It Happened To Me: My Coworker Invited Me To His Home For A Business Proposition
I was completely unprepared for what happened next.
By Cathy Alter
My first job out of college was as an assistant manager of Bloomingdale’s NOW, a cavernous department on the flagship store’s fourth floor where outfits cost more than my monthly rent. My salespeople, all on commission, were twice my age and earned twice as much. The position was the first rung in the store’s executive training program, where I believed I would surely fly up the ladder until I became a couture buyer, decked out in Chanel and flying off to Paris to see the fall collections.
I spent my days on foot, yelling at staffers for not wearing their prescribed “B” pins, taking too long for lunch, and in the case of one highly amped salesperson, hitting on our female customers’ boyfriends. Despite the punitive nature of the job, I made friends with many of the women, including my two besties, Jane from the Tahari department and Debbie from Vittadini Sport. We often gathered after work at a sleek, slightly Eurotrash bar where we let men drenched in Paco Rabanne cologne buy us Kir Royales until some of us (that would be me) made out with the most handsome of the lot in the hallway near the bathrooms.
I grew up on Bloomingdale’s fourth floor, learning how to handle the many personality quirks of my staff and the harried shoppers on their lunch breaks. Believe me, you have never seen rage like a New Yorker hunting down a salesperson while waving around a Ralph Lauren sweater that has missed a markdown.
A significant part of this adult education happened when Roland, the sales associate who manned the Pringles cashmere department, approached me with an invitation. “I have a business proposition I’d like to tell you about,” he said, inviting me to his apartment the following Tuesday night. “Please keep this to yourself,” he added, sotto voce.
It didn’t take long to figure out that Jane and Debbie also got invitations. Along with Carol and Brenda from Harvé Benard.
“Why us?” I wanted to know.
“What the heck business proposition could he have for us?” added Carol, the eldest of us and the floor’s stalwart and de facto leader.
We gathered the troops ahead of our appointed time at Roland’s home. This meant we picked a Spanish restaurant nearby and drank multiple pitchers of sangria, trying to predict what business plans he had in mind for a group of seemingly random women.
“Maybe he wants to start a rival cashmere business and needs investors,” Brenda ventured.
“What if he wants us to sponsor him for his US citizenship?” Debbie said. Roland was British, and she and I had encountered enough men seeking green cards (and their ensuing marriage proposals) to worry about this particular opportunity.
The more we drank, the sillier we got.
“What if he wants to start an escort agency,” said Jane, choking back laughter. “And he wants to be our pimp?”