Piano lessons, trumpet, his soccer game this Monday--all on hold. My son broke his arm tonight. He's being a trooper about it, though. It had to be his right arm, unfortunately.
At least he has something cool to show the kids on Monday. The next four weeks won't be much fun for him, though.
Saturday, April 23, 2005
Wednesday, April 20, 2005
The Cynical Career Counsellor Explains Your Future As A
Telemarketer
Look kid, I'm trying to eat lunch here... Okay--if you don't mind me spittin' pastrami on you. Telemarketer--figures you come at mealtime. Hey--you want to make 3 bucks? I just remembered my cupboard key dropped in the urinal and wondered if you'd go get it... No wait--sit down. I was just checking to see if you have the right mindset for telemarketing.
There's a special kind of preparation needed for telemarketing, but since you're already in the country and I understand at least 50% of what you say, you're way ahead of the curve. Still, the really big telemarketing operations will want to take you through some special training before they give you your cubicle, phone and diaper and turn you loose on... Oh--well you see, they can't afford to have you wasting time on bathroom breaks.
So, they'll take you to somewhere secret, and you'll get your training. First thing you'll do when you get there is meet some shady guy in a black trenchcoat with his hat pulled down low--he'll want you to sign some things in blood. Don't worry--a soul would just get in the way in your line of work anyway.
Once you're in there, you'll go through a series of role-playing exercises designed to give you no shame. You'll simulate phone calls to houses where people tell you to get off the line so they can call 911 and save their baby--and soon you'll realize that they're just pulling another tired sales-avoidance technique--you never hang up until you've read the whole card. Don't worry--they'll keep hanging up until they realize you're still there every time they pick up the phone, and rather than have you keep starting again, they're wiser to let you finish.
Of course, you'll have to become immune to insults and abuse. Their psychologists will walk you through every rejection and humiliation of your childhood and adolescence--you'll even cry all over again when Mary Sue laughs at your prom invitation. Scary, large men will come and scream at you--threatening your life and punching you every so often just to be convincing. When you can ignore them and finish reading the card, you'll have proven yourself ready.
It won't be easy--your targets will be warned by the telltale noise of the call centre for those few seconds before you pick up from the autodialer, and they'll have their best insults and threats prepared. Don't worry, by that time you'll have learned that every householder who screams his desire to dig up your grandmother's bones and urinate on them, or promises to burn the homes of you and all your family so your DNA can be justly wiped from the planet, is just another future satisfied customer who will give thanks for the day you brightened their life.
Now get out of my office--I gotta make some calls.
More career advice can be found here.
Look kid, I'm trying to eat lunch here... Okay--if you don't mind me spittin' pastrami on you. Telemarketer--figures you come at mealtime. Hey--you want to make 3 bucks? I just remembered my cupboard key dropped in the urinal and wondered if you'd go get it... No wait--sit down. I was just checking to see if you have the right mindset for telemarketing.
There's a special kind of preparation needed for telemarketing, but since you're already in the country and I understand at least 50% of what you say, you're way ahead of the curve. Still, the really big telemarketing operations will want to take you through some special training before they give you your cubicle, phone and diaper and turn you loose on... Oh--well you see, they can't afford to have you wasting time on bathroom breaks.
So, they'll take you to somewhere secret, and you'll get your training. First thing you'll do when you get there is meet some shady guy in a black trenchcoat with his hat pulled down low--he'll want you to sign some things in blood. Don't worry--a soul would just get in the way in your line of work anyway.
Once you're in there, you'll go through a series of role-playing exercises designed to give you no shame. You'll simulate phone calls to houses where people tell you to get off the line so they can call 911 and save their baby--and soon you'll realize that they're just pulling another tired sales-avoidance technique--you never hang up until you've read the whole card. Don't worry--they'll keep hanging up until they realize you're still there every time they pick up the phone, and rather than have you keep starting again, they're wiser to let you finish.
Of course, you'll have to become immune to insults and abuse. Their psychologists will walk you through every rejection and humiliation of your childhood and adolescence--you'll even cry all over again when Mary Sue laughs at your prom invitation. Scary, large men will come and scream at you--threatening your life and punching you every so often just to be convincing. When you can ignore them and finish reading the card, you'll have proven yourself ready.
It won't be easy--your targets will be warned by the telltale noise of the call centre for those few seconds before you pick up from the autodialer, and they'll have their best insults and threats prepared. Don't worry, by that time you'll have learned that every householder who screams his desire to dig up your grandmother's bones and urinate on them, or promises to burn the homes of you and all your family so your DNA can be justly wiped from the planet, is just another future satisfied customer who will give thanks for the day you brightened their life.
Now get out of my office--I gotta make some calls.
More career advice can be found here.
Saturday, April 16, 2005
The Cynical Career Counsellor Explains Your Future As
A Talent Agent
So--you want to be an agent? That's not going to be easy--way more people want to do that than there are openings, so you'll probably have to take a shot at starting your own agency and getting lucky. It's maybe a little better odds than the lottery, but not much.
First of all, you'll need to find the ideal location. Big cities, like L.A. or New York, have an overabundance of agents, all struggling to find something for an overabundance of actors. Small cities are often too far away from where the work is happening. You need something in between--somewhere where the shooting locations and tax laws bring in movie business, but where you have an advantage of being able to find local talent quickly.
The big agencies in the big cities will provide all the main talent, of course, but you can help find the small roles--so you'll need a certain type of clientele. Quirky character actors--the ones who can be mumbling shopping cart street people, or concentration camp guards--anyone who's versatile and not too proud will work. You'll also need bimbos. Hollywood, whether at home or shooting away, knows the value of gratuitious nudity and knows that minor, background characters should be attractive--we're so conditioned to see beautiful people filling in the extra roles that anyone unappealing draws our eye and distracts us from the main characters and the plot lines.
Of course, you can't tell the ones you hire that they're destined to remain "filler" for the few projects that wander into town; instead, you'll feed their dreams like a pickup artist at last call. If you actually succeed in getting any work for anyone, this makes you "legitimate", and they'll be beating down your door to get you to look at them.
You'll find your line of sliminess--don't think you'll be able to keep your integrity without ever slipping--you're going to be the target of every 18 year old wannabe starlet in town, and you'd best be careful; when the movie cast and crew leaves town you're still there amid the shattered dreams and crumbling self-esteem. The truly desperate and rejected can be unpredictable...
You'll find your niche--staffing car shows and rich kid's birthday parties will keep a little money rolling in, and you'll figure out the whole "talent search" scam where you charge for your "expenses" in putting together portfolios for aspiring performers. You will work out side deals with small time recording studios to send your clients for demo cds, and a local beauty parlour will give you kickbacks for sending them your customers before you bring them in for their photo shoots.
That comfortable niche is why the end will suprise you. Some "arthouse" film will show up paying little but offering bigger roles than usual, and you'll find yourself in the awkward position of explaining to an ingenue that those risqué and demeaning things they want her to do are part of the "artistic integrity"of the movie--"Think of 'Brown Bunny'" you'll hear yourself say, and then hope you're never part of something like that again.
