The Cynical Career Counselor Explains Your Future as a

Dog Walker

Hi kid--no, you can't bring the pooch in here--it's not one of those helper dogs, is it? No? Then out it stays. Those dogs are amazing. I saw one on TV once that could start a car and clean the windshield before... uhm, what are you wanting to know about? Dog walker? That might be a good after school thing, but as a career? You researched it on the internet, huh? 50 grand a year? Hmm--you'll need the right set of circumstances, but I guess it might be possible.

You'll need to get connected to the right neighborhood. Judging from your school info on my computer here, you don't live in the most upwardly mobile part of town, so you need to find other ways to make friends in that community.

Your best bet will be the most pretentious businesses you can find--probably the trendy coffee place in the "shopping promenade"--the truly pretentious don't shop in mere "malls" any more--that also has the upscale pet salon. You'll soon come to recognize the regulars who drop their dogs off for a weekly massage, shampoo and manicure, and while they're drinking their double decaf soy chai lattes you'll chat about the difficulty of finding the right person to take their beloved shitzu for its daily constitutional.

You'll feign surprise when the first one wishes out loud that someone like you could do it, and soon that will lead to your mentioning that you don't start at the coffee shop until the afternoon. Before long, you've got three or four clients paying you more to shlep their puppies around than a typical daycare provider gets for watching a dozen human children.

Once you're established, you'll take advantage of the brownie points you earned by staying late to do those little "extras" at the coffee shop--you can figure that one out for yourself--and they'll be only too happy to let you put a little stand on the counter with business cards for your dog-walking service, at least until the manager figures out you aren't coming back to provide any more "favors" and chucks your display in the garbage.

Your business grows--you have the right combination of perky, wholesome and respectful to quickly win over the rich dog owners who lavish you with tips and over the top christmas and birthday gifts, attempting to outdo each other--and soon you're hiring some of your old school friends to help you out. You have your business logo printed on a bunch of those orange safety vests, and you're taking night courses on canine psychology to prevent any more accidents like the tragic decapitation of a pekingese in the jaws of a boxer with anger-management issues.

Fortunately for you, the Pekingese was owned by a woman who was out of the country and whose stock broker husband was only too glad to help make up an excuse for the untimely demise of the creature he referred to only as that "squash-faced spoiled baby surrogate".

Still, it was a close call--if word of such a tragedy got out, you could lose your goldmine in an instant.

You'll start dividing the dogs by breed and temperament, and assigning them to your employees who specialize in working with each group. The business keeps expanding, and soon you're able to lease a small office in the same "promenade" where you used to serve espresso.

The tragic end will be totally unexpected. First, there is a freak March snowstorm that blankets the city. Dog owners still insist on the daily walk; your reliability is key to your success. Unfortunately, your two assistants scheduled to work that day take one look at the window and both phone in sick. You struggle to your office, and wait patiently as one four-wheel drive Lexus or BMW SUV after another drops off the shivering dogs.

The last dog is dropped off by someone you don't recognize--it's the lawyer for a very wealthy spinster who died a week earlier. He explains that he will still need your services for a while longer; there is some question about where the dog will be living now that its loving owner has passed on, bequeathing her entire estate to the dog, much to the chagrin of her outraged relatives.

After the lawyer leaves, you head out in the snow. Your normal route is treacherous, and you aren't paying much attention to anything other than keeping the larger-than-usual pack together and out of the path of oncoming traffic.

Eventually, you wind up at a deserted park, and pause for a moment to answer a call on your cell. It's from someone who claims to be the caretaker of the newly-wealthy pomeranian who is at that moment humping your leg, and when you tell him your location, you're surprised to see a black SUV round the corner and speed toward you.

The gunman can't take any chances--he shoots all of the dogs, and you as the only witness. Eventually, the investigation team will use the cell phone call and tire impressions to lead them to one of the angry nephews who couldn't bear to let a spoiled pooch cheat him of his inheritance.

His conviction won't do you any good, though. Still, when your employees take over the business, they'll add your gravesite to their regular waking route. If you treated them well, maybe they'll even scoop up the little remembrances the dogs leave by your headstone.

