The Cynical Career Counsellor Explains Your Future As

An Aircraft Mechanic (by request)

An aircraft mechanic? You're the kid who put that lawnmower engine on the skateboard, right? Well, it's probably not a bad career, if you can hack it--it will probably work out like this:

You'll have to do all the basic grease monkey wannabe stuff--put in the hours during high school and go for apprenticeships right after--you'll have to work in a regular garage for a little while you wait to hear, but eventually, maybe you'll get in if your grades, references and bribes all fall within the acceptable range. It won't be easy--there's way more parts on a 747 than on your average Hyundai, and if you botch up the car, it doesn't plunge 350 people to a fiery death.

The social life isn't that great--you think you'll have prestige, but the first time you get brushed off by a stewardess will teach you otherwise--heck, you put Brad Pitt in a set of blue coveralls with his name in the little red oval on the front and they wouldn't even give him the time of day. It's okay--you'll spend so much time logging overtime that you'll get to know all the concession ladies well--and when their marriages collapse, you'll pick up the crumbs that fall off the table.

You'll never be truly "comfortable" in your job--even your basic Cessna is a delicate instrument--so you never get to have an "off" day. You will need to learn everything there is to know about simple prop engines and advanced jet aircraft. Then, if you are fortunate enough to work your way from the hellhole bush plane outposts into a major commercial airport, you'll also have to learn to play amateur secret agent--you see, you are one of the last lines of defense against the terrorists' plots to blow planes out of the sky. You must be able to look at an engine and tell if something doesn't look quite right.

You're also going to be the scapegoat if something awful happens--and at some point in your career, it probably will. Face it, they aren't going to insult the pilot's memory and offend his family by publishing the discovery that he had 6 martinis before he crashed the plane full of orphans into the side of the mountain--it will be blamed on "mechanical error"--that's you, bucko. When that happens, you'll be out of a job, and eventually the military will find you--they'll know the real story, and make you an offer you'll be desperate enough to take--fixing helicopters and transport planes in some crappy desert airbase until some would be martyr blows up enough of your anatomy to qualify you for a disability pension.

Still--you get to drink lots of $8 cups of coffee along the way...

Lighter recollections...

More from the trip home:

At church on Easter Sunday a friend introduced me to someone I hadn't seen since junior high--this guy seemed so... quiet, settled--yet all I could think of was that he was the psycho who came home with me in grade 2 and busted all the windows in our playhouse. Must learn to let it go...

Wandering around the mall I realized that everyone--or at least 80% of the population of my home town is fat. I'm not judging them; there's not much else to do there but eat and drink and ride around in your big 4 wheel drive truck.

Took a photo just down the hill from my parents' house--they've clearcut the hillside above my school--not Weyerhaeuser but just a greedy school board this time--and it's now possible to get a picture of both my elementary school and my senior high in the same shot. Here's the picture; click on it for a larger version. If you want waay to much information, there's a link below to a large annotated pic.



The sad thing is that the elementary school--which had 800 kids when I was in grade 4--is now just being rented out to a couple of small private schools, and the high school is closing this June.

Annotated Photo Here (Warning: It's big)

The Kid Who Sit Behind You Explains

The Picture of Dorian Gray

So, like Oscar Wilde was gay and they didn't like it back in the day so he went to prison and then France and I'm not sure which would be worse. Anyway, Oscar Wilde wrote this book before they got him in court for being gay. I think maybe they read this book.

You see, it's all about this young hottie guy (Yeah, not that I think any guys are hot, dude) and his name is Dorian and this painter dude is like all in love with him and then this Lord Henry guy shows up and he's all kind of low key lusting for him too but since it's back in the day they go on for pages and pages and then throw in the whole "oh yeah I'm married to a chick" line in but it's not foolin' anyone, Oscar.

