Bait and Switch (14 page)

sional makeup job. What I had not understood is that to be-So all this time I have been patting my face with microbial scum.

come an object, a thing, you must first go through a kind of I can see that I am in for an additional splurge on his special line death.

I make some excuse about a four o'clock appointment and outline "five or six ways the company could be improved."
38

buy S55.50 worth of cosmetics with the assurance I can always Hydraulic fluid leaks? Overly long shipment times? You point out order more of Prescott's personal selections by e-mail. I get to these defects and explain how you'll fix them.

keep my own mascara. Then I head back to the hotel, park, But something has gone badly wrong with the plan, I see as soon as and start walking aimlessly past office towers and happy-hour I enter his office, which is located right above a Chinese take-out joints, through nondescript neighborhoods and downtown place. I envisioned an office
suite,
staffed at least by a receptionist, parks, until the paint comes off my face in the rain.

and containing a sort of boardroom where the ExecuTable THE NEXT AFTERNOON I drive an hour or so outside of Atlanta to see insiders would gather periodically for coffee and croissants. But Patrick. His office turns out to be in a shopping center anchored Patrick opens the door himself, revealing a room the size of a walk-by a Kinko's and a Chick-Fil-A, where I prime myself with an in closet. He seems to have deteriorated significantly from the iced tea. I am dressed in the same clothes I wore for my image voluble guru of boot camp. He's wearing a sweatshirt and jeans, as makeover, having refreshed the shirt by washing out the armpit if in conscious defiance of corporate propriety, and has the puffy, areas in the sink and drying them with the blow-dryer, and I've pained look of a man who's been recently boiled.

memorized my major talking points: why he needs me, what I When I am seated on the couch, he inquires as to the status of can offer, the bright future ahead. This strategy is based on the my search. For a moment, I am almost too overwhelmed by the advice books, which urge you to research the prospective death-of-a-salesman vibe to respond. I should make some excuse and employer thoroughly in advance, then to use the interview—flee. I should admit to even greater "obstacles" than I had not to prattle on about yourself but to talk about what you revealed at the boot camp and submit to a normal coaching session.

can do for the company. Jeffrey J. Fox's canny book
Don't Send
It doesn't look to me as if he could afford to hire even a cleaning
a Resume,
for example, explains encouragingly that "the lady, not that such a person would find any clear surfaces to clean company may not know it needs you"—until, that is, you 38 Fox,
Don't Send a Resume,
pp. 33-35.

here anyway, what with the clutter of pop-psych and self-the trauma of job change. Hence the huge longterm market for improvement books stashed on the desk and rising from the career coaching, which Patrick is poised to conquer. There's big floor. But I am programmed to proceed and cannot deviate money to be made. Very big.

from the Plan. In the spirit of a person who has walked to the

"I was the first career coach," he interjects tonelessly. "I end of the plank and is taking her first steps out onto air, I started in the seventies, before all the rest of them came announce, "Patrick, I've been thinking about it. I've studied your along."

video and my notes from the boot camp, and I think
you
should

"Fine." Now I think I have him where I want him. He's accepting hire me. You need a PR person. You need an image makeover.

my framework for this event, or at least he's not imposing his own, And I'm the person to do it."

and this gives me the courage to rattle on: You have a gift.

Getting no response except for a sudden neck twitch that Anyone can see that. Many things can be learned, but the way he seems to be addressed to a muscle pain, I plunge into my pre-works with people, which I saw at the boot camp, that's not pared pitch: The career coaching industry can only expand.

something that can be learned. The ability to look at a person Whether or not the economy improves. And this is because the and really see what's going on with them. When I watched him corporate world has changed. Today, in the wake of the last reat the boot camp, I couldn't believe he wasn't a trained cession, companies are intent on being permanently lean; they psychotherapist.

churn people in and out as needed, so that the average executive

"Well, I am. I've done that."