The predictable happens, and when the film debuts in the local theatre--it played in 30 theatres for an average of 5 days before going to video--her whole extended family dresses up and fills half the movie house. Before the show is over, there will be tears, a minor heart attack, and recriminations which eventually lead to the conclusion that you should be lynched.
You'll be warned by a friend and go to ground for a few weeks until things simmer down. That's why you won't be expecting the sniper shot through your kitchen window a few months later that leaves you hooked up to machines until your savings run out and your family decides to give you a dignified end by switching off the power.
With so many well motivated suspects, they'll never find your killer.
Read the other 29 Career Counsellor posts here
So--you want to be an agent? That's not going to be easy--way more people want to do that than there are openings, so you'll probably have to take a shot at starting your own agency and getting lucky. It's maybe a little better odds than the lottery, but not much.
First of all, you'll need to find the ideal location. Big cities, like L.A. or New York, have an overabundance of agents, all struggling to find something for an overabundance of actors. Small cities are often too far away from where the work is happening. You need something in between--somewhere where the shooting locations and tax laws bring in movie business, but where you have an advantage of being able to find local talent quickly.
The big agencies in the big cities will provide all the main talent, of course, but you can help find the small roles--so you'll need a certain type of clientele. Quirky character actors--the ones who can be mumbling shopping cart street people, or concentration camp guards--anyone who's versatile and not too proud will work. You'll also need bimbos. Hollywood, whether at home or shooting away, knows the value of gratuitious nudity and knows that minor, background characters should be attractive--we're so conditioned to see beautiful people filling in the extra roles that anyone unappealing draws our eye and distracts us from the main characters and the plot lines.
Of course, you can't tell the ones you hire that they're destined to remain "filler" for the few projects that wander into town; instead, you'll feed their dreams like a pickup artist at last call. If you actually succeed in getting any work for anyone, this makes you "legitimate", and they'll be beating down your door to get you to look at them.
You'll find your line of sliminess--don't think you'll be able to keep your integrity without ever slipping--you're going to be the target of every 18 year old wannabe starlet in town, and you'd best be careful; when the movie cast and crew leaves town you're still there amid the shattered dreams and crumbling self-esteem. The truly desperate and rejected can be unpredictable...
You'll find your niche--staffing car shows and rich kid's birthday parties will keep a little money rolling in, and you'll figure out the whole "talent search" scam where you charge for your "expenses" in putting together portfolios for aspiring performers. You will work out side deals with small time recording studios to send your clients for demo cds, and a local beauty parlour will give you kickbacks for sending them your customers before you bring them in for their photo shoots.
That comfortable niche is why the end will suprise you. Some "arthouse" film will show up paying little but offering bigger roles than usual, and you'll find yourself in the awkward position of explaining to an ingenue that those risqué and demeaning things they want her to do are part of the "artistic integrity"of the movie--"Think of 'Brown Bunny'" you'll hear yourself say, and then hope you're never part of something like that again.
The predictable happens, and when the film debuts in the local theatre--it played in 30 theatres for an average of 5 days before going to video--her whole extended family dresses up and fills half the movie house. Before the show is over, there will be tears, a minor heart attack, and recriminations which eventually lead to the conclusion that you should be lynched.
You'll be warned by a friend and go to ground for a few weeks until things simmer down. That's why you won't be expecting the sniper shot through your kitchen window a few months later that leaves you hooked up to machines until your savings run out and your family decides to give you a dignified end by switching off the power.
With so many well motivated suspects, they'll never find your killer.
Read the other 29 Career Counsellor posts here
Sunday, April 10, 2005
The Cynical Career Counsellor Explains Your Future As
A Sports Announcer
Hi there--a sports broadcaster? Yeah, you've got a pretty good voice and you don't stutter, so it might just work.
You can go to one of those "Columbia School of Broadcasting" things you see advertised in magazines but really, any media courses will just give you the ability to run the electronics and make a demo tape--ultimately, you've got to get the chance to do it so the right people hear you. As usual, that means starting at the bottom.
I won't go into how truly awful that will be--let's just say that you probably won't get paid, and your status as a geek loser will be reinforced to all. The only sports you'l likely be given a chance to "broadcast" are lame high school games where your vocabulary will frequently include the word "drubbing". With luck, you'll turn that into a weekly cable broadcast of a Triple-C farm team of the Pawtucket Red Sox and gradually move across North America trying to slightly improve things until you might actually earn enough money at it that you aren't constantly dizzy from selling your own blood. You'll become better at feigning excitement than your Socials teacher on project day.
Which sport are you... Oh, baseball? Well, you should understand that as broadcaster, your job is to distract people from the fact that for 98% of the baseball game NOTHING IS HAPPENING by having tons of trivial facts to... Oh, football then? Well, you should understand that most football broadcasters get to work in places like Detroit and Chicago IN THE MIDDLE OF THE WINTER. L.A. doesn't even have..., oh, basket ball--now that's better--it's indoors and they actually play.
It will be a life out of a suitcase. If you plan to settle down and have a family, you'll have to look outside the basketball culture for dates... why? Well, have you ever been to a WNBA game? The women watching those aren't bringing their, uh, boyfriends, let's just say. Anway, since you'll likely marry someone who has a life seperate from sports, you'll quickly learn how meaningless and trivial all your valuable sports knowledge is in any social gathering outside of the sports bar. This won't make for a happy home life, trust me. And forget asking out the sports babe who does the interviews after the game--those perfect teeth save their smiles for the players--you aren't even on the radar.
When you interview players and coaches, you'll become master of the soft question--after all, most broadcasts are owned by the same company that owns the team, so all you are is a glorified PR schill. "What positives can you take from this loss" will be as tough as you get after the 124 - 67 shcllacking. Meanwhile, even though you travel on the same planes and stay at the same hotels as the players, all they can think of when you interview them is how much you remind them of the nerds they used to torment in gym class.
On the bright side, you'll get to see some great moments in sport. Too bad you won't ever get to relax and enjoy them.
Hi there--a sports broadcaster? Yeah, you've got a pretty good voice and you don't stutter, so it might just work.
You can go to one of those "Columbia School of Broadcasting" things you see advertised in magazines but really, any media courses will just give you the ability to run the electronics and make a demo tape--ultimately, you've got to get the chance to do it so the right people hear you. As usual, that means starting at the bottom.
I won't go into how truly awful that will be--let's just say that you probably won't get paid, and your status as a geek loser will be reinforced to all. The only sports you'l likely be given a chance to "broadcast" are lame high school games where your vocabulary will frequently include the word "drubbing". With luck, you'll turn that into a weekly cable broadcast of a Triple-C farm team of the Pawtucket Red Sox and gradually move across North America trying to slightly improve things until you might actually earn enough money at it that you aren't constantly dizzy from selling your own blood. You'll become better at feigning excitement than your Socials teacher on project day.
Which sport are you... Oh, baseball? Well, you should understand that as broadcaster, your job is to distract people from the fact that for 98% of the baseball game NOTHING IS HAPPENING by having tons of trivial facts to... Oh, football then? Well, you should understand that most football broadcasters get to work in places like Detroit and Chicago IN THE MIDDLE OF THE WINTER. L.A. doesn't even have..., oh, basket ball--now that's better--it's indoors and they actually play.
