The Cynical Career Counsellor Explains Your Future As a

Herbalist (by request)

You want to be what? A herbalist? You sure you're thinking of the right thing? You're not that boy who hangs out with those "wiccan" girls who keep burning incense in the back gym stairwell? Mind you, I'll admit it smells better now that... Oh, that's not you? Wait a minute--I remember you--you're that kid who got rushed to the hospital when they thought your appendix was going to burst last year, and you had the emergency surgery. What's the matter, couldn't get your hands on enough medicinal leeches that day?

I'm not completely up on this one, but I think you might expect a rather unusual career path. First of all, most of your relevant texts were likely written back when parchment and latin were a lot more popular. You'll need to know where to get the herbs in question, of course, and that means a lot of midnight trips to obscure locations under a full moon. It's still better than trusting the pharmacy's "natural" line--most of that crap is just placebo pills the drug companies have left from old research studies--kind of like how the big oil companies are buying up all the electric car patents so they can continue their monopoly.

You'll probably apprentice under "madame" something, and your duties the first six months will be putting herbal poultices on the various maladies suffered by her 57 cats. Over time you'll realize that you can only learn so much from her, and you're not really interested in crystal therapy and aura interpretation. One afternoon as she's doing her weekly tarot session down at the senior's center, you "borrow" a couple of relevant books, and open up your own herbal therapy spa in your small rental home.

This begins a regular cycle of interactions with police--the neighbors don't like you running a business from the house in the first place, and after each delivery from the hydroponics store, one of them calls the drug tip line and you are subjected to yet another raid. The police should give it up after the first few times, but your indiscreet remarks quoted in a local newspaper about the value of marijuana as a "nature's analgesic" convince the authorities that it's only a matter of time before they bust you on a narcotics charge.

Eventually, though, you make enough to buy a small farm and grow your herbs there. You develop your own product line, and soon you're selling natural remedies across half the continent. Unlike the competitors, which are all marketed by the same one or two multinational drug companies under a variety of brand names, your therapeutic herbs actually contain the ingredients listed on the bottle.

The drug companies don't like independent upstarts, and soon they're battling you with all three of their best weapons. They cut all their own products' prices to below cost--they can weather the financial beating better than you can, but you still have to drop yours to be competitive. Second, their huge advertising budgets make newspapers and magazines willing to do "exposés" on your operation, equating you with shyster "psychic surgeons" and those who peddle laetrile to cancer victims. It doesn't help matters when one of the writers in your own online newletter refers to the danger presented to our bodies by "free radicals" and the next thing you know, those two little words have the Department of Homeland Security running a full scale investigation on you and everyone who's ever worked for you.

The final tool of the drug companies is litigation. They have huge legal budgets and cutthroat lawyers on retainer--face it, these are the people that gave the world thalidomide and they know how to play hardball--and they'll saddle you with one nuisance lawsuit after another. They know they won't win most of them, but it's fiscal bleeding they seek, and eventually they'll push you past the breaking point.

You'll end up as sales clerk in a herbal tea shop. You won't get rich, but every christmas--sorry, I mean winter solstice--they'll give you a lovely bottle of hemp oil in thanks for your loyal but mind-numbing service.

TGIF

Yeah, the roofers are DONE--woot!

Tonight I'm trekking down to Fairfield to see Milly's show. I'm sure my delicate sensibilities will be offended. (If you want to know why, follow the undead Alice link on the right and read the last couple of posts)

And I think the Starbucks girls undercharged us on purpose--I questioned them after I got the total and there's no way the three of us should've gotten our drinks for under 3 bucks total but they stood firm so who am I to question.

It is dangerous having a starbucks within walking distance from the house, though. Far too easy...

Katiedid--Your husband has a John Denver collection? I'm so very, very sorry. (Have you ever read Hunter S. Thompson's account of his time in Aspden when he lived next door to John Denver--Thompson's run for mayor is wonderful reading)

If I had a hammer...

I could join the pounding that's shaken our house for two days now. Fortunately, it looks like they may finish it today--though it's getting close to four now and I'm not sure if they'll want to go home on time or just get the roof done with. It does look better, though.

Fortunately for my kids, they were at their cousins' throughout the roof work until just now, and my wife is working all this week, so she missed it too. Lucky me.

I realized yesterday that there's a quality of life I like about our city--not just the climate, which despite the whining about the rain is pretty great, and the scenery, etc.--but it's about the right size.

