The Cynical Career Counsellor Explains Your Future as a

Spy

Oh, hey kid, I didn't know you were there. Yeah, I guess you're pretty stealthy. A spy, eh? Well, I think you'd better forget about all the Bond movies, because your career path is going to be a little different...

First of all, because you indicate that you want to work for them, you'll immediately come under suspicion. You've probably figured out you have to work for some sort of other security force or agency first, maybe military police or mall security, I'm not sure, but when they finally finish vetting you--at first they won't believe that you haven't had any real girlfriends or boyfriends by age 23 that they can investigate--it will be clear that you're simply a pathetic loner, and therefore a prime candidate to work with them.

They'll send you to be trained in things more mundane than jumping out of helicoptors or dodging ninja throwing stars--looking at sales records of fertilizer companies to catch potential bomb makers or figuring out which motorcade route will lessen the chance of eggs being tossed at a visiting despot's vehicle will be the puzzles that challenge your sedentary ass.

No "Q" will design deadly pens for you, nor will any Pussy Galore challenge your libidinal limits--in fact, you will eventually yearn for some eastern block siren to try charming you out of the building parking code--but alas, your chances of romance in this job are slim--the few naive girls you could charm with your title as "spy" can never be told because of the limits described in the 30-page security agreement you swore to uphold.

Eventually you settle into a comfortable routine with the I.T. girl--you don't comment on her overbite, and she doesn't tell your superiors about the web sites you visit after hours--and at the end of a torturously boring day, the two of you enjoy role playing with others from the office the imagined exploits of real spies.

After 15 undistinguished years of service, you get a commendation when your followup of a routine email alert helps avert a potentially embarassing exposure of photos revealing the youthful indiscretions of a certain high-level political figure--of course you never know how the person with the photos is actually dealt with, but suffice to say he never gets the five thousand you promise him in your undercover role as the online representative of a tabloid newsmagazine. Your reward for this small coup is to be given a minor bump in pay, and a chance to finally get out of the office and try some field work, something you requested years earlier but had long since given up on.

You are finally given a firearm--not because they expect you to use it, but you need at least one gun to fit in with the right wing survivalist nuts you are sent to infiltrate out in a wilderness commune. Their zealot prophet-leader is suspected of a variety of terroristic intentions, and your task is to win his trust.

Unfortunately, his words cut to the very depths of your jaded soul, and his free-spirited daughter wins your heart. Soon you confess all to them, and they use you to feed your masters a wide range of misinformation. You are happier and more alive for those three months than anytime in your previously pathetic existence. You won't quite know when the government realizes you've been trying to mislead them, but their discovery will move forward the date when they raid the compound, and you will have had no warning that anything is coming.

You will either die in a hail of bullets or trapped in a burning barn. At least that part will be exciting.


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