4. Love at the Office

"Once I’d graduated from business school in America and completed my military service, my father had demanded I follow in my brother’s footsteps and become a manager in his business, which was growing by leaps and bounds, and so when I was still very young he’d appointed me the general manager of Satsat, his Harbiye-based distribution and export firm. Satsat had an exaggerated operating budget and made hefty profits, thanks not to me but to various accounting tricks by which the profits from his other factories and businesses were funneled into Satsat (which might be translated into English as “Sell-sell”). I spent my days mastering the finer points of the business from worn-out accountants twenty or thirty years my senior and large-breasted lady clerks as old as my mother; and mindful that I would not have been in charge but for being the owner’s son, I tried to show some humility." (The Museum of Innocence by Orhan Pamuk)