fun

Sandrine Norcross, heiress

| mmgilbert

Back then, it would have been really easy to say, “I hate my life.” But given how rich my parents were, it would have been not just ungrateful but obnoxious. And I was obnoxious enough as it was. When my parents were alive, I was the cliché of the little rich kid: bratty, imperious, just plain nasty, but also lonely and emotionally needy. I was and still am pretty sure I was the result of a drunken accident. Not wanted. An inconvenience. My parents were terrible at being parents. I had nannies, tutors, and companions until they shipped me off to school.  And once that happened, I’d only see my parents when they flew me to wherever they were having fun, having flings, drinking much too much. Daddy was really smart, made piles of money in real estate and in finance. Mommy was an ornament. If they weren’t killed in that car crash, they surely would have divorced. I grew up with almost no one I could feel close. I had no sense of direction. When I got to the very prestigious boarding school they dumped me in, I was disobedient, disruptive in class, and nasty, convinced the school was a dumping ground for unwanted children or a prison. I was not popular. But after a while, things got better. what saved me from being a total slug was the brains I inherited from Daddy. Despite myself, I began reading everything I got my hands on, loved math, wrote poetry, and found myself in one advanced class after another. I graduated high school at 16 and went on to what can only be described as an exceptional college career. I graduated magna cum laude and was supposed to started on an advanced degree. But right after I graduated college – the very next week, in fact – Mommy and Daddy had their car accident. And things got very weird very fast. I needed to grow up fast. Daddy had named me not only as his sole heir but also head of all the businesses he owned, companies I knew nothing about. Most of the people involved in those companies – almost all overbearing men with loud voices – were lying bastards out to steal what they could from me. To them, I was this dumb, naïve kid, a nuisance who stood in the way of their getting whatever they wanted. In a few cases, “whatever they wanted” was me in bed with them.  Some seemed fatherly, supportive, and helpful. They were the worst. My graduate school plans went out the window. And my personal life, what little there was of it, went to hell. No big deal. Men found me attractive enough; both my parent had been very good looking. But most of the boys I was in school with saw me as standoffish, stuck-up, and intimidating. I had better grades than any of them. And I pushed buttons too. Like it wasn’t smart of me to think I could attract boys by driving around in a Mercedes sports car. And I was a smarty pants who was a pretty good tennis player. So, I tended to end up with jerks conceited enough to think they were hot stuff. Some were pretty good looking and amusing but that was it. I dated one or another of them from time to time. Nothing serious. And that all stopped when I had to get my head around the situation my father left me in and make sure everything was as it should be. It all took longer than I ever expected. I had to learn stuff quickly and I did. But the business world wasn’t for me. Too many misogynists. Too much dumb stuff. I did not like being so tough. And I had to be a tough SOB from time to time. I turned everything into investments so I could do what I really wanted. And suddenly, there I was. I went back to school, got a Ph.D., got a job in a research company, met a guy at a conference and married him and started my own foundation. There’s a kid coming and I’m hoping we’ll be a better parent than the ones I had. Of course, it never hurts to have roughly one hundred million in the bank.

78. Herman Dillington, Regional Planner

| mmgilbert
“At least he was good at it.”

“This has got to be one of the worst jobs in the world.” That’s what Roger, Herman’s cousin concluded after Herman described what he did for a living. “It’s just a lot of crazy people and spending time and effort trying to do stuff that ain’t never going to happen.” To which Herman kind of smiled with half-closed eyes and whispered, “Yup.” Herman reacted that way to a lot of things. It was easier that way. Herman is a big guy, one of those people who doesn’t say much and who seem to be somewhere else a lot of the time. Anyway, that conversation was five years ago. Herman hasn’t seen Roger since because their talk happened about a week before it all went off the rails. Back then, Herman was Director of a 50-person regional planning department for a large midwestern state. His department dealt with issues like the location of a new shopping center, the impact of diverting a small creek on a wetland area. Or evaluating the effect of a new public works project on traffic flow. He got the job through political connections. And it suited him. He never got rattled when people got all hot and bothered, screaming and yelling, threatening law suits, or worse during planning meetings or public hearings. And within his department, he was a respected leader. Things could get stressful but the job was secure enough and if it didn’t pay all that well, there were a lot of benefits. He had a nice home, a wife, and two kids. In his community, he was somebody. But the thing about Herman is that while he might seem to be somewhere else when you talk with him, he really is in a way. That’s because, deep down, he sees himself as a complete fraud, his whole career built on good luck and deception. Others in his department had advanced degrees in economics, design, sociology and urban planning. There’s even a Ph.D. in anthropology. They deserved to be there. A Physical Education major in college, Herman never took a course in regional planning or anything related to it. He didn’t graduate either. Flunked out. Herman got his job through his childhood friendship with his state’s governor and on his ability to get on with people. His previous jobs were in sales. As he saw it, he was nothing but a faker and glad-hander. A pretender. And he went through every day fully expecting to be exposed and chased out of the building. So, when some irregularities in his expense accounts and a few ill-considered acceptances of gifts – including a paid vacation for his family – came to light, he figured his best bet was to resign before he became an embarrassment. Which he did. And which led him into a deep depression. He couldn’t see his way forward. He couldn’t see himself going back to selling stuff. And he expected that his career in regional planning was over. He was terrified. Even suicidal. But a few weeks after he resigned, he got a phone call. It was from a large, highly respected architectural and urban planning consulting firm. They needed a front man, someone who knew how to attract and manage clients. They had their eye on him for years. They knew all about him and his background. It took a big chunk of his adult life, but, right then and there, Herman was beginning to understand that if he were a fraud, at least he was good at it.