn't at the time, and I was hired. Lucky me. It turns out that one of the other two girls did have a boyfriend and spent a lot of time talking about him and to him on the phone. The only reason they kept her on was that her father was a friend of Bettman

The other girl was being groomed to take over doing all the darkroom photography that a very nice man who was around Bettman's age, was currently doing. He was going to retire after the "Portable Bettmann Archive" was published. When it was, tis girl told me that neither he nor did an older woman who had laid it out and edited it; neither was given a copy. I don't remember if they got any credit for their work. Classic Bettman. Prior to that, I was three months into the job when I was offered a $5 raise. $5 a week, not an hour. I had been surprised, but it was 1979 and I had been earning $3.50 an hour p/t at Saks, with no raise, just an offer to work full-time on commission only, in lingerie. I figured that he must like my work. So at the six month mark I asked for another raise. He refused. Then he said I guess you won't want to stay. I said that I did want to stay. But he replied that I couldn't. So I was terminated for asking for a raise. Yeah, Womens' Lib.

Oh, then there is another Mel incident where he sent me out for coffee and had me lay out money for the 3 Bettmans, and conveniently forgot to pay me when I got back. I had to work up the courage to ask him for it. I don't remember whether he gave it to me or not. We are talking 1979.

But it did teach me to persevere. ( and to never again work for a small family business run by cheap, tightassed sour people. But now we know how he got his millions.  I went on to study art at the School of Visual Arts, NYU, completing my BA in Art Ed at Queens College, and my MA at Hunter in TESOL. I became certified to teach in both fields and worked for Nassau Boces, Great Neck BOEd; and for twenty years for the NYC Board of Ed.

So much for Bettman and his Archive. I now believe that some of his visual material was stolen from the library where he had worked, knowing what I now now, about him and people in general. Rainne333 (talk) 22:49, 23 July 2018 (UTC)