or professional can expect to hold—what?—about ten or eleven The flattery is working, and—who knows?—there is an outside jobs in a lifetime whether he or she wants to or not.
39
And it's possibility that he might be able to raise the money to hire me from interesting, isn't it, that our society is so unprepared for this some of his executive contacts. But you're more than a change. College, for example, prepares people for jobs, but not for psychotherapist, I continue, "because you can galvanize a whole group at the same time. That's called charisma. That's something 39 Sennett,
The Corrosion of Character,
p.22.

you have or you don't. You're born with that. It comes from then this emerging Barbara Alexander person is not exactly inside."

myself, or anyone I would want to know. Maybe the makeover is

"I know," he says, addressing the bookshelf. "I have a gift."

kicking in, or maybe it's Patrick's own philosophy, which I acquired at

"The thing is, Patrick," I say as gently as possible, "you're boot camp:
EP
varies exponentially with
PSWB,
meaning that my
stuck."
That's his word and his central theme in the "sweet inner self-confidence can bend the world to my will. Clearly spot" video—dealing with people who are stuck.

thrown off, he gets up and moves to the desk chair, as if to

"Like look at that boot camp," I continue. "Now I don't reabsorb his lost authority through the seat of his pants.

know what your plan is, your mission, and if you want to tell me

"Let's talk about your video, the one about the sweet spot. It it's to reach the laid-off sixty-five-K-a-year middle manager, fine, I doesn't work. Terrible production values. And look at the have complete respect for that. It's an important demographic, and
semiotics
of it—that's a word we use in PR," I tell him, amazed at I can respect you if your mission is to work with them. I admire my own creativity. "You've got a bunch of people that you're you for that." I am trying to suggest that his operation might as supposedly interacting with, inspiring, and all we see is the well be the Salvation Army, and he is twisting his neck again, so backs of their heads."

all I can see is the corner of his eyes.

"I only had one camera."

"But," I go on, "that's not where the money is. If you're I shrug. "Why didn't you invest more in something so important?"

looking to make money, you have to aim for the one- to two-

"But there was great energy in the room."

hundred-K person. And that's where I can help you."

"Maybe, but the viewer doesn't see it. They don't get a hint of

"But we're here to talk about Barbara Alexander," he says, tapping your charisma."

the legal pad on his lap.

Since he seems to accept this, I plunge deeper. What else is there

"We are. We're talking about what she can do for you." I have to do, now that I've started, except to see the plan through?

never before in my life spoken of myself in the third person, but

"The other thing is that I do coaching on public speaking.

You're very, very good, but you could be better. Trouble is, Aha, further vulnerability! I have the sense now of being you tend to flub your anecdotes; you let them dribble away; you engaged in a life-or-death struggle; whose grift will prevail? I return don't draw the point. I can help with that. You need a crisper to my qualifications as a PR person, the brilliant nationwide approach."

successes, the careers I have helped launch. He could still win if he

"So . . . you . . . want," he says, letting each syllable struggle to could find the strength to patronize me, as in: "That's great, now I find its way out, "to . . . market . . . me."

want you to go out and try this on a real potential employer"—

If it weren't for the sepulchral tone of this utterance, I perhaps accompanied by an indulgent chuckle. But no, he has to might be annoyed. Where has he been for the past twenty min-get defensive: "You haven't seen anything of my true gifts," he utes? But it's clear I'm not just dealing with a severe case of says, "just this much"—indicating the tip of his pinky.

narcissism here. Right before my eyes, a man is being sucked down I acknowledge my ignorance as to the true extent of his gifts.

into some dark sticky substrate of the mind. I want to save

"You're saying a lot of things, but you don't know what I've him. I also—where is this coming from?—want to push him been going through recently," he says, and moves on to a list of down deeper into the enveloping muck. "Listen to yourself," I explanations that would be laughed out of his own boot camp say, leaning forward, "how your voice falls when you say that.

as "excuses." There was a "business divorce" involving a sudden loss of What I'm picking up on here is depression."

assets. He had to find another apartment and move to this smaller If he can be a psychotherapist, so can I. If he could reduce office. Three long-term clients unexpectedly bailed. As for the Cynthia to tears with a diagnosis, I can offer one of my own. At any boot camp, with its population of $65K guys, that was not typical moment, of course, he's free to say, "Look, I'll do the for him. He just "cherry-picks" the boot camps to get people coaching here, thank you very much," and crush my chutzpah under for his ExecuTable. That's where he makes his real money.

his heel.