It will be a life out of a suitcase. If you plan to settle down and have a family, you'll have to look outside the basketball culture for dates... why? Well, have you ever been to a WNBA game? The women watching those aren't bringing their, uh, boyfriends, let's just say. Anway, since you'll likely marry someone who has a life seperate from sports, you'll quickly learn how meaningless and trivial all your valuable sports knowledge is in any social gathering outside of the sports bar. This won't make for a happy home life, trust me. And forget asking out the sports babe who does the interviews after the game--those perfect teeth save their smiles for the players--you aren't even on the radar.
When you interview players and coaches, you'll become master of the soft question--after all, most broadcasts are owned by the same company that owns the team, so all you are is a glorified PR schill. "What positives can you take from this loss" will be as tough as you get after the 124 - 67 shcllacking. Meanwhile, even though you travel on the same planes and stay at the same hotels as the players, all they can think of when you interview them is how much you remind them of the nerds they used to torment in gym class.
On the bright side, you'll get to see some great moments in sport. Too bad you won't ever get to relax and enjoy them.
Saturday, April 09, 2005
The Kid Who Sits Behind You Explains
Huck Finn
So this book is like the sequel to Tom Sawyer, and instead of being all "paint my fence you suckers" it's all about Huck, who's kind of got the home life of Nelson Munce from the Simpsons. Tom does a whole cameo/guest thing later in the book, though.
So Huck is all "I hate living in this religious house and learnin' stuff" and he takes off and fakes death (didn't they already do that in Tom Sawyer--get some fresh material, dude) and runs away with an escaped slave who's all superstitious and so's Huck but Jim the slave's all stupid most of the time too. It's kinda a racist book--no "Injun Joe" though--and our teacher wouldn't let use "the N word" except Bobby Higgins who's black, er Afric..., whatever dude, you know what I mean. Anyway, Bobby's all "Yo Beeotch" and "Daaamn, Nigga" and the teacher never says a thing because she doesn't want to get into that with him--but here's the thing--I was at Bobby's 10th birthday 'cause I was on his soccer team but nearly everybody there went to this expensive private school with him, and Bobby's dad is a doctor and he was "Robert" back then and he thought Compton, Watts and Harlem were encyclopedias, lightbulbs and basketball teams. Oh, yeah, right. The book
So anyway, this book is hella racist--crap, I just said hella, and I've got less street cred than Bobby--and Huck gets beat on by his dad and sees lots of people die and most of the adults are creepy and these rich people are all Hatfield/McCoys and shoot each other and Jim gets sold and Huck has a bunch of money from back in the Tom Sawyer story and Tom shows up and he's kind of Bart Simpson to Huck's Nelson except Huck doesn't punch him.
Oh, and Mark Twain was like some confederate army deserter who was really Samuel Clemens and I saw him on one of those Star Trek shows and Woody on Cheers was him once and he kinda' reminded me of Colonel Sanders (but now it's KFC) and now I'm getting hungry so good luck with the 43 chapters dude.
So this book is like the sequel to Tom Sawyer, and instead of being all "paint my fence you suckers" it's all about Huck, who's kind of got the home life of Nelson Munce from the Simpsons. Tom does a whole cameo/guest thing later in the book, though.
So Huck is all "I hate living in this religious house and learnin' stuff" and he takes off and fakes death (didn't they already do that in Tom Sawyer--get some fresh material, dude) and runs away with an escaped slave who's all superstitious and so's Huck but Jim the slave's all stupid most of the time too. It's kinda a racist book--no "Injun Joe" though--and our teacher wouldn't let use "the N word" except Bobby Higgins who's black, er Afric..., whatever dude, you know what I mean. Anyway, Bobby's all "Yo Beeotch" and "Daaamn, Nigga" and the teacher never says a thing because she doesn't want to get into that with him--but here's the thing--I was at Bobby's 10th birthday 'cause I was on his soccer team but nearly everybody there went to this expensive private school with him, and Bobby's dad is a doctor and he was "Robert" back then and he thought Compton, Watts and Harlem were encyclopedias, lightbulbs and basketball teams. Oh, yeah, right. The book
So anyway, this book is hella racist--crap, I just said hella, and I've got less street cred than Bobby--and Huck gets beat on by his dad and sees lots of people die and most of the adults are creepy and these rich people are all Hatfield/McCoys and shoot each other and Jim gets sold and Huck has a bunch of money from back in the Tom Sawyer story and Tom shows up and he's kind of Bart Simpson to Huck's Nelson except Huck doesn't punch him.
Oh, and Mark Twain was like some confederate army deserter who was really Samuel Clemens and I saw him on one of those Star Trek shows and Woody on Cheers was him once and he kinda' reminded me of Colonel Sanders (but now it's KFC) and now I'm getting hungry so good luck with the 43 chapters dude.
Tuesday, April 05, 2005
The Cynical Career Counsellor Explains Your Future As
A Recording Studio Technician
Hey--you're the kid who runs sound for the assemblies in the gym. A studio techie? Yeah, I guess that's a possibility--let's see...
You'll have to do more than run the crappy gym sound system to learn the skills needed for a career in the recording studio. You'll have to hang around those pathetic rec. center teen band nights, help out in the ska festival, volunteer to run the board for weddings, funerals, elementary school Christmas concerts--whatever it takes. Eventually, you'll understand how to avoid the crappy sound you so often subject us to each time we gather in the gym--hey look, honesty is the only way to go in this sort of business, okay?
You'll either resort to the lamest approach possible to this career--convince your parents to set you up with semi-crappy equipment in your basement or garage--or you'll finally luck into one of the studios downtown. Once you're in, you'll have to be ready to have no life outside the studio--not that you'll get lots of hours, but you have to hang around and be ready to work at a moment's notice.
You visualize making the perfect mix for the next Kurt Cobain, and then while you're smoking up with some rocker during a break he'll invite you to join his upcoming tour so you can live out your own "Almost Famous' fantasy, but that's not likely to happen. More often than not, you're helping some spoiled princess make a demo tape or some bad Christmas CD for her extended family. You get blamed for the shrill, off-pitch caterwauling that is her rendition of "Jingle Bell Rock", and you learn to swear with your mouth closed--so effective when you're in the soundproof producer's mixing room. The hourly rate the studio charges makes them hate you all the more; little do they know you see less than a quarter of that in salary. You take revenge in small ways--deodorant is something you bother with only for the nice clients.
Even worse are the commercials--rarely do singers or talented voiceover professionals grace your sound booth--you get the egocentric real estate magnate who thinks he and his team of ersatz professionals can somehow make their cheesy ditty about their great service into something that doesn't cause thousands to switch stations each day.
You'll never really make any significant money--studios continually go out of business because it only takes a few years for people to realize there's no real profit margin in it. If you're lucky, maybe you'll get hired to run sound in the hockey arena or down at the arts centre. That, and second job down at the rendering plant is the only thing that may eventually enable you to afford moving out of your parent's attic.