Then the painter gives Dorian the painting of him and Dorian wishes the painting would get old instead of him and it happens and then he falls for this actress chick and she's all "Dorian you're wonderful" and then he's all "No, forget what I said, you suck" and she kills herself and Dorian is all "I'm such a jerk"

Lord Henry comes over and says "cool, like no chick ever offed herself for me" and then Dorian is all "yeah, true dat" and then he starts to party and slut around and get with all sorts of people of all genders and he never looks like he's older than when it starts but the picture gets all old and gross. Then Dorian offs his buddy the painter and blackmails another buddy into mushing up the body and making it disappear--kinda like my friend Todd did when he made me do his homework or he'd tell my mom what really happened to her left headlight that time I snuck out with her car.

Then Dorian's picture gets more old and has blood on it and Dorian's all freaking out and then he destroys the painting and then you'll have to read to see what happens next--but I kinda imagined it like that scene at the end of Raiders of the Lost Ark when the ark gets opened and all the nazis get turned to dust.

But Oscar--no way anyone's not guessing your secret after they read this book.

The Cynical Career Counsellor Explains Your Future As

A Doctor

Hi--a doctor, you say? Let me look up your grades... Let's see now--wow--mid to high 90s across the board--especially in all those science courses. What kind of cars do your parents drive? A Neon and a Volvo? What year's the Volvo? Oh. Hmm... That's not so good. You got any rich grandparents? Scholarships? Maybe, but still... I think it might work out something like this.

First of all, you'll be looking at either staying in Canada, in which case when you graduate you have to do the whole "where will the government let me practice" thing, or you go to the states, where it's all about huge amounts of money up front to make big bucks later. Either way, it's expensive and a hellish grind--your little high school success will give you small comfort in the big show....

You'll do the premed stuff without too much trouble; I'm guessing you're smart with a good work ethic, and then you'll find out that med school is built on a rather unusual fallacy--that the day consists of 36 hours rather than 24. There is no magic time portal that will save you from the hell that your schedule will put you though, but there is one thing you'll learn quickly: pharmaceutical support. You see, you absolutely can't afford to lie awake waiting to fall asleep, nor can you dare be less than fully alert in your classes and lab work. It's just not good form to fall asleep face down in the open belly of a cadaver.

Of course, the schedule won't keep you from helping the other med students live out the "work hard, play hard" philosophy that stretch your body and your credit to the limit. One might think that a bunch of future doctors would buy the "body is a temple" thing more than most--but the rampant pursuit of pleasure and altered states of consciousness are what will make your few moments of freedom worthwhile.

You'll also discover that delicious irony that while med students are especially popular in the dating game, you never really have much time to take advantage of it. The few times you do drop the "I'm a med student" line, you realize it's always doubted; not until your dishevelled apartment evidences a variety of medical texts and a stethoscope does your companionship become a valued commodity. This discovery, though, will be a valuable one.

You see, you're going to find the financial pressures of med school tough--it's not like a sociology degree where you can work 30 hours a week at a restaurant and still maintain your GPA. No, an outside job just isn't going to work--that's why you'll start selling medical paraphenalia to friends and friends of friends who want to pull the "I'm a doctor" schtick believably.

When you get caught--only so many old textbooks and stethoscopes can go missing without anyone noticing--you'll explain that you've really been collecting them for third world countries--an even more successful approach than "I'm a doctor", you'll share with your friends who are quickly becoming your disciples.

Upon graduation, you'll have a choice to make--family physician with the comfortable social position it offers, or head towards a specialization, which allows you to become truly wealthy while your interpersonal skills shrivel to nothing.

Either way, it's good--hey--you're pretty up on biology; could you tell me, does this look infected?

Get me some buckshot

I could've slept a little late today--my wife's working but all I've got ahead is my kids' swimming lessons this morning. But no--bizarre noise wakes us up at 6:30. My wife actually guessed what it was--a woodpecker working on the metal cap of our chimney. There's a reason she guessed it so quickly...

Flashback to before our kids were born: We'd been married about six months, in our first house about a month, and we came home from work together. We walk in and flip on the lights--I go one direction, while my wife heads into the dining room--then I hear her scream.