Inspired by his own defense, he makes another attempt to seize

"It's the sleeping pills I'm taking; they make me like this."

power: "But you're here for some coaching, right?"

I could be really mean. I could demand to know, "What's write the book itself. Plus, I can help him write the book. I can Patrick's problem?" and shout "Patrick!" as the boot campers edit, pull things together. Does he have a publisher? No. An did with the hapless Kevin. But I just barrel along with my agent? No. I can help him with all that. I'm connected.

plan for him. In the boot camp he had mentioned that he is The hour is coming to an end, thank God, and I want to be writing a book, I remind him. That could be the platform we the first to acknowledge this fact. I tell him that I don't want to launch him from. When will it be done? Because with the take up any more of his time, although it is hard to imagine that book in hand . . . And I outline the book tour, the Oprah ap-he has anything else to do with it, the phone having rung only pearance, the lecture bookings, and how about a Wall Street once during our time together—a low rate of interpersonal event—a lunch maybe, for some of the movers and shakers, contact, I cannot help but observe, for the self-with him as the speaker?

proclaimed inventor of career coaching. One of the things I

"You could do that?"

learned from Kimberly is to tell people exactly what you want I assure him that I do that and more every day of my life as a them to do for you, so I tell him two things: First, I want him to PR person-slash-event planner. Could he give me a brief think my proposition over. I know it must be strange, coming out summary of the book?

of the blue like this, but I'm perfectly serious. Second, I want This, it seems to me, is his last chance to rise from the mat him to let me into the ExecuTable group.

and reclaim his position as coach. But he seems to have lost interest He has one last bit of fight in him. As I pack away my note-in the match, or maybe I never quite engaged his attention. "If a book and pen, he announces that he could coach me on "pre-person has a gift . . . ," he begins, and goes off into a couple of sentation." My manner is too "gruff."

sentences that are too garbled for me to record in my notes.

Gruff?
It seems to me an odd word to apply to a person Hmmm, we're not quite there yet, I tell him, but not to worry; it's who has spent the last hour cajoling, persuading,
selling.

almost as much effort to perfect a media-ready summary as it is to

"You told me all kinds of things without knowing what I'm going through. You seem
angry."

With that brilliant riposte, I offer to pay him for his time, since I am taken aback. I don't feel any anger toward Patrick—

I've taken up an hour that could have been used as a coaching session.

pity, of course, and a certain contempt for his entire profes-He says the fee will be $175, quite a bit more than the $75 he sion. If I'm guilty of anything here, it is an excess of that mentioned in his e-mail confirmation of our session, but I write vaunted corporate quality—focus. I came to sell myself and did not the check without comment, shake his hand, remind him I'll be let myself get deflected from this mission by Patrick's obvious calling in a week, and leave.

distress; wicked from a humane point of view, perhaps, but So who won? If a job was the goal, I lost, but I knew from the perfectly acceptable, I had thought, for a go-getting, moment I entered his office that there was no job to be had.

proactive, highly focused, "seasoned professional." Yes, I've been The important thing, I tell myself, is that I managed to make using a beaten man to hone my self-selling skills, but my pitch for almost an hour, and this man supposedly gifted Kimberly, I suspect, would approve.

with such superior insight, such rare "people skills," never saw Then too—how could I have forgotten?—I'm a woman.

through it. Unless you count that outburst of sexist cattiness at the very end, he was taken in, even tempted, by visions of Oprah The typically masculine word
gruff
is the clue that I have bro-dancing before his eyes. On the other hand, he's the one who has ken some perhaps Atlanta-based gender rule here. Maybe it's the $175, so from a brutal bottom-line perspective, he's the one who the "inaccessible" tailored shirt. But I do not give an inch. It's came out ahead.