Next assembly, how about doing the sound checks BEFORE the entire school is sitting there mocking the special way your voice cracks...
Hey--you're the kid who runs sound for the assemblies in the gym. A studio techie? Yeah, I guess that's a possibility--let's see...
You'll have to do more than run the crappy gym sound system to learn the skills needed for a career in the recording studio. You'll have to hang around those pathetic rec. center teen band nights, help out in the ska festival, volunteer to run the board for weddings, funerals, elementary school Christmas concerts--whatever it takes. Eventually, you'll understand how to avoid the crappy sound you so often subject us to each time we gather in the gym--hey look, honesty is the only way to go in this sort of business, okay?
You'll either resort to the lamest approach possible to this career--convince your parents to set you up with semi-crappy equipment in your basement or garage--or you'll finally luck into one of the studios downtown. Once you're in, you'll have to be ready to have no life outside the studio--not that you'll get lots of hours, but you have to hang around and be ready to work at a moment's notice.
You visualize making the perfect mix for the next Kurt Cobain, and then while you're smoking up with some rocker during a break he'll invite you to join his upcoming tour so you can live out your own "Almost Famous' fantasy, but that's not likely to happen. More often than not, you're helping some spoiled princess make a demo tape or some bad Christmas CD for her extended family. You get blamed for the shrill, off-pitch caterwauling that is her rendition of "Jingle Bell Rock", and you learn to swear with your mouth closed--so effective when you're in the soundproof producer's mixing room. The hourly rate the studio charges makes them hate you all the more; little do they know you see less than a quarter of that in salary. You take revenge in small ways--deodorant is something you bother with only for the nice clients.
Even worse are the commercials--rarely do singers or talented voiceover professionals grace your sound booth--you get the egocentric real estate magnate who thinks he and his team of ersatz professionals can somehow make their cheesy ditty about their great service into something that doesn't cause thousands to switch stations each day.
You'll never really make any significant money--studios continually go out of business because it only takes a few years for people to realize there's no real profit margin in it. If you're lucky, maybe you'll get hired to run sound in the hockey arena or down at the arts centre. That, and second job down at the rendering plant is the only thing that may eventually enable you to afford moving out of your parent's attic.
Next assembly, how about doing the sound checks BEFORE the entire school is sitting there mocking the special way your voice cracks...
Saturday, April 02, 2005
The Cynical Career Counsellor Explains Your Future as an
English Professor
Hi there--you're the kid who writes the book reviews in the school paper, right? Those are pretty good--there aren't many kids your age writing about the pre-raphaelite brotherhood, I expect. You want to be an English Professor? Why am I not suprised--here goes:
You'll do an honors degree in English Literature someplace Ivy League, or that feels Ivy League. At first you'll join a sorority, but after one year you'll realize those people aren't for you--clumsy gropings by drunken frat boys send you scurrying instead to dimly-lit downtown poetry readings, where you gradually find your fellow travellers. Unfortunately, the price of intelligent discussions of literature is your participation geekdom's lesser festivities--long nights of role-playing games and the occasional renaissance fair make you a reluctant expert on things you can't talk about outside the inner circle without risking your chance of ever procreating with a non-wizard.
You'll have crushes on a few of your professors--their erudite insights leave you sadly unsatisfied with the young men you spend your time with on weekends--and it's only too likely that one or two of them might violate their code of ethics after a long chat about your most private poetry you've deigned to share some smoky evening at a local angst cafe.
You enter grad school with great expectations--now you can truly focus on your passion for Victorian novelists--and you promise yourself not to let the increasing burden of student loan debt limit your enjoyment of your studies. You immerse yourself in grad school, and your fellow English majors become your surrogate family, though not much of a dating pool; the few pasty males in the crowd evidence Oscar Wilde's sexual proclivities and Hemingway's gender sensitivity.
A master's degree, of course, is merely a wall decoration in the world of literature, and you manage to find a post grad program that accepts you largely based on a few poems you had published in an obscure university literary journal. There you find yourself increasingly isolated--part of you wants to be carried away by some hero from the pages of a Bronte or Austen novel, while the conclave of unshaven lit/women's studies majors you smoke dope with every Friday night scoff at those who seek fulfillment from mere males.
Upon graduation, you do manage to land a position that evolves into an associate professorship at a small college--unfortunately, as junior member of the department, you're stuck with classes of first-years who have the literary sensitivities of Stanley Kowalski from Streetcar Named Desire. You weary of the stupidity of the phys-ed. cro magnons in the back of the class who only lose interest in picking their steroid acne to guffaw when you explain that Lawrence's serpent isn't merely a snake. From that point on, every assignment they submit are little more than puerile attempts to find phallic symbolism in everything they read. You know that all of their decent work has been ghostwritten or bought off the internet, but you are too apathetic to fight the constant onslaught of plagiarism.
Meanwhile, your student loans burden you more than you ever anticipated--you will have to spend two decades driving that VW bus you bought with the professor who left his wife for you and repented his mistake scant six weeks into your relationship.
On the bright side, the money you save on depilatories and hair products will allow you to indulge your need for really nice emo glasses and a trip to an Ani DiFranco concert once every year.
Go here to see other advice from the Cynical Career Counsellor
Hi there--you're the kid who writes the book reviews in the school paper, right? Those are pretty good--there aren't many kids your age writing about the pre-raphaelite brotherhood, I expect. You want to be an English Professor? Why am I not suprised--here goes:
You'll do an honors degree in English Literature someplace Ivy League, or that feels Ivy League. At first you'll join a sorority, but after one year you'll realize those people aren't for you--clumsy gropings by drunken frat boys send you scurrying instead to dimly-lit downtown poetry readings, where you gradually find your fellow travellers. Unfortunately, the price of intelligent discussions of literature is your participation geekdom's lesser festivities--long nights of role-playing games and the occasional renaissance fair make you a reluctant expert on things you can't talk about outside the inner circle without risking your chance of ever procreating with a non-wizard.
You'll have crushes on a few of your professors--their erudite insights leave you sadly unsatisfied with the young men you spend your time with on weekends--and it's only too likely that one or two of them might violate their code of ethics after a long chat about your most private poetry you've deigned to share some smoky evening at a local angst cafe.
You enter grad school with great expectations--now you can truly focus on your passion for Victorian novelists--and you promise yourself not to let the increasing burden of student loan debt limit your enjoyment of your studies. You immerse yourself in grad school, and your fellow English majors become your surrogate family, though not much of a dating pool; the few pasty males in the crowd evidence Oscar Wilde's sexual proclivities and Hemingway's gender sensitivity.
A master's degree, of course, is merely a wall decoration in the world of literature, and you manage to find a post grad program that accepts you largely based on a few poems you had published in an obscure university literary journal. There you find yourself increasingly isolated--part of you wants to be carried away by some hero from the pages of a Bronte or Austen novel, while the conclave of unshaven lit/women's studies majors you smoke dope with every Friday night scoff at those who seek fulfillment from mere males.