I run in to see blood all over our dining room window and the vertical blinds. There are no windows or doors open in the house--yet there's the blood. I go into the living room, and notice the blood on the window and blinds there as well. I flip on a light and immediately something begins noisy movement on the floor behind the couch.

It's a woodpecker--a big one. It was tangled in the chains of the vertical blinds. Between the two of us, my wife and I managed to get the bird untangled, and it flew into the kitchen where it perched on a rolldown blind. That was when we got a good look at it. The beak on it was about an inch and a half long--something I'd noticed as I had been trying to hold it as we untangled it and it went crazy.

We turned off all the lights in the house except for the one at the back porch, left the door wide open, and herded the bird out of the house. We saw it around the neighborhood for about the next six weeks--I was up on the roof the next day fashioning a cover for our chimney; the ash pattern spread in front of the fireplace made it clear how the woodpecker had got in.

It was kind of freaky though--for just a minute you imagine all sorts of crazy things that may have gotten blood all over the place while you weren't home.

We had to replace the blinds--total bill for the cleanup was just over $1000--but interestingly enough, the insurance adjustor didn't need any photos or proof. He figured there was no way we'd make up a story like that...

The Cynical Career Counsellor Explains Your Career As

A Mortician

Hi kid, nice makeup--you like that movie "The Crow", right? What's that? A mortician? Hmm--never had anyone ask about that before. Okay, here's what I figure you can expect:

First of all, you'll need to apprentice somewhere. You'll probably learn about all the aspects of the trade--embalming, caskets, burial plots, memorial services and government bureaucracy. There's lots of money to be made in grief--that's why there's some huge corporations in the business of planting people--but you need to approach it in the right way. An acting class or two, to help disguise your hangovers as you wring your hands in "shared grief" might be helpful.

As an apprentice, you get to do one of the most underrated jobs in the funeral business--driving the hearse. It's a well-kept secret that these babies are among some of the most powerful production automobiles still being manufactured. Let's face it, with a fatter and fatter population, the average hearse needs to be able to carry some heavy loads, and since all the gas is a tax writeoff, there's no need for fuel economy, either.

You might as well practice saying it now--the best alternative is a lovely, closed-casket funeral. You don't want people going for simple cremations--there's very little profit margin there. Open caskets mean more work making the deceased especially presentable, but really don't add any value to your product. Closed casket means you sell a fancy coffin and you can do a quick and dirty makeup job on the body.

You'll make mistakes, of course--there's way too many different religious approaches to how to say goodbye to a loved one, and you know you'll get caught when you keep taking the hearse out on Sunday afternoons to race other apprentices in their oversized station wagons, but it's not rocket science. (Unless, of course, the deceased has chosen the "Eternal Sky" option of being launched into the ether...)

You'll sell people airtight coffins and overpriced granite stones with sentiments that would make a Hallmark hack blush. The itemized expense list shows that everyone has their hand in the bereaved's pocket--but who would be crass enough to question costs at a time like this? You'll see more and more money heading your way as you go from apprentice to full-fledged mortician, and that will almost make the other sacrifices worth it.

What sacrifices? C'mon kid--you can figure it out, can't you? First of all, you won't go out on dates as much as buy them. Not that any of your colleagues will be in a position to look down on you for it. And then there's the conventions--the dark corners of the bar will expose you to stories of lonely men and their desperate acts that burn themselves into your nightmares for the rest of your life. Only increasing whisky consumption can ease your horror temporarily.

And the sights won't be pretty--each one reminding you that one day you'll find your place on the same white porcelain where you will be drained, refilled and cleaned. At least you'll be comfortable with your own mortality, right?

If you do decide to do this, can you get me a discount? I know my ex wife will go cheap if I kick off first for sure...

The Cynical Career Counsellor Explains Your Future As

A Prospector

Hi there--what the heck is that animal doing outside the window? A mule? Where you'd... nevermind--I should've learned not to ask questions like that. So--you want to be a muleskinner? No? A prospector? Okay, just let me see, I know there's a info sheet somewhere....