I know lots of my students who find it too small--that's typical of kids everywhere, though. I've lived in a small town. There's more to do and see here. For instance, the new arena opened a few months ago, and in the first six months the concerts in there have included (will include):

Rod Stewart
Cher
Bob Dylan
Avril Lavigne
Black Eyed Peas
Def Leppard
Paul Anka
Robert Plant
Sarah McLachlan

Obviously not as big as maybe Vancouver or Seattle gets, but still recognizable names among them. (Yes, Rizz, I chose NOT to mention Tom Jones on purpose *shudder*)

I was sitting in the dentist's chair looking out across the parking lot to an apartment I lived in while I was a university student 20 years ago. I go to the music store to buy the trumpet we'd been renting and find a former student--from the first musical I did in my school; she's now a music teacher--starting her first day of work there. I hit McD's for lunch and see students I know--present and past.

And so on...

I liked living in Vancouver. There was more there, obviously--but now we spend our money on new roofs rather than concerts, anyway. *sigh*

I should steal some tourist info pics and post them or something. In spite of the things we all whine about from time to time, it really is a nice place to live.

(Then again--I've been looking at R's pics from Finland and they look nice too)

Maybe you should drop links in your comments of websites that show off your communities, if you like. (Kate--Mandeville can't be as bad as you say) :-)

Poetry by the Emo Child

I am the Slug Goddesss

I don't usually get up early
Who wants middle class breakfast?
"You were home late last night"
Not by Transylvanian time, idiots

But those spring mornings, damp...
Dew-covered grass--they are out there
My loyal subjects.

They don't understand me,
(They can join a big club)
But somehow they know I am
I AM. If only they could please me...

Some do, a swirly pattern of slime on the deck
Makes me pause.
That one will be spared, as will the one whose dots
Mirror the freckles on my nose, that I hide so well;
(It's not clown makeup, dammit)

I bring saline judgement in my right hand
The sodium wrath that comes down from on high
Brimstone, without the treacle...

Tomorrow I will sleep in again
Judgement is a sometimes thing.

Anakin as a troubled teen...

"Life as a House"

We watched it tonight, and it wasn't bad. I certainly don't think much of Hayden Christenson's acting in Star Wars--how many variations of "petulant" can get you through two movies? I have to say, though, that the role they gave him in this movie worked better for him. Kevin Kline is pretty good, as usual, and really, while it's maybe somewhat formulaic, the show has a nice feel to it, and I'd recommend it as a cheap rental.

Bought some books yesterday, and finally getting around to reading Camus' The Plague, which I've meant to do for years. It might be too obscure for the Kid Who Sits Behind You , though.

I had a idea for a witty (or less boring, at least) post but it involved a Missy Elliott song that I must've heard 50 times in my booth while people were dancing down below, but I couldn't find it after downloading about 7 in hopes I'd guessed right. Oh well. If Bayley, or perchance Nicole, happens to read this, maybe email me because i think you'd be able to steer me in the right direction.

meanwhile, I seek new inspiration, or at least another career to write about.

Poetry by the Emo Child

Build Your Own Emo Boy

I used to have a boy...friend
Saturdays his parents weren't home,
He'd hope for much more
I'd always disappoint

We sat, watching his Monty Python tapes
He'd ask why I didn't laugh,
And I'd tell him--I'm laughing on the inside...
Then offer to slice myself open so he could see.
He didn't like me like that
And went back to his Warcraft World
While I rummaged through his parents' things
Looking for proof of their infidelities.

I liked the "spam" song--I changed it to "angst", though
And sang it nonstop for three days.

One day he gave me a box, asked me to try it on.
"It's a Seven of Nine costume--it cost me 200 bucks"
I swore at him, and called him a trekkie perv.
"Trekker" he corrected me.
I took the costume away, and snip snip--
it fit the dog perfectly.

"You're going to break up with me, aren't you?"
I shook my head. "Not yet.
I must do much more damage before I set you free"

He looked sadder at my truth
So I chased him around the room
With my home piercing kit.

I don't see him much any more...
Because he never leaves his house.
That was my most successful relationship
No court orders in sight.

Poetry by the Emo Child

Sisterhood

Placards in hand, they march
In front of the
"Have the baby, raped girl or you'll go to hell" clinic

I pause--and one looks at me, her eyes full of sincerity
And passion.

