Undercover New York: The Escort Service

A lighthearted workplace joke about starting an escort service for businesswomen takes an unexpected turn when one co-worker thinks the idea is real.

When you work at a lower-paying job, you occasionally get antsy. When I got antsy, I would build castles in the air. Those were the days of taboo-breaking, Ms. magazine, and the back pages of The Village Voice.

One afternoon at lunch, a few female colleagues and I cooked up the following idea: There were many “escort services” for tired businessmen, but nary a one designed to serve tired businesswomen. We started to discuss it at work. We got as far as a name for it (thank goodness I’ve forgotten what it was) and even sketched out a bit of promotional literature.

One day, a thirtyish male colleague showed up better dressed than usual. He generally wore clean but unremarkable chinos and a sports shirt. Today he wore a three-piece suit. He also wore the most terrible expression: a kind of half-embarrassed but also half-hopeful grin.

I remember his name but will omit it here.

This brought us back to reality.

Employees of a social services agency, we would be encouraging what is commonly known as “vice.”

On top of this, I had already earned my MSW. How would it look when the articles in the tabloids said one of the arrested ringleaders of this notorious escort service had an MSW, a middle-class degree if there ever were one?

I could see the television footage: the bunch of us guilty females bent double during the perp walk, trying to cover our faces so that the general public wouldn’t recognize us.

I was sure they would prosecute us. We were all middle class, which meant that we couldn’t get away with anything. I used to joke to people about my father’s driving. I told them that if he attempted the slightest infraction, a little trapdoor would open up in the middle of the road and a cop would come out. My father was an accountant.

We had to tell our male colleague that the escort service, which had seemed like such a good idea, was also a joke.

He was very disappointed, but he got over it.