Here it is: "So, to start your lucrative career in prospecting, you'll need to find safe passage through the badlands and eventually make it to San Francisco, where you'll find everything you need to strike it rich up in the Klondike at Jones Mercantile..." What the hell is the date on this thing anyway? Nevermind--things are different now. You probably won't even need that mule. It may go something like this:

You'll need a degree or two in various geology-related disciplines, and then you'll probably have to mortgage your parents' home to get the advanced equipment you need to really make a go of prospecting. Don't expect to have a fixed address anytime soon--you'll wander the most forsaken parts of the earth looking for precious metals, oil, or anything else that will pay the exhorbitant expenses you're running up.

Eventually, you find something good--a load of bauxite, unusual for North America. You play it cool--instead of just filing a claim, you manage to buy up the property cheaply. Now you're ready to make the big bucks, but your money's getting very tight. You get a couple of investors to help keep you afloat, in return for a larger percentage than you want to give them. Just when you think you've got things ready to go--an aluminum manufacturer has already promised you a good price for your bauxite--the roadblocks begin.

First, it's the fact that there's an outstanding claim by a native band who says the land is a combination ritual/burial site--that forces you and your partners to invest heavily in lawyers and eventually buy your way into a settlement. Then the Sierra Legal Defence Fund, along with a coalition of 12 other environmental lobby groups, name your project as the #1 potential environmental disaster of the 21st century. Your cries of "what about the damned rainforest" don't help at the frequent press scrums, either.

Even your deep-pocketed partners are starting to sweat as the costs of creating a large wilderness park--the environmentalists' price to stop picketing your road--become clear. More partners are brought on board, and your share of the project's potential profits is cut to a mere 15%. Still, you reason, there should be enough to save you from bankruptcy, and perhaps cover the cost of two or three years of more fruitless prospecting.

A couple of days before you sign your big contract with the aluminum company, there are simultaneous announcements of huge new bauxite finds in Australia and Brazil. The price of bauxite plummets, and it becomes clear that the cost of extracting material from your mine with North American labor will be much more than it will cost to exploit Brazilian workers--so your project shudders to a halt.

Like rats from a sinking ship, your partners cut their losses and sell their interest in the mine to a large multinational holding company. You resist--you hit up all your friends and relatives for cash, and sell everything you own, in a futile attempt to remain solvent. Eventually, you sell your share to the multinational too, for a pitiful amount that doesn't even pay for your bankruptcy lawyer.

A month later, a civil war starts in Brazil--some suspect the multinational holding company is funding the rebels--and your discovery is once again profitable, as Brazil is suddenly too unstable for the taste of the aluminum cartels who now turn their eyes back north. The holding company makes 3000% profit in the space of six weeks.

You squeak out a living under the poverty line by "witching" wells for ranchers for the rest of your pathetic life. You might wanna think about selling the mule...

The Cynical Career Counsellor Explains Your Future As

An Antique Dealer

Antiques, eh? Well, I'm not an expert by any means when it comes to collectibles and such--five minutes of that "Antiques Road Show" and I want to put a bullet in my head--but it might go like this:

You'll do like all the wannabe antique dealers--you'll become the hated "early bird" who cruises around the night before garage sales, harassing people into letting you see their stuff before the rest of the public gets a look. Some will refuse, of course, while some may even hit you--have a good lawyer prepared to make some money there--but many will let you look. You'll keep your real feelings hidden as you dismiss their junk as trash, then pause as you're about to get to your car, and halfheartedly offer them a fraction of what the Chippendale cabinet is worth.

Finds like that will be rare, and once you open your shop, you want to cultivate a refined image--so you'll hire a team of garage sale sharks who do the hunting for you--your training gives them an eye for the good stuff.

You build your business, but slowly--there's too much competition and not enough good pieces around. Then you hit upon a brainstorm. The retirement homes/extended care hospitals in your community are sorely underfunded. These are the holding pens for the soon to be dead--to you, the soon to be estate sales. Your competition also read the obits--but then it's a battle to scoop the best pieces from the bereaved while they haven't time to check values. But at the care home you can make a connection first.