Upon graduation, you do manage to land a position that evolves into an associate professorship at a small college--unfortunately, as junior member of the department, you're stuck with classes of first-years who have the literary sensitivities of Stanley Kowalski from Streetcar Named Desire. You weary of the stupidity of the phys-ed. cro magnons in the back of the class who only lose interest in picking their steroid acne to guffaw when you explain that Lawrence's serpent isn't merely a snake. From that point on, every assignment they submit are little more than puerile attempts to find phallic symbolism in everything they read. You know that all of their decent work has been ghostwritten or bought off the internet, but you are too apathetic to fight the constant onslaught of plagiarism.
Meanwhile, your student loans burden you more than you ever anticipated--you will have to spend two decades driving that VW bus you bought with the professor who left his wife for you and repented his mistake scant six weeks into your relationship.
On the bright side, the money you save on depilatories and hair products will allow you to indulge your need for really nice emo glasses and a trip to an Ani DiFranco concert once every year.
Go here to see other advice from the Cynical Career Counsellor
Friday, April 01, 2005
The Cynical Career Counsellor Explains Your Future as a
Teen Pop Singing Sensation (by request)
What's that? Oh, I remember you--you're the girl who booked me to be one of the judges for the karaoke contest last fall and then when Mr. Carter wasn't going to be sick after all, you dumped me and put him in. Sooo, you fancy yourself a singer, do you? Well, I think we can figure out what lies ahead:
First of all, you'll need to drop about 25 pounds. Your mother may think you're perfect, but you're gonna have to prance around in some pretty slutty stuff, and you ain't got the shape for it, believe me. Also, look at the people "making it"--that australian piece of fluff--Kylie Minogue--you think she's got some sort of corner on the good singing voice market? Face it, even more serious music can't pretend; how much have you heard about Charlotte Church since she turned chunky--who cares about the "voice of an angel" if she's making too many trips to the buffet? Every time they tell you some chick like Stevie Nicks is making a comeback it's just another way of saying they've finally joined Weight Watchers. What's the matter? You got something in your eye? Yeah, there's some kleenex in the box there...
So, where was I? Oh yeah--you've been taking singing lessons--but that's only half of it--you need to learn to move. I've seen you in that morning dance class--you look like an injured water buffalo. You need to take some intensive dance training--maybe drop a few academic classes, after all, when you're famous and rich who cares if you learned high school chemistry?
Your parents don't think so? Tell me--who's the career counsellor here, anyway? If your parents cared about your performing career they'd have gotten you an agent by the time your were 6 and you wouldn't be sitting here wasting both of our time. Remember that girl who played the clumsy dancer in "Hollywood Steam Baths"? You don't--well trust me, it was a classic in the genre. Anyway, she went to this school, and about eight years ago she sat in this very office and I told her what she needed to do to make it in show business. Now look at her--she's even got a web site with pictures. So who knows more about how to succeed in a performance career--me or your parents?
Hey, you know that girl in the library club with the braces and the thick glasses? Jeannie? Yeah that's her--she's got an amazing voice. You should get her to record some stuff and practice lip syncing to it--her voice is good enough, but the way she looks... Let's just say she won't be on any album covers any time soon. Talent? Of course talent matters--just like you care about the color of a car you might want to buy--but it isn't the main factor.
Hey, where you going? I ain't halfway finished... Hey--why don't you go ask Mr. Carter what he thinks? Oh wait--he's a P.E. teacher--what does he know about singing? Must be a lot, since he was such a damn good karaoke judge and all...
hmm--I think I'll send a note home to mom and dad about her burgeoning eating disorder...
What's that? Oh, I remember you--you're the girl who booked me to be one of the judges for the karaoke contest last fall and then when Mr. Carter wasn't going to be sick after all, you dumped me and put him in. Sooo, you fancy yourself a singer, do you? Well, I think we can figure out what lies ahead:
First of all, you'll need to drop about 25 pounds. Your mother may think you're perfect, but you're gonna have to prance around in some pretty slutty stuff, and you ain't got the shape for it, believe me. Also, look at the people "making it"--that australian piece of fluff--Kylie Minogue--you think she's got some sort of corner on the good singing voice market? Face it, even more serious music can't pretend; how much have you heard about Charlotte Church since she turned chunky--who cares about the "voice of an angel" if she's making too many trips to the buffet? Every time they tell you some chick like Stevie Nicks is making a comeback it's just another way of saying they've finally joined Weight Watchers. What's the matter? You got something in your eye? Yeah, there's some kleenex in the box there...
So, where was I? Oh yeah--you've been taking singing lessons--but that's only half of it--you need to learn to move. I've seen you in that morning dance class--you look like an injured water buffalo. You need to take some intensive dance training--maybe drop a few academic classes, after all, when you're famous and rich who cares if you learned high school chemistry?
Your parents don't think so? Tell me--who's the career counsellor here, anyway? If your parents cared about your performing career they'd have gotten you an agent by the time your were 6 and you wouldn't be sitting here wasting both of our time. Remember that girl who played the clumsy dancer in "Hollywood Steam Baths"? You don't--well trust me, it was a classic in the genre. Anyway, she went to this school, and about eight years ago she sat in this very office and I told her what she needed to do to make it in show business. Now look at her--she's even got a web site with pictures. So who knows more about how to succeed in a performance career--me or your parents?
Hey, you know that girl in the library club with the braces and the thick glasses? Jeannie? Yeah that's her--she's got an amazing voice. You should get her to record some stuff and practice lip syncing to it--her voice is good enough, but the way she looks... Let's just say she won't be on any album covers any time soon. Talent? Of course talent matters--just like you care about the color of a car you might want to buy--but it isn't the main factor.
Hey, where you going? I ain't halfway finished... Hey--why don't you go ask Mr. Carter what he thinks? Oh wait--he's a P.E. teacher--what does he know about singing? Must be a lot, since he was such a damn good karaoke judge and all...
hmm--I think I'll send a note home to mom and dad about her burgeoning eating disorder...
Wednesday, March 30, 2005
The Cynical Career Counsellor Explains Your Future As
An Aircraft Mechanic (by request)
An aircraft mechanic? You're the kid who put that lawnmower engine on the skateboard, right? Well, it's probably not a bad career, if you can hack it--it will probably work out like this:
You'll have to do all the basic grease monkey wannabe stuff--put in the hours during high school and go for apprenticeships right after--you'll have to work in a regular garage for a little while you wait to hear, but eventually, maybe you'll get in if your grades, references and bribes all fall within the acceptable range. It won't be easy--there's way more parts on a 747 than on your average Hyundai, and if you botch up the car, it doesn't plunge 350 people to a fiery death.
The social life isn't that great--you think you'll have prestige, but the first time you get brushed off by a stewardess will teach you otherwise--heck, you put Brad Pitt in a set of blue coveralls with his name in the little red oval on the front and they wouldn't even give him the time of day. It's okay--you'll spend so much time logging overtime that you'll get to know all the concession ladies well--and when their marriages collapse, you'll pick up the crumbs that fall off the table.
