Mr. Haig-Ereildoun may be like me. Full of charm, winning everyone’s affection, but somehow not quite doing the job. I can say that the advertising agency chose me to fire because I was the youngest … But I know it was more basic than that. I did win awards. But I lost hours, days, weeks, trying to make jewels out of the twenty-five-cents-off coupons ads. Everyone loved me, but in a practical world I wasn’t what they needed. It’s hard, actually scary, being the kind of people Mr. Haig-Ereildoun and I are.

The Diary of an American Au Pair by Marjorie Leet Ford, Anchor Books, 2003, p. 182