"Sandra Day O'Connor's gone!"
I nod--and notice her sign.
"Keep your hands of my womb"

"What about your pancreas?" I ask.
She looks at me, confused. Nothing unplanned has ever
Happened in her 4.0 GPA world
"What?"

"I don't want anyone's hands on my pancreas."
She steps back, confused.
I laugh my crazy laugh
The one that makes my mother take her pills
and my father turn up the TV volume.

Then she sees, "Your eyes..." she whispers
My beautiful yellow evil Anakin eyes.
I bought them off Ebay--cheap

The previous owner was deceased
Apparently driving with them is unwise
Now I see through the eyes of a dead man.

Poetry by the Emo Child

A Hobo Stole My Digicam

I left it sitting there, on the grass
Time-lapsing the flies on the dead bird

I should've noticed him--matted beard
Crazy eyes, yelling at his shopping bags
But Dashboard Confessional filled my head
and blinded my eyes...

Then it was gone.
I stopped, dumbstruck.

My camera, my love--so much, carried in its soul
And now in the clutches of Mr. Stinky.
Would he look? Would he see?

The photos I took for Suicide Girls
Simple, my friends said--just lie about your age
And now, in his filthy clutches, with me
Underdeveloped and Overexposed.

What if they get on the internet now?
Maybe then my mother will notice the cuts...
I shed a single tear.

Poetry by the Emo Child

My Cat Would Eat Me if I Were Small

Pippy doesn't fool me
Late at night, when she curls up
Beside my Sylvia Plath action figure...

Were I the size of a mouse
Slash, slice, chomp--I'd be done
Not that anyone would care
Except my tarantula would starve.

I let Pippy sleep in my room each night
They say keep your friends close,
and your devil-spawn, clawed beasts
Even closer.

I suppose the original blog title gave it away...

Yes, I am a Simpsons addict. My students accuse me of always finding a Simpsons episode analogous to whatever I am teaching--but it's always so relevant.

The "Stonecutters" episode alluded to in the last couple of posts is one of my favorites--partly because it makes fun of freemasons (sorry if any of you are involved) and Patrick Stewart of Star Trek is the guest star. The song the stonecutters sing is perhaps the highlight, but there's also the moment when Homer, who has failed as a stonecutter, has been walking around naked dragging the huge "rock of shame" attached by a chain to a collar around his neck. At that point they notice he has a birthmark that makes him "the chosen one":

Number one (Patrick Stewart's character ): Remove the rock of shame.

Homer: Woo-hoo!

Number One: Attach the rock of triumph.

At this, an even bigger rock is chained around Homers neck.

Homer: D'oh!

I'll try to find something else to talk about for the next sixty posts or so...

Who keeps Atlantis off the Maps, Who Keeps the Martians Under Wraps...

It's summer, so we watch movies. Tonight, M. Knight Shamalamadingdang's "The Village". After quite liking "The Sixth Sense", being rather comme ce, comme ça about "Unbreakable", and enjoying the rather heavy handed "Signs", I would say this movie was weak. Once there were no real monsters, where's the fun?

Has anyone seen "Adaptation" with Nicholas Cage in dual roles as twin brothers? It's kind of bizarre in that it asks you to think about the writing of the movie as you watch it--it sort of grew on me as it went along, and I think I might make directing and scriptwriting kids watch it because it breaks some rules and calls attention to the fact it's doing so.

In an act of impeccable timing, I sent out a mass email to the musical folks saying I'd be in my theatre with Grease DVDs and tapes from 10:30 to noon this morning. Lucky me--a p.a. announcement comes on at 11:15 saying they're going to be testing the fire alarms for the next 40 minutes...

Still, I got rid of all the dvds and most of the videos.

Must run to bed--driving up island to pick up my daughter from camp tomorrow.

Damn you, Hotmail!

I so waaant to send this right now!

Quit your whinin' and get back to work.

I definitely need to copy my contact list onto my yahoo mail.

The Cynical Career Counsellor Explains Your Future as a

Baker

Hey, you got an extra donut in there for me? Oh, they're for later--yeah, whatever. Soooo..., you're gonna be a baker, huh? Here's what's in store, the way I figure:

You'll probably have no trouble getting an apprenticeship, judging from the number of bakeries you already frequent--no doubt you can talk some fifth generation baker who's heartbroken that his son Gianni refuses to take up the family business to take you on. After you listen to several hours of "You will make me proud and be my son now like he would if I had stayed in the old country" as your future employer grows drunker on the wine he keeps in the back, your apprenticeship is firmly in place.