You'll never be truly "comfortable" in your job--even your basic Cessna is a delicate instrument--so you never get to have an "off" day. You will need to learn everything there is to know about simple prop engines and advanced jet aircraft. Then, if you are fortunate enough to work your way from the hellhole bush plane outposts into a major commercial airport, you'll also have to learn to play amateur secret agent--you see, you are one of the last lines of defense against the terrorists' plots to blow planes out of the sky. You must be able to look at an engine and tell if something doesn't look quite right.
You're also going to be the scapegoat if something awful happens--and at some point in your career, it probably will. Face it, they aren't going to insult the pilot's memory and offend his family by publishing the discovery that he had 6 martinis before he crashed the plane full of orphans into the side of the mountain--it will be blamed on "mechanical error"--that's you, bucko. When that happens, you'll be out of a job, and eventually the military will find you--they'll know the real story, and make you an offer you'll be desperate enough to take--fixing helicopters and transport planes in some crappy desert airbase until some would be martyr blows up enough of your anatomy to qualify you for a disability pension.
Still--you get to drink lots of $8 cups of coffee along the way...
An aircraft mechanic? You're the kid who put that lawnmower engine on the skateboard, right? Well, it's probably not a bad career, if you can hack it--it will probably work out like this:
You'll have to do all the basic grease monkey wannabe stuff--put in the hours during high school and go for apprenticeships right after--you'll have to work in a regular garage for a little while you wait to hear, but eventually, maybe you'll get in if your grades, references and bribes all fall within the acceptable range. It won't be easy--there's way more parts on a 747 than on your average Hyundai, and if you botch up the car, it doesn't plunge 350 people to a fiery death.
The social life isn't that great--you think you'll have prestige, but the first time you get brushed off by a stewardess will teach you otherwise--heck, you put Brad Pitt in a set of blue coveralls with his name in the little red oval on the front and they wouldn't even give him the time of day. It's okay--you'll spend so much time logging overtime that you'll get to know all the concession ladies well--and when their marriages collapse, you'll pick up the crumbs that fall off the table.
You'll never be truly "comfortable" in your job--even your basic Cessna is a delicate instrument--so you never get to have an "off" day. You will need to learn everything there is to know about simple prop engines and advanced jet aircraft. Then, if you are fortunate enough to work your way from the hellhole bush plane outposts into a major commercial airport, you'll also have to learn to play amateur secret agent--you see, you are one of the last lines of defense against the terrorists' plots to blow planes out of the sky. You must be able to look at an engine and tell if something doesn't look quite right.
You're also going to be the scapegoat if something awful happens--and at some point in your career, it probably will. Face it, they aren't going to insult the pilot's memory and offend his family by publishing the discovery that he had 6 martinis before he crashed the plane full of orphans into the side of the mountain--it will be blamed on "mechanical error"--that's you, bucko. When that happens, you'll be out of a job, and eventually the military will find you--they'll know the real story, and make you an offer you'll be desperate enough to take--fixing helicopters and transport planes in some crappy desert airbase until some would be martyr blows up enough of your anatomy to qualify you for a disability pension.
Still--you get to drink lots of $8 cups of coffee along the way...
Tuesday, March 29, 2005
Lighter recollections...
More from the trip home:
At church on Easter Sunday a friend introduced me to someone I hadn't seen since junior high--this guy seemed so... quiet, settled--yet all I could think of was that he was the psycho who came home with me in grade 2 and busted all the windows in our playhouse. Must learn to let it go...
Wandering around the mall I realized that everyone--or at least 80% of the population of my home town is fat. I'm not judging them; there's not much else to do there but eat and drink and ride around in your big 4 wheel drive truck.
Took a photo just down the hill from my parents' house--they've clearcut the hillside above my school--not Weyerhaeuser but just a greedy school board this time--and it's now possible to get a picture of both my elementary school and my senior high in the same shot. Here's the picture; click on it for a larger version. If you want waay to much information, there's a link below to a large annotated pic.
The sad thing is that the elementary school--which had 800 kids when I was in grade 4--is now just being rented out to a couple of small private schools, and the high school is closing this June.
Annotated Photo Here (Warning: It's big)
At church on Easter Sunday a friend introduced me to someone I hadn't seen since junior high--this guy seemed so... quiet, settled--yet all I could think of was that he was the psycho who came home with me in grade 2 and busted all the windows in our playhouse. Must learn to let it go...
Wandering around the mall I realized that everyone--or at least 80% of the population of my home town is fat. I'm not judging them; there's not much else to do there but eat and drink and ride around in your big 4 wheel drive truck.
Took a photo just down the hill from my parents' house--they've clearcut the hillside above my school--not Weyerhaeuser but just a greedy school board this time--and it's now possible to get a picture of both my elementary school and my senior high in the same shot. Here's the picture; click on it for a larger version. If you want waay to much information, there's a link below to a large annotated pic.
The sad thing is that the elementary school--which had 800 kids when I was in grade 4--is now just being rented out to a couple of small private schools, and the high school is closing this June.
Annotated Photo Here (Warning: It's big)
Monday, March 28, 2005
The Kid Who Sit Behind You Explains
The Picture of Dorian Gray
So, like Oscar Wilde was gay and they didn't like it back in the day so he went to prison and then France and I'm not sure which would be worse. Anyway, Oscar Wilde wrote this book before they got him in court for being gay. I think maybe they read this book.
You see, it's all about this young hottie guy (Yeah, not that I think any guys are hot, dude) and his name is Dorian and this painter dude is like all in love with him and then this Lord Henry guy shows up and he's all kind of low key lusting for him too but since it's back in the day they go on for pages and pages and then throw in the whole "oh yeah I'm married to a chick" line in but it's not foolin' anyone, Oscar.
Then the painter gives Dorian the painting of him and Dorian wishes the painting would get old instead of him and it happens and then he falls for this actress chick and she's all "Dorian you're wonderful" and then he's all "No, forget what I said, you suck" and she kills herself and Dorian is all "I'm such a jerk"
Lord Henry comes over and says "cool, like no chick ever offed herself for me" and then Dorian is all "yeah, true dat" and then he starts to party and slut around and get with all sorts of people of all genders and he never looks like he's older than when it starts but the picture gets all old and gross. Then Dorian offs his buddy the painter and blackmails another buddy into mushing up the body and making it disappear--kinda like my friend Todd did when he made me do his homework or he'd tell my mom what really happened to her left headlight that time I snuck out with her car.
Then Dorian's picture gets more old and has blood on it and Dorian's all freaking out and then he destroys the painting and then you'll have to read to see what happens next--but I kinda imagined it like that scene at the end of Raiders of the Lost Ark when the ark gets opened and all the nazis get turned to dust.
But Oscar--no way anyone's not guessing your secret after they read this book.
So, like Oscar Wilde was gay and they didn't like it back in the day so he went to prison and then France and I'm not sure which would be worse. Anyway, Oscar Wilde wrote this book before they got him in court for being gay. I think maybe they read this book.
