| A story of love affairs and working girls
I would like to tell a story here that I heard from some
of the people involved in it many years ago. At that
time the head of the international division of a large
bank appointed a friend of his to be in charge of Latin
American debt conversions and secondary market
transactions. It was the beginning of the emerging
markets business. The newly appointed banker was
a frenchman, with a thick french accent; let's call him
Jacques.
Jacques had an assistant -- who had an MBA from
Harvard and she was married to a California doctor.
As the story goes, Jacques started having an affair
with his assistant, let's call her Marilyn, to protect the
identity of the innocent. In no time everybody in the
bank knew that Jacques was having an affair with Marilyn,
and Jacques didn't help things by bragging at the office
to his colleagues, telling them things such as how much
he enjoyed doing Marilyn from behind, doggy style.
I remember a guy who had been Jacques boss at
another bank tell me how once. while jogging around
a lake near their homes in California, he run into
Jacques and stopped to talk to him for a moment;
and while talking to Jacques he suddenly spotted
Marilyn hiding behind some nearby bushes. Their
affair by then had become an open embarrassment.
As these things often do the affair became a problem
for the big shots at the bank who ended up firing both
Jacques and Marilyn. The affair went from something
funny to a career accident for Jacques and Marilyn.
A friend of mine who worked with Jacques told me a
few months after the affair ended that he was invited
to a party at Jacques' house -- it was a year-end party
probably, I don't remember. And my friend told me
that Jacques while having drinks with his friends at his
house, and toasting with a glass of good wine, with
his usual thick french accent, told them: "my friends, I
have learned my lesson; from now on, only prostitutes."
I believe there is something sincere and truthful in
the conclusion that Jacques took out from his affair.
Also, ever since I heard that story I had this sense that
Jacques lesson was valuable for people like myself.
Whenever I see a nice girl and think of trying to get her
to become a lover, I remember Jacques and wonder if
it would not be much wiser to just leave the girl there,
and go look for working girls instead.
On the subject of working girls versus lovers and friends.
one of the wisest things I have heard was said by Hugh
Grant: When Oprah told him, you are a good looking guy,
and you should not have to pay to get girls; Hugh Grant
told Oprah that doesn't pay to get girls, he pays them to
go away, quietly.
Since I heard that story of Hugh Grant every time I pay
a girl after an encounter of the pleasurable kind I can't
help to think that I am indeed paying her to go away,
quietly.
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Trabaja Duro y Diviertete Duro
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