You're ambitious, and you learn quickly, and one thing you soon realize is that if you're going to keep up the pace in his kitchen and handle the heat of the ovens, you're going to need to shed the extra 30 pounds you're carrying. Look kid, I can say that if anyone can--I'm not exactly svelte here myself. Your working hours take a little getting used to, but after a while it seems normal to set your alarm for 3 a.m., and when you finish work before noon, you can get into the gym to burn off calories before the crowds arrive.

You alternate your time between the bakery and the community college where you're getting your "formal" training. It's there that you adopt the ancient emnity between your kind--bakers--and your hated rivals, the pastry chefs. Your jealousy and hatred is something almost innate whenever you see their smirking, superior faces--not unlike the unbridled loathing the mere optician feels for his nemesis, the optometrist.

Your life isn't all breads and pies, however, and you pine for a normal social life when your evenings end around the same time most of your friends are just heading out for a night on the town. Your sleep patterns suffer for it, but you learn to compensate for a week's worth of early morning loneliness with increasingly wild and debauched weekend adventures.

Eventually, though, you tire of mindless hedonism, and when you ask out the cute college girl who mans the bakery's counter one summer, you're happy that she accepts, and soon you're in your first serious relationship. The problem is, unlike you, she keeps normal hours, and you can't rightly expect her to stay home nights because you have to get up early. Instead, you wallow in jealously imagining her out with other guys as you knead dough alone at 4 a.m.--after all, her inhibitions only vanish late in the evening, when you're hardly ever around.

Despite your jealousy and paranoid delusions, you make it through your apprenticeship successfully, with a tentative hold on both your sanity and your romance. Your boss looks worried each morning at six a.m. as you call your girlfriend's house and hang up when she answers, but he has seen that look in your eyes, and knows better than to ask questions. He seems almost relieved when you tell him you've bought a small bakery across town and he wishes you success.

You now work alone most of the time, and you feel that as a young, enterprising businessman, you are ready to take the next step. You propose to your girlfriend, and struggle to maintain composure when she hesitates and asks for time. For the next few weeks, you're on your best behavior, and work to overcome one of the main stumbling blocks to your relationship--the low opinion her parents have of you. Their hopes for their daughter involved her marrying a doctor or a lawyer, someone able to maintain the silver spoon lifestye to which she'd become accustomed. She'd only worked in the bakery originally to buy a better stereo for the BMW her parents gave her on her 18th birthday.

Disaster strikes one evening when her parents invite you to dinner. On the way there she warns you that she may have given them the mistaken idea that you are a pastry chef, and that they have invited her cousin Robert, which she pronounces the french way, to meet you that evening. Robert is, in fact, a real pastry chef.

You maintain a sullen silence through most of dinner. Robert more than makes up for your aloofness with his witty stories of Paris, where he is studying at a world-renowned pastry institute. His faux french accent makes your blood boil, and it's worse when he insists on referring to himself as a "patissier". Eventually you jump to your feet and hurl the invective that's built up for four years inside you, ever since the community college pastry chefs so soundly defeated the much inferior bakers' softball team, and mocked you for months about it.

Your girlfriend is weeping as she leads you outside; you almost fight past her to attack her cousin once more when you hear his parting shot about "pop tarts". She tearfully gives you back her ring, and you close the bakery and get drunk for three days.

After the hangover wears off, you throw yourself into your work with renenewed passion, and manage to keep busy enough to numb the pain of your broken heart. You struggle to stay away from her, and resist the urge to start making your early morning phone calls again.

Just when you debate terminating your pathetic life, she walks in the front door of the bakery and confesses her misery since your breakup. The two of you hop on a plane to Vegas and a quickie wedding. When you get back, she replaces the counter girl and the two of you work to make the business a success together--you don't have any choice; her parents will cut her off completely when they learn of the marriage.

It's a few months before your paranoid jealousy begins again. You shift her hours to more closely match your own--who cares that no customers want to shop at 6:00 a.m.--and you hire a part time staffer to serve the late afternoon crowd. Still, you barely avoid criminal charges when you mistakenly take a customer's offhand remark "nice buns" for a pass at your wife.