You see, it's all about this young hottie guy (Yeah, not that I think any guys are hot, dude) and his name is Dorian and this painter dude is like all in love with him and then this Lord Henry guy shows up and he's all kind of low key lusting for him too but since it's back in the day they go on for pages and pages and then throw in the whole "oh yeah I'm married to a chick" line in but it's not foolin' anyone, Oscar.
Then the painter gives Dorian the painting of him and Dorian wishes the painting would get old instead of him and it happens and then he falls for this actress chick and she's all "Dorian you're wonderful" and then he's all "No, forget what I said, you suck" and she kills herself and Dorian is all "I'm such a jerk"
Lord Henry comes over and says "cool, like no chick ever offed herself for me" and then Dorian is all "yeah, true dat" and then he starts to party and slut around and get with all sorts of people of all genders and he never looks like he's older than when it starts but the picture gets all old and gross. Then Dorian offs his buddy the painter and blackmails another buddy into mushing up the body and making it disappear--kinda like my friend Todd did when he made me do his homework or he'd tell my mom what really happened to her left headlight that time I snuck out with her car.
Then Dorian's picture gets more old and has blood on it and Dorian's all freaking out and then he destroys the painting and then you'll have to read to see what happens next--but I kinda imagined it like that scene at the end of Raiders of the Lost Ark when the ark gets opened and all the nazis get turned to dust.
But Oscar--no way anyone's not guessing your secret after they read this book.
Wednesday, March 23, 2005
The Cynical Career Counsellor Explains Your Future As
A Doctor
Hi--a doctor, you say? Let me look up your grades... Let's see now--wow--mid to high 90s across the board--especially in all those science courses. What kind of cars do your parents drive? A Neon and a Volvo? What year's the Volvo? Oh. Hmm... That's not so good. You got any rich grandparents? Scholarships? Maybe, but still... I think it might work out something like this.
First of all, you'll be looking at either staying in Canada, in which case when you graduate you have to do the whole "where will the government let me practice" thing, or you go to the states, where it's all about huge amounts of money up front to make big bucks later. Either way, it's expensive and a hellish grind--your little high school success will give you small comfort in the big show....
You'll do the premed stuff without too much trouble; I'm guessing you're smart with a good work ethic, and then you'll find out that med school is built on a rather unusual fallacy--that the day consists of 36 hours rather than 24. There is no magic time portal that will save you from the hell that your schedule will put you though, but there is one thing you'll learn quickly: pharmaceutical support. You see, you absolutely can't afford to lie awake waiting to fall asleep, nor can you dare be less than fully alert in your classes and lab work. It's just not good form to fall asleep face down in the open belly of a cadaver.
Of course, the schedule won't keep you from helping the other med students live out the "work hard, play hard" philosophy that stretch your body and your credit to the limit. One might think that a bunch of future doctors would buy the "body is a temple" thing more than most--but the rampant pursuit of pleasure and altered states of consciousness are what will make your few moments of freedom worthwhile.
You'll also discover that delicious irony that while med students are especially popular in the dating game, you never really have much time to take advantage of it. The few times you do drop the "I'm a med student" line, you realize it's always doubted; not until your dishevelled apartment evidences a variety of medical texts and a stethoscope does your companionship become a valued commodity. This discovery, though, will be a valuable one.
You see, you're going to find the financial pressures of med school tough--it's not like a sociology degree where you can work 30 hours a week at a restaurant and still maintain your GPA. No, an outside job just isn't going to work--that's why you'll start selling medical paraphenalia to friends and friends of friends who want to pull the "I'm a doctor" schtick believably.
When you get caught--only so many old textbooks and stethoscopes can go missing without anyone noticing--you'll explain that you've really been collecting them for third world countries--an even more successful approach than "I'm a doctor", you'll share with your friends who are quickly becoming your disciples.
Upon graduation, you'll have a choice to make--family physician with the comfortable social position it offers, or head towards a specialization, which allows you to become truly wealthy while your interpersonal skills shrivel to nothing.
Either way, it's good--hey--you're pretty up on biology; could you tell me, does this look infected?
Hi--a doctor, you say? Let me look up your grades... Let's see now--wow--mid to high 90s across the board--especially in all those science courses. What kind of cars do your parents drive? A Neon and a Volvo? What year's the Volvo? Oh. Hmm... That's not so good. You got any rich grandparents? Scholarships? Maybe, but still... I think it might work out something like this.
First of all, you'll be looking at either staying in Canada, in which case when you graduate you have to do the whole "where will the government let me practice" thing, or you go to the states, where it's all about huge amounts of money up front to make big bucks later. Either way, it's expensive and a hellish grind--your little high school success will give you small comfort in the big show....
You'll do the premed stuff without too much trouble; I'm guessing you're smart with a good work ethic, and then you'll find out that med school is built on a rather unusual fallacy--that the day consists of 36 hours rather than 24. There is no magic time portal that will save you from the hell that your schedule will put you though, but there is one thing you'll learn quickly: pharmaceutical support. You see, you absolutely can't afford to lie awake waiting to fall asleep, nor can you dare be less than fully alert in your classes and lab work. It's just not good form to fall asleep face down in the open belly of a cadaver.
Of course, the schedule won't keep you from helping the other med students live out the "work hard, play hard" philosophy that stretch your body and your credit to the limit. One might think that a bunch of future doctors would buy the "body is a temple" thing more than most--but the rampant pursuit of pleasure and altered states of consciousness are what will make your few moments of freedom worthwhile.
You'll also discover that delicious irony that while med students are especially popular in the dating game, you never really have much time to take advantage of it. The few times you do drop the "I'm a med student" line, you realize it's always doubted; not until your dishevelled apartment evidences a variety of medical texts and a stethoscope does your companionship become a valued commodity. This discovery, though, will be a valuable one.
You see, you're going to find the financial pressures of med school tough--it's not like a sociology degree where you can work 30 hours a week at a restaurant and still maintain your GPA. No, an outside job just isn't going to work--that's why you'll start selling medical paraphenalia to friends and friends of friends who want to pull the "I'm a doctor" schtick believably.
When you get caught--only so many old textbooks and stethoscopes can go missing without anyone noticing--you'll explain that you've really been collecting them for third world countries--an even more successful approach than "I'm a doctor", you'll share with your friends who are quickly becoming your disciples.
Upon graduation, you'll have a choice to make--family physician with the comfortable social position it offers, or head towards a specialization, which allows you to become truly wealthy while your interpersonal skills shrivel to nothing.
Either way, it's good--hey--you're pretty up on biology; could you tell me, does this look infected?
Saturday, March 19, 2005
Get me some buckshot
I could've slept a little late today--my wife's working but all I've got ahead is my kids' swimming lessons this morning. But no--bizarre noise wakes us up at 6:30. My wife actually guessed what it was--a woodpecker working on the metal cap of our chimney. There's a reason she guessed it so quickly...
Flashback to before our kids were born: We'd been married about six months, in our first house about a month, and we came home from work together. We walk in and flip on the lights--I go one direction, while my wife heads into the dining room--then I hear her scream.
I run in to see blood all over our dining room window and the vertical blinds. There are no windows or doors open in the house--yet there's the blood. I go into the living room, and notice the blood on the window and blinds there as well. I flip on a light and immediately something begins noisy movement on the floor behind the couch.
