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“It’s allergies,” I insisted.
But I didn’t even sound convincing to myself.
“What are you allergic to? Your coworkers kissing by my infinity pool?”
I should have gone with “pollen.” Right? A classic.
But instead, as my brain short-circuited, I felt that acid bleeding out from my heart and saturating me from the inside. What was I allergic to? I was allergic to disappointment. I was allergic to betrayal. I was allergic to friendship. To hope. To optimism. To life, to work, to humanity in general.
And so just I answered with, “I’m allergic to everything,” and I walked out of the garage.
Jack let me leave, which was a relief.
I didn’t want to talk, or process, or explore my feelings, for God’s sake—and even if I had wanted to do any of those things, I would never in a million years have done them with him.
You don’t talk about your life with clients.
You just don’t.
You wind up knowing everything about your principals—but they never know anything about you. And that’s how it has to be.
But here’s the thing: The clients never understand that. It feels so much like a real relationship, it’s hard to keep it clear. You’re traveling together, going to bars together, skiing together, hanging out at the beach together. You’re there for their ups and downs, their fights, and their secrets. Your purpose in their lives is to create security so they can feel normal.
If you’re doing a good job, they do feel normal.
But you never do.
You never lose sight of your purpose. And part of keeping that focus is knowing—backward, forward, inside out, and upside down—that they are not your friends.
Friends might wipe the tears off your face with their shirtsleeves, but clients never should.
Which is why I had never once in eight years cried in front of a client.
Until today.
You have to maintain professional distance, or you can’t do your job. And the only way to do that while spending every minute of every shift together is to never, ever share anything personal. Clients ask personal questions all the time. You just don’t answer. You pretend you didn’t hear, or you change the subject, or—most effective of all—you turn the question back on itself.
The answer to “Are you scared?” should be “Are you scared?”
The answer to “Do you have a boyfriend?” should be “Do you have a boyfriend?”
See how easy that is? Works every time.
And what’s more? They never even notice.
Because mostly, when people ask you about you, what they really want to talk about is them.
Right?
It’s hard to describe the maelstrom of emotions churning around inside me as I made my way out to the driveway with the singular goal of getting to my car and heading home. Shock, agony, humiliation—all there, sure. But add to that: a sense of deep disappointment at letting myself get caught by a client in a real moment of emotion.
Was there a way to recover?
He’d seen the tears, yes. But he couldn’t know for sure exactly what they meant.
I’d go home, regroup, and then—only then—if there was time and I was so inclined, would I let myself think about what I’d just witnessed.
Or maybe not.