The Cynical Career Counselor Explains Your Future as a

Movie Makeup Artist

Hmm--somebody punch you in the eyes? Oh really? I guess I just don't get "heroin chic". But isn't that passé now? What do I know, though? You do? For a living? Hmm--okay, it might go something like this:

You'll first go to some esthetician school or something, where you learn to wax, buff and pluck. After you pay your dues trying to find the outer beauty on some truly scary looking clients, you are taken under the wing of the head makeup artist. She teaches you the same sort of skills you see used to work miracles in those makeover t.v. shows. Then she turns you loose on the weekend mall demo crowd, and soon you'll prove you can not only work the makeup magic, but you can charm the customers, which helps book appointments and sell product.

Still, your dream is to do makeup for the movies, right? You'll save up your money, while living in your parents' house, until you head to L.A. to the "Hollywood Makeup Artists" school or some such sketchy operation--it will be overpriced and overhyped, and after you finish your course, their "inside track" to the movie business is handing you a sheet with out of date studio contact numbers on it.

When you take a job at an upscale day camp in Laguna Beach painting faces for pampered rich kids you get your first break. The owner of an exclusive salon chats with you after his daughter gushes about how great you are, and next thing you know you're hired to work at beauty spa.

There you begin to finally make the connections you need, and although most of the in-town shoots are filled with union makeup artists, you hear about a movie that's filming on-location in the Andes, and you sign on for your first screen makeup stint.

You are the junior makeup person on the crew, so you get to do the extras and the minor characters, but you also get to help the special effects team create the "cannibal zombie Inca warriors" and everyone is quite pleased with your work.

You head home with your bank account fatter, and more imporantly, with your foot in the door of the movie industry. Soon you're one of the regulars, and everyone admires your artistry, but you have one problem that gets you several warnings from crew chiefs--you tend to get chatty with those whose egos feel you beneath their conversational efforts.

This rubs you the wrong way, and soon you're one of the most relied-upon moles feeding information to gossip columns and blogs--all the while making sure no one would ever suspect you.

It all comes to a head when you're called in to work exclusively with the geriatric star of a much-anticipated remake of a classic. The actor first repulsively hits on you, which you deflect as gracefully as possible, then complains when you can't make him look 35 years old. He's gone almost a decade since last performing on camera and he attributes the deterioration he sees when watching some of the first day's filming to your lack of makeup skills.

The movie staff acquiesce to his demands and give him another makeup artist, who quits when he targets her with even more disgusting overtures than you faced. You are forced to keep working with him, while he continues to make your life miserable.

The final straw is when you are doing a touch-up on set while he's giving a quick soundbyte to some tabloid infotainment show. As you lean in to try to blot out a few more wrinkles, he laments to the interviewer the "sad state of hollywood makeup artists compared to the good old days". You bite your tongue when the interviewer sticks the microphone in your face for a response--you know your place in the food chain.

Still, you are observant, and when you are called to his trailer for yet another touch-up later that day, you notice a bag of adult diapers in the corner. He may have noticed you look at them; he seems in a rush to get you out of that room and out of the trailer a little too quickly.

You wait a suitable 24 hours to call your friend who pays you two thousand for the exlusive. The actor and his agent deny it, of course, but your camera phone's evidence allows the reporter to avoid a lawsuit and the quick backing off by the studio and the actor's agent just proves to all the truth of your story.

Somehow, despite the reporter's promise to protect your identity, your name gets out as the alleged "leak about the leaker", as some gossip-monger phrases it. You are finished in the movie makeup business, but you have a variety of other opportunities sent your way, and you accept the offer to make you a partner in an upscale salon in Beverly Hills.

You head back to the studio to pick up your effects, and are surprised when the guard who escorts you to the back lot from the gate suddenly complains of stomach problems and leaves you unsupervised to head back to the makeup area.

You never notice the Lexus until it's too late. The actor, of course, is shocked and horrified by the accident, and after sending a lovely bouquet to your funeral, has his agent explain to the media he will be surrendering his driver's license, since it's clear after this unfortunate "accident" he's simply too old to drive.

You will be an answer in trivia games for years to come.