My client was too attractive

There are some factors in this story that I wouldn’t normally include but I think they give important context and hopefully make sure I don’t come out of this looking unprofessional.

I’m a heterosexual male. The person I was managing was a heterosexual female. See what I mean, I wouldn’t normally start a story like this. It reminds me of the boomers in my family who often throw in the race of a person in their story but it has no actual relevancy to the rest of the story. This has relevance I promise.

So this was a few years back and I was managing a team in a recruitment agency and we were going to visit a new client at their office.

In the lead up to the meeting, myself and the other recruiter had discussed how this was her meeting and I was there for support and if she needed me. She was happy with this plan, she was ready to lead meetings like this and I wanted her to be someone that could show a Junior colleague the ropes on the next client.

Maybe another key piece of information that I missed was my colleague was tall and therefore was attracted to tall men. This might not be something all managers know about their team but we’d worked together a long time and had that sort of friendship.

We get to the clients office and everything is normal and then this absolute 10/10 man walks out to great us.

As mentioned, I’m a heterosexual man but I’m also very comfortable to say when another man is good looking. This man made Brad Pitt look like absolute garbage.

He was at least 6’4 and his shoulders were as wide as the door frame.

Strong jaw, green-blue eyes, he was dressed like he was about to do a fashion shoot for Perfect Man Monthly. He was wearing a tight fitted jumped (I think it was cashmere) that looked like it had been designed specifically for him.

Never in my life have I worn a jumped and also had visible pecs and triceps.

He was built like an AFL player who happened to be an Olympic swimmer on the weekends.

I could feel the shift in my colleagues energy, she stumbled on her words when greeting him and laughed at nothing. “Take a deep breath” I tried to telepathically communicate with her.

We went into a meeting room and after 2 or 3 minutes I could tell she wasn’t herself. We’d planned on me saying nothing and I did not want to be that guy who dominated meetings or took over because I was more Senior, I didn’t see that as my job or helpful.

But in this situation, I had to.

I mean even I struggled to run the meeting and while I can tell you he was so attractive it was distracting, I wasn’t attracted to him and I think that’s an important distinction.

We left the clients office and the first thing she said to me was “thank you so much for taking over. I couldn’t not think straight”

Now I imagine their could be some people out their judging her or maybe me as well for not being professional enough to put their looks out of thought and carry on with the business at hand.

It’s actually why I haven’t written about this before, I wasn’t sure if people would then think we’re justing running around trying to find attractive people to do business with or that it’s a factor in our work.

This man was an exception. It was like someone carved a Greek God and then cast a spell and put him in charge of a Business.

I cannot recall any other person in the thousands that I’ve met as candidates or clients that was so attractive it was distracting.

But it’s a topic that I’ve also thought about, how attractiveness effects your career.

I have no experience being a super attractive person, so I don’t know if it helps you get jobs and progress or hinders it due to jealousy? Or do you get a lot of unwanted job and promotion offers, for seedy reasons from seedy people?

It’s something that SHOULDN’T be a factor when assessing people, let me be clear on that.

But I also don’t believe that 100% of people out there aren’t letting it be a factor in their decision making.