After six months the love of your life realizes her mistake, and runs off in the middle of the night--it isn't tough, after all, since you're already at work. You try desperately to find her, but all her parents will tell you is that she's gone to Europe. You hire a detective, who discovers that she went to stay with Robert, and she's taken up with one of his pastry chef friends.

It's only the conscientious work of Air France security personnel that save her life and put you behind bars until your transfer to the criminal psych ward finishes your career as a baker--at least on the outside. You do become very skilled at producing some of the finest waffles the other prisoners have ever seen; unfortunately their comments about buns do have a second meaning.

What? No, I'm not upset about the donut thing--some people are a little more possessive than others, that's all.


The 40 other career counsellor posts are here.

paranoia, brain destroyer...

I warned Kate about keeping stats and how it can make you paranoid. Thing is, getting about 90 hits+ a day right now, I don't bother much with specifics, but I know, for instance, that the majority of my visits come from the northeastern U.S. and western Canada. I see a little Finland flag, and I know that my friend R. visited from there.

But every so often a specific server of origin will tweak my interest. Look what came by this morning:




(you can click on it to see it full size)

Yeah, I guess maybe that "sleeper cell" comment I made in response to Camila's comment a few days ago wasn't all that wise...

Happy 4th

to all my american blog visitors. My guess is that I know much more about your country's history than all of you combined know about mine, but that's only to be expected with the exposure to US media we have here.

I think two of my favorite documentary series were Ken Burns' on the Civil War, and the one he did about the American presidents. My family couldn't quite get my taping these shows and insisting on watching them all, but then I don't quite get how they can stand watching those American and Canadian idol shows.

So, my question, should you choose to answer, is "Who is your favorite president"? You don't have to think he was the best president, it might just be one you've always felt more partial to than the others. Of course, you could also give your most hated, if you preferred.

I've always been partial to Woodrow Wilson, though he couldn't get the states to join the League of Nations, and Jimmy Carter, because despite some of the shortcomings his administration had, he always seemed (and still seems) like a genuinely decent man.

Enjoy your day. Wear sunscreen.

Something very strange is going on..

..with blogger. This afternoon I deleted about 20 posts and edited at least a dozen others. This evening, half the changes I made are undone. Plus, a comment I added to one of my posts was gone.

I don't understand this--it's like an earlier saved version of the blog replaced what was there. I've been playing on blogger for over a year, so I know how to delete things, yet this makes no sense to me.

Time for a good alternate universe theory...

The week that was...

First, a note--yesterday, two different high school aged bloggers I link to (well, I have to fix "Freebasing chicken nuggets--she's moved) commented on Sandra Day O'Connor's leaving the U.S. Supreme Court. Now--are all high school kids across America deeply aware of this and talking about it? It would be encouraging, but I suspect these are more the exception. As long as they end up ruling the country one day, it's all good.

So the week ended well--so far no further problems with the insane dance teacher--though the custodian who was there that evening told me even more stuff that convinces me she was having a bad drug reaction or something...

I'm organizing my life for university studies over the next two months, which probably means more blog blathering than usual--I do a lot of my work surfing the grad studies databases for articles and it's simply too easy to take procrastination breaks.

Now I'm off to make waffles. (REAL, HOMEMADE WAFFLES, that's right...)

The first real day of summer holidays

This new photo thing on blogger is tres annoying on my mac.

Happy Canada Day, folks. It must be some sort of strange latent patriotism that caused me to go on a little nationalist rant on Camila's blog comments--sorry about that. The nice thing is that I know the H-burg kids are cool enough not to be worried about it.

I've got a strange ancestry working in this area. My dad's mom's family traces back bloodlines that include a "Dirigerie (sp?) Priest" who came over on the Mayflower, and eventually sent for his family in England to join him, but he died before they arrived and his wife ended up marrying someone else in the colonies. My dad's dad's family came to North America from Ireland--a father and son together--to fight the Americans in the War of 1812.

The majority of people who read this blog are Americans, and of course, I love you all. I don't have to agree with everything your country does, and to honest, I don't agree with everything my country does either.

I'm even growing tolerant enough to admit there are some decent american beers.

I don't think we'll be going downtown for the fireworks this year. To my Canadian friends, happy Canada Day, and to my U.S. friends, happy 4th of July.

