A couple of the guys were yakking

 about their kids and one of the guys has a pair of daughters that are doing excellent in college and both are getting marketable degrees.

I was sitting there reading a week-old paper which means I was being coy. The guy with the two daughters wondered if there was anything he could do to help them get a jump start in their careers.

The degree is imperative in their fields. Both of them will have that when they graduate. So will everyone else in their class. 

From the back of the paper I said, "Tell Julie to lose 20 pounds and get Janice's hair fixed. Get both of them trained somewhere in professional fashion and the use of cosmetics."

"Whaddya ya mean by that?" he snapped, angrily. 'You want me to make my daughters look like a couple of whores?"


I lowered my paper. "Not whores, idiot. Attractive polished professional women. If you polish them up a bit they'll have a lot better chance of getting ahead," I said.

"They'll have degrees," he said. "Marketable ones,too."

"You said you wanted something extra to get them ahead. You asked and I told you. Every single kid they graduate with is going to have the same degree they do. People gravitate to attractive people. Attractive, confident people get treated better and generally get further in life," I said.

"It's all about being good," he said.

"When you had that payroll problem a while back, who did you go to see, Beth or Joanne?" I asked.

"I went to see Joanne," he said. "Everyone says she's pretty sharp."

"Everybody's wrong," I said. "When I have a problem I see Beth because she gets the job done faster. Joanne simply had your money added to your next check. When I needed grub money shuffled Beth had me squared away right then and there and made sure the square-up on my paycheck was right. No waiting, no errors."

"The guys said," he started before I interrupted him.

"Joanne dresses well and makes herself attractive. Beth looks like an old maid schoolteacher. That's why the guys like her. Joanne's OK. She gets the job done, but Beth gets it done with a whole lot less trouble. Still the guys flock to Joanne based on appearance. Pour yourself a cuppa mud and let's look at this from something besides your dim daddy of two girls hillbilly eyes."

He sat down and I proceeded.

"Look, you're running a truck stop and need another waitress. You have 3 applicants. One is 100% honest, one is pretty honest, one is shaky. Which one would you hire?"

"I'd hire the honest one. How about you?" he asked.

"The one with the biggest tits," I shot back. "The system of checks and balances will keep them honest enough and I want someone slinging hash that'll get those truckers to keep coming back and chowing down on the leftover dog food meat loaf at $10 a plate."

"Yeah, but we're not talking about being a waitress," he said.

"Right and we're not talking about beehive hairdos, push up bras, open blouses and shoveled on truck stop waitress makeup here, either. Incidentally what works at Mel's Diner doesn't work at an upscale restaurant, either. A local family dining place nearby just let a bartender go for showing up with too much cleavage showing."

"Yeah?" he answered.

"Uh huh," I said. "They let her go but they put in a good word for her with the owner of a joint a couple of miles away that caters to a different crowd where it's appreciated. For the place that let her go a busty Betty-Lou and 'What can I getcha, Hon?" doesn't work.

"Yeah, I know what you mean," he said.


What we're talking about subtle polish. A smudge of makeup here, a wisp of pastel eye shadow there. " I answered. "A polished professional appearance will take someone a long way." I said.

I continued. "Companies are hiring both the ability to do the job they were hired to and to represent the company to the general public. The ability to attend seminars, meetings, speak publicly and put the company in a good light in addition to what they were basically hired to do." 

"Look, we're just ordinary people," he said. 

'Yup, that we are," I replied. "Trick is to take an ordinary country girl and shine her up a bit. Ship 'em off to charm school and they'll do just fine."

"I suppose I ought to have a word with Julie to lose a few pounds," he confessed. "What do you think a course in that kind of stuff would cost? I mean about clothes and stuff?"

"It's going to be a tough row to hoe," I said. "Julie has that kind of weight that's going to be hard to lose, but it will certainly help. As for Janice she ought to do OK, just polish 'em up a bit," I answered.

"As for finding someone that can teach the kids how to dress, I don't have a clue, I continued, "Years ago there were a lot of finishing schools but I haven't heard of one in decades. Besides, most of them were geared to women becoming WIVES of big shots. Maybe there's a course at school that will at least get them started. Incidentally, we're not trying to turn them into stuffy little twits so much as give them some confidence."

They don't seem to polish people up in college these days and God knows they don't in public schools but they still seem to do this to a certain extent in Old School private academies. The reason they make the male students there wear a jacket and tie to classes is to get them used to it to the point where they don't think of it and take for granted that it's what they will wear in their careers.

Part of the reason successful people often have successful kids is because they can afford to school their children in places that train them for success in the first place.

Incidentally the services tend to provide a pretty good finishing school. It goes for both men and women. People that make it to captain generally have been polished up enough to play the game.

They at least know enough not to show up for an informal Friday barefoot in cotoffs and a T-shirt. They know that informal means one step down from their usual uniform.

The Fortune 500 companies know this and recruit from junior officers that are serving to pay off ROTC college loans or otherwise have no career plans with the service. An awful lot of these people get fast-tracked business.

One of the things that a country style background IS helpful with are the situations that come up from time to time that even the finest academy doesn't teach.

They can handle common everyday problems a whole lot easier. A country girl can often put her two little fingers in her mouth and let out an Ellie May Clampett whistle that you can hear for blocks. It's a very useful skill for hailing a cab in the Big City.

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I'll add another thing. I'm lousy with dress clothes. When I need a decent outfit I get my kid sister on it because she's got a good eye for things. She makes me look good.


To find out why the blog is pink just cut and paste this: http://piccoloshash.blogspot.com/2009/12/my-feminine-side-blog-stays-pink.html