Can This Bottle Girl Be Saved?

What happens…

. . . when a rambunctious Magna Cum Laude from Princeton—in her third year of law school—wants to run off and become a bottle girl at “an upscale gentlemen’s club”?

Wellll, Friends, I haven’t the foggiest.

Ms. Princeton’s letter is from The Vault—the presumed-dead-letter file of Ask E. Jean—a rowdy place chock full of wild questions I answered, published in Elle years ago, and never heard back from the correspondent.

So today I’m gonna run her letter (and a slice of my answer) and we’re gonna GUESS what happened to Ms. Princeton. And while we’re guessing, maybe Ms. Princeton will see it, or one of her friends will see it and text her: “Hey! You’re in E. Jean’s Substack, and decades later, Ms. Princeton will stroll into our Comments thread, carrying a tray of martinis, and tell us what happened.

But first…

. . . This correspondent requires some quick advice before she screws up her career.

Dear E. Jean:

This won't be the first time you give me career advice. You answered me when I was just starting out, and since then I’ve grown, and attained some impressive achievements.

So why am I writing again? I’m intimidating my managers. I’ve become something of an expert and I ace strategy execution. I’m now six weeks into a new gig and I have gone from being the best thing since sliced bread at Week Five, to being brutally sidelined at Week Six. I am being sidelined for wanting too much out of my organization and shocking the establishment with my hunger for results. I’m that woman who packs cheerful manners, can-do spirit, a razor-sharp eye for details and a healthy dose of bullshit-aversion.

In my last three jobs, I seem to have quickly triggered managers who could not see the big picture, or were blind to the success I could bring them. Each actively tried to sideline me and take credit for my work. So if I’m viewed as “intimidating,” how can I serve the greater good and equip the public sector organizations that I work for to better serve the public? How do I change this without checking-out? —Worn Out from Causing Good Trouble

Trouble, My Trollymog:

As a member in good standing of the Most Noble Order of the Stern Girdle, the Advice Columnist and Spelunker Society, I could probably just say:

Trouble, Honey, your managers don’t think you’re “intimidating.” They think you’re an asshole.

And—as a member of the Most Noble Order—I could go on and solve your problem by advising you to simply cease yakking, listen occasionally to your co-workers, execute your own and your manager’s ideas, and so on; but I’ve never told a woman to shut up, and I don’t intend to start now.

So. Here’s what you’re gonna do: Because you think of the “greater good,” because you’re an ace at execution, because you “want too much,” because you’re “hungry for results,” because you see the “big picture,” because you have “a razor-sharp eye for details,” because you are, in other words, a totally obnoxious employee, stop working for everybody else, and start working for yourself. All the traits you list? Impatience, drive, defiance, ambition, a heart to change things, and “can-do spirit”—those are the traits of a founder.

You want to “shock the establishment?” Start your own company.

And now . . .

… back to Our Bottle Girl’s Letter and Your Guesses as to What She’s Uncorking Now

Dear E. Jean:

I need your advice, please! In a nutshell, here’s my question: What would you think of a twenty-five-year-old law student, raised in an upper-middle-class Jewish suburban Long Island home, who is considering working at night in Manhattan as a cocktail waitress at an “upscale gentlemen's club” (read topless) wearing a G-string and bra top in order to pay off the $20,000 in credit card bills she racked up living like a princess the past year?

[Reader! Hail! E. Jean interrupting to say that $20,000 then is $39,000 in today’s dollars. We may now continue.]

The background: My family and friends know nothing about my debt. I graduated Magna Cum Laude from Princeton.

[Pardon me, EJC butting in again to say this letter is from 1993 or 1994, when magna cum laudes were not as easy to get as Sam’s Club cards.]

I’m in my final year at law school, proceeding along the “correct” path for someone from my background. Except I have this secret. I have four credit cards that I maxed out. It sounds pathetic; but I have allowed myself to spend like I was some rich man’s wife. I have a great wardrobe, but I’m in serious trouble! I hope to start paying off my debt. Law school takes up about three days of my week, so I have time on my hands.

I’m 5’9” and attractive. Not to sound conceited, but I have this ability to flirt with men and make them feel like they are the most special man in the room. (Probably the result of years of manipulating my father—a typical fifty-year-old, egomaniacal, power-hungry CEO—and every boss I’ve had since I was seventeen, not to mention my numerous arrogant, cocky, good-looking, successful, son-of-a-bitch boyfriends over the years. But my man problems are not the subject of this letter.

I know I’ll make the most money where there are only men, and I’ve already been offered a job in the most upscale gentlemen's club in the city. I’m wavering. Part of me thinks this is nuts! It’s over my head. I’m a fairly sheltered former rich girl. What if I see people I’ve worked with—clients, college friends, former boyfriends—how would I feel? What if my family found out? My friends?

But then part of me thinks I’ve got the figure for it. I’ve got the attitude, so why shouldn’t I do it, and everyone else be damned! I could make a real dent in my debt over the next eight months. Then I could take the bar exam and go back to my normal life as a lawyer. What do you think? —Wavering

That’s the letter, Reader.

Of course, I told her there’s no such thing as “a normal life,” to snap on them nipple-twirlers, do a week of drag racing on that “correct path” of hers

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