Alan Greenspan was promoting his book on Meet the Press last weekend. At the close of the interview, Tim Russert told a humorous anecdote about how when Greenspan began dating his present wife, Andrea Mitchell, he invited her back to his apartment “to read an essay he wrote [on monopolies].”
RUSSERT: Do you often lure women back to your apartment by saying, “You want to see my essay”?
MR. GREENSPAN: I didn’t have any sketchings or etchings.
What a great answer. Oddly enough, this art joke from the past was recently mentioned in a very interesting Time article called Words Don’t Mean What They Mean:
“Would you like to come up and see my etchings?” has been recognized as a double entendre for so long that by 1939, James Thurber could draw a cartoon of a hapless man in an apartment lobby saying to his date, “You wait here, and I’ll bring the etchings down.”
Vague, ambiguous statements – arguably good when dating, unquestionably bad when dealing with clients. Recommit yourself to doing more up-front work, asking more questions, writing clearer proposals, finally finishing up those pesky “terms and conditions” and “policies” pages on your website, doing all the little things that result in fewer surprises down the road.
