The Cynical Career Counselor Explains Your Future as a

Fashion Designer

Oh hi there--sorry I'm a little late; I was out on a date kind of late last night and well, this morning I just lost track of the time. Sorry, your name is... Celeste? That's a lovely name--Celeste. Have you ever been to that jazz club downtown, Celeste? Oh right, of course, you have to be old enough to get in. Well trust me, it's amazing. Really, when you're old enough, you should try it--of course, it helps when you're with someone special, I must admit.

So, enough about me, Celeste. What career strikes your fancy? Fashion Design? Hmm--that could be a bit challenging, but I can tell by your taste in clothes you're already on your way to making this dream come... Sorry--normally I don't let calls come through but this morning I told the secretary if one particular person called to ring me. You don't mind? Thanks. No, you can stay here; I'm sure this won't take a moment.

Hi--no, it's okay, I was just chatting with a student. Yeah, I had a wonderful time last night too... Pardon? Oh, that's okay, after all, this Friday was kind of a play it by ear night so we can reschedule--you free on Saturday? Oh? ...But I thought you said your divorce was almost final? Oh... that's great. No really, I understand giving it another shot and all. Yeah, of course we'll keep in touch. I'm... really happy for you. Bye.

What? Oh right. Fashion design. Well, first of all, you're going to have to try to get into some cutthroat design college where one bad project will bounce you out to make room for more Calvin Klein wannabes. You'll work your fingers to the bone trying to meet the insane deadlines for your first runway show, and in the end, even though you'll probably do okay, none of the other students will admit it, because you are just one more obstacle to their ultimate victory.

After college, if you survive, you'll try to catch on with some designer label as some sort of peon--you'll be lucky if you don't have to do anything more demeaning than pour coffee. You won't have a social life--you're straight, right? You will spend your day surrounded by gay males trying to win the same lottery you're after, anorexic models who can barely muster the energy to phone their coke dealers, and predatory bitter ex models who've managed to preserve enough brain cells to become your cruel masters in this abusive indentured servitude you've signed up for.

One day, in a rare fit of apparent kindness, one of the designers asks your opinion on something, and liking your answer offers you a chance to help create a few designs for the next New York show. You've already wasted five years of your life at that company, so you feel you've paid your dues. You put your heart and soul into those three dresses, and you are gratified when the designer gushes over them and tells you he'll be sending a limo to meet you at your apartment to take you to the show.

You'll be stressed, the day of the show, when the limo is half an hour late--you realize you were already cutting the time close. Then, mysteriously, the foreign driver answers some radio queries in a language you don't understand, and then suddenly turns up a street you don't recognize and the next thing you're stuck in road construction in Queens.

You miss the show, but you arrive in time to see a crowd surrounding your recent benefactor, raising their champagne glasses in his honor. You are furious to discover your dresses were a hit, and he took all the credit for them. Everyone looks at you like you're off your head when you yell that you designed them, and the next day you're greeted at your desk by a security officer who helps you box the contents of your filing cabinet and escorts you off the premises.

Despite your anger and disappointment, you realize you were a fool to trust the self-serving designer and realize your best hope lies in starting your own company. You cash in your retirement savings bonds, you hit up friends and relatives for cash, and hock your car for the little money you get back after the bank takes what's still owing.

You throw it into your own company, and although you start small, your intuition was right, and you make a minor splash in a couple of trade publications. A few investors decide to take a gamble on you, and that fall your first full show is a hit. You have been studying the business enough to realize you need to keep control of everything, from the suppliers of your raw cloth to the hiring of the Southeast Asian employees in the relatively enlightened factory you set up offshore.

Soon a few department stores are carrying your label, and even one national news anchor makes you her designer of choice. It will be a heady time--all 10 months or so.

Then, even more quickly than it came to you, it will all disappear. The government will be overthrown in the country where all of your garments are made, and all that bribe money you paid will have to be paid again to new corrupt officials. Then a typhoon will knock out the power supply to your factory and the resulting months of down time will put you in a tight financial bind--too much debt and no income can do that.

The last straw will come when in an effort to get things moving, you relocate some of your factory work to a recently-abandoned Nike plant in a more repressive country. Your onsite lackeys are desperate to get things going, so they aren't fussy who they hire, and soon there's a litany of horrible abuse stories of things that have happened to the workers at the hands of their managers.

Sadly, for you, the factory is in the same town as the orphanage where Angelina Jolie shows up to adopt her 37th child, and when she hears of the disgusting events transpiring at your factory, she and her army of adopted kids begin picketing your New York offices, eventually being joined by all manner of human rights groups and trade unions.

Your photo is on the front cover of time magazine with the caption "The New Face of Corporate Greed" and the IRS goes over the last five years of your tax returns with a fine tooth comb. You'll be lucky if bankruptcy is the worst thing that happens to you.