might be time to quit. It isn’t for everyone. I know quite a few women who’ve tried it, and some of them found it harder to deal with than they expected.”
Maybe that would calm her down. If people went around having hysterics it was going to do the business no good at all.
Diane was staring at her openmouthed. “You know other people who do this?” she said.
“Obviously if you’re thinking of getting married you may want to give it up,” said Lucille.
“But,” said Diane. “How can I do this to Don?”
“Does he think you’re a virgin?” asked Lucille.
“No but—”
“Well then there’s no reason for him to know, is there?”
Diane opened her mouth.
“Look,” Lucille said firmly. “You go to the bathroom every day of your life.”
“Yes but—”
“There’s no secret about it. It’s common knowledge. But you wouldn’t expect to share every little detail with your loved ones.”
“No but—”
”You’re not planning to tell him every time you change a tampon.”
“No but—”
“If you ask me,” said Lucille, “this is a lot less unfaithful than sleeping with someone you know, where Don would have reason to be jealous. Here, you’ve made the physical act about as close as it can get to just going to the bathroom.”
Diane was still crying quietly.
Lucille handed her another tissue, thinking Where does he get them?
The fact was, as Joe could have told her, that there simply weren’t enough qualified applicants to fill the positions.
MISS PERFECT
As any salesman knows, you think you’ve covered all the angles and all of a sudden when you least expect it out of left field comes a boomerang.
One day Joe was sitting in the office waiting for his 11 o’clock appointment, and at 10:58 this black gal came in.
“I’m afraid I have an 11 o’clock appointment,” he said politely.
“I’m a couple of minutes early. I’m Renée.” She held out her hand. He stood up and shook it thinking Shit.
He had advertised for a crème-de-la-crème PA. On the surface of it this might look like unnecessary extravagance: If you use somebody like that as a lightning rod, you’re talking a 100% increase on a $50,000 salary. Whereas if you used a couple of data inputters, say, you’d get twice the coverage for your dollar.
What he’d decided was that this was a shortsighted way of looking at it.
If you talk to people from an older generation, one of the things they comment on is the fact that it’s just not possible to get the same quality of secretary that you could get thirty or forty years ago. Time was you could get a bright gal out of college and she’d get a job as a secretary, sometimes she’d marry and settle down and raise a family, sometimes she’d make a career of it. Well, nobody wants to go back to the days when that was all she could do. If a woman is able to do the same job as a man, why shouldn’t she do it, and get paid accordingly? But the fact of the matter is, it’s had some consequences, and the business world hasn’t really faced up to those consequences.
A man who has worked his way to the top of a multi-million dollar operation needs first-class support. Like as not he’s dealing with an international concern; he needs to be able to delegate to somebody who isn’t looking to take over his job. Time was, he could have gotten that support. Today, the kind of person who would be qualified to give that level of support just isn’t interested. It’s partly the money, and partly the fact that the job isn’t going anywhere.
Well, you can’t do a heck of a lot about the prospects. Trouble is, you can’t do a heck of a lot about the money, either. Because there’s no way shareholders are going to stand still for a secretary making $100,000 a year. Plus, all the guys on the career track in the company are going to get pissed off. Any CEO worth his salt knows a top-drawer PA can make more of a contribution to the company than some jack-ass vice president, but just because you know something like that doesn’t mean you can say it, let alone put your money where your mouth is. One of the first things any manager has to learn is the importance of staff morale.
The result is that sooner or later the PA decides to jump ship. She knows she’s never going to make top dollar, so it’s Sayonara baby.