Try to imagine that you are the son of a prominent politician who will ultimately rise to the second highest executive office in the land, and your very first job out of law school, when ol' Dad's a mere United States senator, is with a major bank holding company that just happens to be a major contributor to your father's political campaigns. Wonder of wonders, within two years of being a new hire, you are the executive vice president of said company. But you don't tell Daddy about that astonishing advancement because you and Dad, operating out of a keen sense of political and familial decorum, simply don't ever discuss your phenomenal career successes.

Then you become a Washington lobbyist, and you and your father maintain your separation and propriety with an agreement in which ol' Pops won't ask you about your lobbying clients and you won't tell him about them. One has to wonder how those seeking influence and advantage in Washington by paying your lobbying firm all those big bucks feel about how all that high-minded family rectitude serves their purposes. As for your newly acquired hedge fund, Daddy already knows about all those investors, but you're not about to ever discuss them with him.

At age 43, when many naval officers are approaching retirement, you are selected to be directly commissioned as a very junior officer in the Naval Reserve, an astounding accomplishment requiring double waivers for your being two tokes over the line: your advanced age, as well as previous drug and alcohol usage — both waivers, no doubt, obtained entirely by your own ingenuity and persistence, inasmuch as you and dear ol' Dad still are maintaining that wall of professional and familial separation, meaning he would never, ever have used his position to pressure the Pentagon to offer an unheard of commission to an unqualified candidate.

Of course, it's a good move for the service: the Naval Reserve pooh-bahs could be expected to eagerly issue such waivers, considering all the benefits you can bring to their service in the decades before you retire in your sixties to collect that nice monthly pension. Ah, but then your nautical ambitions go overboard a single month later, when you can't clear a drug scan, and even dear ol' Daddy can't fade that degree of Pentagon heat — not that he'd try, of course.

But your fickle fortune cookie favors you, and on a fortuitous flight to China with Pops on Air Taxpayer, you sit on opposite sides and ends of the cabin, and you speak not a word of business to each other for fourteen hours so as to maintain your principled propriety. While in China, you discuss nothing but family matters, and Dad introduces you to no one. Nor, on the return flight, do you address matters of commerce due to similar seating arrangements as before. Can you just imagine your old man's surprise when he finally learns from the financial news that the Chinese have awarded your hedge fund an investment deal worth more than $1.6 billion? You can just picture Pop's pride in his boy, except, of course, he can't discuss it with you, because it just wouldn't be proper.

Then, a year later, through your unique personal qualifications, you manage to land a sweet seat on the board of a Ukrainian natural gas company to the tune of $50K to $100K per month, in spite of being behind the curve on the country and knowing nada about natural gas except for Daddy's dazed emissions. Here you just got the boot for taking a toot, and now you are collecting some serious coin. A proud son must be champing at the bit to show Poppa what a self-made success you are, but nope, just wouldn't be proper, now, would it? So you stifle your pride and don't tell the old man a thing about this latest extraordinary turn in your fortunes, because of that conscientious clan claim to indisputable integrity — which makes you wonder how Dad manages to find out about your position in time to call those clowns in Kiev and convince them to call off their corruption investigation, saving your job and your fairly earned compensation.

Try to imagine how your dear ol' daddy ever knows to do that when he doesn't even know you're on the board that's being investigated. It sure wasn't you who told him about it, because we all know that just wouldn't be proper, now would it?

Image: Marc Nozell via Flickr.