“Mister Ilias, I will resign, I can not work after 18.00, my boyfriend doesn’t allow me”

A really successful businessman…

(All time classic, 14.10.2008)

Sunday afternoon, in Radu Beller area, Bucharest. The coffee places are half full, thus lots of parking lots are available. A young guy leaves, driving his Maybach (I guess he wanted to feel more secure, this is why he bought a 600.000 euro car – hopefully not by leasing…) and now there are three available parking places.

Two seconds after, a big Mercedes illegally turns left and now it stands in front of the three parking plots. After mature thought (I guess), the driver chooses to reject all three and park his car exactly where the line of pedestrians is, blocking it. He also makes sure that half of the car will be on the pavement and that the rest of the cars will not be able to pass very easily.

This brave gentleman steps down. He has the style of the perfect, successful businessman. A characteristic haircut, expensive sunglasses and casual clothes, which are very discreet (this means that the size of the brand is not covering half of the t-shirt, it’s just 10 centimetres long). He enters in the coffee shop, walking slowly and checking around if there are any women and if they are looking at him.

He chooses the sit by the window, so as to have maximum visibility guaranteed. Then he searches around and finds something to read. As a serious businessman, I guess he wants to be informed for the world’s economic credit crunch, but for the beginning he will start with something lighter, “Libertatea” and “Click” newspapers. There he will be able to spot the next “difficult to get” ladies that he will target to.

He stops reading for a while. Probably his wise mind is thinking now, with 1.000.000 turns per second. He looks around patrolling the area, no woman is looking at him. He keeps on thinking. What? I guess the answer to critical questions like “how much should be the budget for this one?” or “don’t tell me I’ll have to buy a car to that one too, in order to have her”.

He orders the most fashionable coffee available and returns to his thoughts (he doesn’t like to drink it, but it’s trendy). The newspaper’s pages are big. If they weren’t, for sure he would have noticed the disabled lady who was trying to enter on the pavement for five minutes, using her wheel chair. But she should not worry. If she will not make it until he will go, he will give her 100 – 200 ron and for sure she will be happy, she should know he is generous.

(If any of you, ever, watch me behaving like this guy, PLEASE COME AND THROW WATER ON MY FACE, I will owe you a big favour).

“Mister Ilias, I will resign, I can not work after 18.00, my boyfriend doesn’t allow me”

(All time classic, 14.10.2008)

A big (huge) salary. An excellent environment. A clear explanation for what she was supposed to do. A potential option to start a new business together, in which she would be the director and in three years partner. All conveniences for whatever she needed.

No, they were not enough, as I had the “ridiculous” demand to ask her to finish her tasks before leaving, to be responsible for what she is doing, not to forget critical company’s papers everywhere at the office and not to tell her boyfriend to come to pick her up every day at 17.30, because he didn’t like to wait.

She “punished” me exactly as I deserved, she agreed with my brother that she would stay until the end of October and to me she announced that she will stop “in three days maximum’.

It is not needed only to be a good person, but also it is important for someone to behave like a professional and not like a diva. (If I ask all the business people I know, they will tell me the same stories, so I am not alone… is it a relief? Nope)

2010: I know, all these sound “fairytales” to most of the people. But do you remember that it was out daily experiences just 18 months ago?