You sponsor the small buses that ferry the codgers to their weekly outings--making sure your support is acknowledged. You and your staff start paying visits and holding small social gatherings where you figure out whose places will hold the best loot. Rather than keep all that stuff in storage, you tell them, and their beneficiaries, why not sell it ahead of time and enjoy the cash in this life?

Your technique is a great success--you avoid bothering with the estates of the middle class, and get the inside track on those whose furniture will allow you the most markup.

Your ambition, however, remains without bounds--you borrow way too much to build a new store, and when the bank threatens to foreclose, you turn to organized crime for a quick but expensive loan. A few months later, when you can't pay them back, the mafioso offer you an alternative to crushed fingers and eventual death--counterfeit antiques.

You know how to recognize the real thing by this time better than anyone in your town. You figure, then, that you can create faux antiques good enough to fool the philistines that surround you.

Your arrogance gets you caught sooner than you'd hoped, and you plead ignorance as to the origin of the fake--but it's too hot to keep trying that game, so the mob offers you another chance. This time you'll have to ship furniture all over the globe--they finance your new internet antique company--but you'll have found ways to ingeniously hide drugs and all manner of other contraband in the pieces you send away.

It's probably enough to keep you successful and alive for at least three or four years--but eventually, prison cell chic will be your only decor.

Hey--whaddya think this desk is worth?

The Cynical Career Counsellor Explains Your Future As

A Clown

What's that? You want to be a clown? The circus kind or... Oh--the kids' party kind. Yeah, I know a little bit about that. My ex-wife's lawyer thought it was relevant that the guy I hired for our son's birthday had just been released from... nevermind--let me tell you what's ahead.

First of all, there's really not one particular place to get trained for all this--despite the "Clown College" you heard about on The Simpsons, the best way to go about learning it is to work as gofer and general slave for someone already doing it successfully. You'll need a catchy name--looking at you I'd guess Roly Poly might fit--and try to avoid overdoing the whole hair/makeup thing. What most people doing the clown schtick don't realize is that most kids are terrified of clowns.

Once you've learned to pull off the basic balloon animals and a few simple card tricks, you're ready to leave your mentor and start your act. You'll need a prop tricycle, a lot of annoying noisemakers, and the basic clown suit. You'll buy a crap van that spews blue smoke and you'll get one of those sad magnetic business signs to stick on the side--too bad there won't be enough real metal left on your van to stick it on properly.

You figure out that the only way you'll break into the cutthroat world of party clowning is to undercut your competition. You charge about 2/3 of what your previous boss did, but that just gets you the really cheap, unpleasant customers who deduct that one piece of cake you ate from your pay. You aren't really getting enough money to survive on, so plan B saves you. You carefully orchestrate a variety of rumours about the main competition in town--your whisper campaign hints of drug use, child abuse and more. You couple this with some radio ads--you clean out your savings to pay for them--emphasizing your identity as the "safe" entertainer for children.

Eventually all birthdays, bar mitzvahs and kindergarten graduations begin to look the same. There's always one or two kids who try to pull off your fake nose, and you see more kids vomit from overindulging on party food than you can count.

You get married--fortunately your wife will have a real job; unfortunately she will resent your pathetic income once the novelty of being "Mrs. Poly" wears off. You'll struggle to find clown work during the winter, and be forced into a variety of unsatisfying, low-paying jobs--all you're suited for due to your lack of a real education.

You'll come home beat and your wife will berate you for not being a more involved parent. "You go make everyone else's kids laugh--try it with your own" she'll scream. Of course, your children have long since seen and heard everything you have to offer, and by the time they're 12, you're simply a source of extreme embarassment that only raiding their mother's prescription bottles can alleviate.

By the time you're 45, you'll have to go back to school to learn some sort of useful skill that might earn you a few dollars above minimum wage. Of course, since you wasted half your life trying the futile clown business, you'll then have to work until you're 75 before you can ever hope to retire.

Hey--you know any good jokes?

Read all 20 career explanations here.