The Cynical Career Counselor Explains Your Future as a

Bouncer

Hi kid--just slide that table over and there should be room, oh, watch for that lamp. Sorry, it's a bit of a small office.

So what's in your future plans? Bouncer? As in the guy at the bar? Oh, clubs, right. Okay, I think it shouldn't be too hard to figure out.

First of all, how many hours you figure you spend in the gym? Per week? Oh, per day--well, that should be fine. You'll keep up that bodybuilding regime, and of course, resist the urge to use steroids... What? Oh, no, I didn't laugh. I just had a sneeze that didn't come out right. Oh, and you might want to get a little Oxy or something for that acne outbreak--it helps for bouncers to look their best, at least at the trendier nightspots.

You'll probably wait until after you graduate high school to get started; after all, you're underage and it's also tough to fit in late nights when the football coach has you guys on the field most mornings by 6:30.

You may not wait until you make drinking age to try out the gig--there are other places you can be the intimidating hulk. For instance, there are those weekend all-ages concerts and shows, plus there's a couple of fast food places downtown who need people to glower at the street kids who tarry too long over their small coffee.

Tarry? Oh, it means to wait, hang around.

You'll try to get hired with fake ID but the types of nightclubs you want are pretty careful; most have had jerky but connected patrons threaten legal action from time to time, and they cover their backsides by taking care of small details. Once you are of age, though, you'll be more than physically up to the challenge; the endless days of weight training will see to that.

You'll be taken under the wing of some guy whose nose looks like it's been broken a few times, and likes to occasionally pull out his fake front teeth and drop them into your beer when you're not looking. He kind of reminds you of a taller version of that bounty hunter guy on t.v.

You make a few mistakes as you learn the tricks of the bouncer game. For starters, like most, you're too eager to prove yourself, whereas a more seasoned bouncer remembers the goal is always to defuse the situation, rather than "laying the smack down".

Eventually you're proficient enough... pardon? Oh, it means "good". Anyway, you get good enough to be left in charge of the line out front. You do the regular door security shtick--let in the guys who've got the cash to buy lots of drinks, and the cute girls they'll want to buy drinks for, even if it means you don't examine some questionable ID's very well. Meanwhile, block every young guy who doesn't look like he can afford to buy a round, or like he'll be jealous and make trouble when his girlfriend gets a little wasted and starts grinding with her coke dealer on the dance floor.

You'll develop a sort of crude charm that goes with your bouncer persona, letting the prettier girls snort lines off your biceps, or making your tattoos dance as you flex before a giggling audience.

The downside is that you always have to maintain. Got the flu? Still got to get to the gym. Want to take a holiday--make sure the hotel has a fitness studio so you can put your hours in. If you don't you'll lose the main tool of your trade--your intimidating physique.

In time, you become more and more aware of the social hierarchy of the club, and you're lower on the ladder than you'd expected to be. No doubt the regular club girls will be more than happy to take you home once in a while, but anyone who's got enough going for her to be worth considering as relationship material, only sees you as... something less. You'll be surprised how hurt you get when they don't call after, or you realize the number they gave you is fake.

The guys with the Porsches and the Rolex watches are the ones who the girls really want to go home with, and you begin getting to know them better; soon you're getting extra jobs providing security for their private parties. Then, one night you're asked to go along as muscle by one of the drug dealers who frequents your club; he hands you a gun to stick in the waistband of your pants before you get in his car and he drives you to some seedy warehouse.

You look suitably menacing, and everything goes down without a problem. You go home with a week's worth of pay in your pocket, and the order to forget everything you saw, if you know what's good for you.

The next weekend, the same dealer comes up to you and says you can earn twice as much if you're interested. Thinking it's a repeat of your earlier duties you agree, but instead he drives you to an abandoned farmhouse where several other dealers are waiting--each with his own "champion". Seems these criminals have grown bored of dogfights, and have graduated to people--you don't want to back down so you end up in a free-for-all.

Adrenalin and the many hours of physical training come to your rescue; soon it's down to just you and Greg, your old mentor. As you go in to grab him in a choke hold, he steps aside and brings his right fist up against your temple--you're knocked down and nearly unconscious. You glance up and your blurry vision still spots the roll of quarters in his hand--cheating, in your mind.

As you pull yourself up on the open BMW trunk--the dealers had a bar set up in it--you hear his taunts, mocking you, calling you his "bitch". In a blind rage, you reach into the trunk and grab the tire iron, and swing it wildly, and manage to connect. Greg goes down in a heap, and one of the dealers checks him and announces he's dead.

Your "sponsor" gets into a heated discussion with the dealer who brought Greg to the fight, but it's over who won the pot of money, not about the fact that a man is lying dead at their feet. They agree to split the cash and they all head for their cars. When you try to join your dealer friend, he pulls a gun and motions you away. Seems as a murderer, you're too much of a liability to help now.

Fortunately, as you watch them all vanish in a cloud of dust, you realize Greg's beat up Toyota is still waiting nearby, and after you fish the keys from his pocket, you struggle to stuff him in the trunk.

You drive the car to the edge of a cliff, stuff Greg in the driver's seat, empty a couple of beer cans you found in the trunk on him, and push him and the car over the embankment--there's a loud crash but no explosion.

It only takes them a couple of days to charge you; you were in such a panic you didn't even think to wipe your fingerprints off the car.

On the bright side, you'll have lots of time to pump iron in prison.