One of my, strange but true, stories from Corporate Life

When I think back over my time in corporate life, 32 years and counting, there are lots of stories to tell. This one goes under the category of very strange but true.  The time was the 90's, the venue, a business meeting in upstate New York.  We were putting together a partnership with a company located close to the Canadian border. After a long day of negotiations, my contact took me into the firms VP to update him on our progress. Have you ever met somebody that just immediately rubbed you the wrong way? I meet lots of people but this guy just had a superior attitude about him. It was like others were beneath him, he had a cold, dead look in his eyes, kind of hard to describe. Almost like he looked right through you. Later that night my contact confirmed that he was a pretty odd guy, very impersonal and not liked at all. Anyway, we told him we had agreed on the major discussion points and the lawyers were drawing up the contracts that we would sign the next day.  My contact suggested we have a celebratory dinner and off we went. It was myself, a colleague and six people from the company we were negotiating with.

Dinner was fun, a good group of guys, mostly sales types so lots of conversation going on. It was early when we finished dinner and the host suggested we cross the Canadian border and hit one of the casinos. I'm not big on casinos having worked with them for years on the technology side. But, I didn't want to be a stick in the mud, so we headed north.  The casino was fine, I mostly watched and had a few laughs.

My contact came over at one point and sort of whispered to me. "The guys want to go to one of the strip clubs, they're really good in Canada, the girls are completely nude"  I wasn't sure this was a great idea , I really prefer to stick with business ,but talked to my colleague and he was agreeable. So, we agreed but I stipulated , two drinks maximum and we are out of there. All agreed and we jumped in the cars.

The strip club was a huge enterprise and we were all seated at a large round table in front of a stage. A gal was just finishing her dance when we sat down. And, he was correct, she was totally nude. We all ordered a drink and were deep in discussion. I was talking to my contact about business when the next gal came out to dance. She was a late twenties, dirty blonde hair and very attractive. Great figure. To this day I'll never forget the look on my contacts face when he said "Holy shit, that's my bosses wife"  I laughed and said, ha ha that's a good one.  He replied, "I'm serious that's my bosses wife"  The rest of his colleagues had the same look of astonishment. After a minute or so of dancing, the stripper looked at our table and the same look came over her. Stunned silence at our table.

Strippers need love too

After her dance, the bosses wife came running down to our table and sat right beside me. Fully nude of course, at this point, what's the use of covering up.  "I'm so embarrassed she said, please don't say a word about this to my husband"  My contact chimed in, "I don't understand, why are you stripping, what the hell is going on? "

The stripper explained that she was estranged from her husband and even though they were still in the same house, he had cut off all sources of funds to her. She was desperate to move back home  and needed money. "well,  my contact said, couldn't you be like a secretary or something?"

The stripper explained, "it's the only real skill I have, that's where my husband met me, I was stripper"
Holy shit!  So the no nonsense, better that every one else VP had married a stripper? It boggled the mind.

We are chatted for thirty minutes or so and I discovered that she was from my home town and believe it or not, we knew some common people. Truth be told, it was little difficult maintaining eye contact with her, she was very naked and very attractive.

After the shock wore off, it was pretty funny to be honest, my contact made the best quip of the night when he said "whenever I saw you at a company function, like the last Christmas party, I always thought, wow she's hot, I wonder what she looks like naked, but who knew I would find out this way"

Needless to say, the next day's meeting, with the VP to sign the contract was surreal. Everyone in the meeting, in fact by then everyone in company, knew the story. All except for the VP. Everyone was in on the joke but him.  It was smirks all around the room for sure. Sort of a karma thing.

Certainly one of my oddest moments in my work history and one I'll never forget. Have a strange work story to share? Please do.