The Kid Who Sits Behind You Explains

Waiting for Godot

Whoa, this Beckett dude is whacked! So there's like this weird place--our sub who made us read this said it was like purge-atory, which I think is like some place where bulemic chicks go puke. Anyway, there's these two dudes, Vladimir and Estrogen, and they're like all symbolic, but dude, I suck at figuring that out sometimes. The way I see it, Vladimir is all "I'm Russian and we're going to nuke you 'cause it's the cold war" and Estrogen is like "I'm a female hormone so be afraid", and they're waiting for this Godot dude who has like "god" in his name, but they don't seem to get that they keep repeating stuff, kind of like my old uncle Jake who keeps opening the door to let the cat in but the cat died like five years ago.

Anyway, they just talk hella long about crap and "giving birth astride the grave" which I think means that like one of their wives or moms or something was in a maternity ward over top of some hospital morgue and like maybe they could see through the vents down to the dead guys which would explain why these dudes are so freaky.

Oh, and like the sub dude showed us the movie and it had Zero Mostel--who was in that "Producers" movie my dad liked and the other guy was the original Penguin on the old Batman show--that show was all "Bam" "Pow" and waay more interesting than this boring drag.

The Cynical Career Counsellor Explains Your Future As A

Roofer

Roofer, huh? I've known a few over the years. You might want to think about this one...

After high school you'll go to work for some roofing company doing whatever job is the worst they have to offer--the junior employee's life isn't easy most places. Chances are you'll be the one who has to hike shingles up a ladder, or try to avoid being overcome by fumes as you tend the tar machine.

As you work your way "up the ladder", so to speak. you'll realize that crappy as that entry level job was, most of the other jobs aren't much better--save one. The job that all of your crew will secretly aspire to is that of the foreman. He gets to drive from jobsite to jobsite in the clean company vehicle, stopping by homes to smilingly deliver an estimate, or visiting your crew to hand back paperwork refusing some lackey a day off to attend the birth of his child.

You'll learn that whatever the summer temperature, the roof is always about 20 degrees hotter, and there'e no shade to hide behind. At first you'll try covering up to protect your skin, but you sweat off 10 pounds before the morning is over, so you become just another guy on the roof with his shirt off. Of course, you slather yourself with sunscreen the first few days, but the constant teasing of your crew mates--"lovely cold cream you use on that pasty white skin, sissy boy" eventually forces you to sacrifice your body to the unrelenting glare from above. You realize that in spite of their coarseness, you like many of your coworkers, and you feel sad as each year one or two more succumb to the ravages of skin cancer.

The heat and the stink of the tar lower any resistance to joining the others in their daily pilgrimage to the strip bar once your work is done. You already suffer from an almost constant low grade sunstroke, and a half-dozen pints of beer on top of that make you drop off to sleep as soon as you stumble home--ideally without having risked lives by getting behind the wheel of your car. You get used to waking up in a groggy haze each evening around 10 and gulping down a couple of quickly-prepared hot dogs before falling, unshowered once more, into your tar-stained bed.

The cold wet days are perhaps even more deadly than the scorchers. You find the steep roofs a constant danger as the water slickens the moss which covers them--you'll be lucky to attend your retirement dinner without needing a wheelchair ramp to enter.

Besides the carcinogenic ultraviolet rays of the sun, the toxic fumes from the tar, and the ever present risk of falling, you also inhale buckets of fiberglass from the shingles you work with each day.

One day the bitter wet, cold weather, coupled with your unhealthy lifestyle, makes you susceptible to a nasty virus that eventually plugs your sinuses and messes up your inner ear. You go to work feeling wobbly, and a few beer with lunch does nothing to improve the situation. When your foreman comes up the ladder to explain something to you, you slip and as you start to tumble you knock your supervisor off the roof.

His family doesn't acknowledge your flowers, which arrive a few hours after they take him off life support. The other workers know you were ambitious, and a nasty suspicion spreads among them that the accident might have been more by design than they first realized. When the owner of the company names you the next foreman, their suspicions are confirmed. Macbeth had nothing on you when it came to the ruthless pursuit of goals, they decide.

They do little to mask their hatred of you when you talk to them on the jobsite. You feel their hate and suspicion, and try to compensate for it by being overly kind to them--which they perceive as weakness and futher proof of your guilt.

One day they arrange for you to "accidentally" fall off a roof. Will you survive? Hey kid--I'm no pyschic; I'm just a guidance counsellor.

See you later. Oh, sorry, that mat's a bit slippery. Are you okay?