It's a woodpecker--a big one. It was tangled in the chains of the vertical blinds. Between the two of us, my wife and I managed to get the bird untangled, and it flew into the kitchen where it perched on a rolldown blind. That was when we got a good look at it. The beak on it was about an inch and a half long--something I'd noticed as I had been trying to hold it as we untangled it and it went crazy.
We turned off all the lights in the house except for the one at the back porch, left the door wide open, and herded the bird out of the house. We saw it around the neighborhood for about the next six weeks--I was up on the roof the next day fashioning a cover for our chimney; the ash pattern spread in front of the fireplace made it clear how the woodpecker had got in.
It was kind of freaky though--for just a minute you imagine all sorts of crazy things that may have gotten blood all over the place while you weren't home.
We had to replace the blinds--total bill for the cleanup was just over $1000--but interestingly enough, the insurance adjustor didn't need any photos or proof. He figured there was no way we'd make up a story like that...
Flashback to before our kids were born: We'd been married about six months, in our first house about a month, and we came home from work together. We walk in and flip on the lights--I go one direction, while my wife heads into the dining room--then I hear her scream.
I run in to see blood all over our dining room window and the vertical blinds. There are no windows or doors open in the house--yet there's the blood. I go into the living room, and notice the blood on the window and blinds there as well. I flip on a light and immediately something begins noisy movement on the floor behind the couch.
It's a woodpecker--a big one. It was tangled in the chains of the vertical blinds. Between the two of us, my wife and I managed to get the bird untangled, and it flew into the kitchen where it perched on a rolldown blind. That was when we got a good look at it. The beak on it was about an inch and a half long--something I'd noticed as I had been trying to hold it as we untangled it and it went crazy.
We turned off all the lights in the house except for the one at the back porch, left the door wide open, and herded the bird out of the house. We saw it around the neighborhood for about the next six weeks--I was up on the roof the next day fashioning a cover for our chimney; the ash pattern spread in front of the fireplace made it clear how the woodpecker had got in.
It was kind of freaky though--for just a minute you imagine all sorts of crazy things that may have gotten blood all over the place while you weren't home.
We had to replace the blinds--total bill for the cleanup was just over $1000--but interestingly enough, the insurance adjustor didn't need any photos or proof. He figured there was no way we'd make up a story like that...
Wednesday, March 16, 2005
The Cynical Career Counsellor Explains Your Career As
A Mortician
Hi kid, nice makeup--you like that movie "The Crow", right? What's that? A mortician? Hmm--never had anyone ask about that before. Okay, here's what I figure you can expect:
First of all, you'll need to apprentice somewhere. You'll probably learn about all the aspects of the trade--embalming, caskets, burial plots, memorial services and government bureaucracy. There's lots of money to be made in grief--that's why there's some huge corporations in the business of planting people--but you need to approach it in the right way. An acting class or two, to help disguise your hangovers as you wring your hands in "shared grief" might be helpful.
As an apprentice, you get to do one of the most underrated jobs in the funeral business--driving the hearse. It's a well-kept secret that these babies are among some of the most powerful production automobiles still being manufactured. Let's face it, with a fatter and fatter population, the average hearse needs to be able to carry some heavy loads, and since all the gas is a tax writeoff, there's no need for fuel economy, either.
You might as well practice saying it now--the best alternative is a lovely, closed-casket funeral. You don't want people going for simple cremations--there's very little profit margin there. Open caskets mean more work making the deceased especially presentable, but really don't add any value to your product. Closed casket means you sell a fancy coffin and you can do a quick and dirty makeup job on the body.
You'll make mistakes, of course--there's way too many different religious approaches to how to say goodbye to a loved one, and you know you'll get caught when you keep taking the hearse out on Sunday afternoons to race other apprentices in their oversized station wagons, but it's not rocket science. (Unless, of course, the deceased has chosen the "Eternal Sky" option of being launched into the ether...)
You'll sell people airtight coffins and overpriced granite stones with sentiments that would make a Hallmark hack blush. The itemized expense list shows that everyone has their hand in the bereaved's pocket--but who would be crass enough to question costs at a time like this? You'll see more and more money heading your way as you go from apprentice to full-fledged mortician, and that will almost make the other sacrifices worth it.
What sacrifices? C'mon kid--you can figure it out, can't you? First of all, you won't go out on dates as much as buy them. Not that any of your colleagues will be in a position to look down on you for it. And then there's the conventions--the dark corners of the bar will expose you to stories of lonely men and their desperate acts that burn themselves into your nightmares for the rest of your life. Only increasing whisky consumption can ease your horror temporarily.
And the sights won't be pretty--each one reminding you that one day you'll find your place on the same white porcelain where you will be drained, refilled and cleaned. At least you'll be comfortable with your own mortality, right?
If you do decide to do this, can you get me a discount? I know my ex wife will go cheap if I kick off first for sure...
Hi kid, nice makeup--you like that movie "The Crow", right? What's that? A mortician? Hmm--never had anyone ask about that before. Okay, here's what I figure you can expect:
First of all, you'll need to apprentice somewhere. You'll probably learn about all the aspects of the trade--embalming, caskets, burial plots, memorial services and government bureaucracy. There's lots of money to be made in grief--that's why there's some huge corporations in the business of planting people--but you need to approach it in the right way. An acting class or two, to help disguise your hangovers as you wring your hands in "shared grief" might be helpful.
As an apprentice, you get to do one of the most underrated jobs in the funeral business--driving the hearse. It's a well-kept secret that these babies are among some of the most powerful production automobiles still being manufactured. Let's face it, with a fatter and fatter population, the average hearse needs to be able to carry some heavy loads, and since all the gas is a tax writeoff, there's no need for fuel economy, either.
You might as well practice saying it now--the best alternative is a lovely, closed-casket funeral. You don't want people going for simple cremations--there's very little profit margin there. Open caskets mean more work making the deceased especially presentable, but really don't add any value to your product. Closed casket means you sell a fancy coffin and you can do a quick and dirty makeup job on the body.
You'll make mistakes, of course--there's way too many different religious approaches to how to say goodbye to a loved one, and you know you'll get caught when you keep taking the hearse out on Sunday afternoons to race other apprentices in their oversized station wagons, but it's not rocket science. (Unless, of course, the deceased has chosen the "Eternal Sky" option of being launched into the ether...)
You'll sell people airtight coffins and overpriced granite stones with sentiments that would make a Hallmark hack blush. The itemized expense list shows that everyone has their hand in the bereaved's pocket--but who would be crass enough to question costs at a time like this? You'll see more and more money heading your way as you go from apprentice to full-fledged mortician, and that will almost make the other sacrifices worth it.
What sacrifices? C'mon kid--you can figure it out, can't you? First of all, you won't go out on dates as much as buy them. Not that any of your colleagues will be in a position to look down on you for it. And then there's the conventions--the dark corners of the bar will expose you to stories of lonely men and their desperate acts that burn themselves into your nightmares for the rest of your life. Only increasing whisky consumption can ease your horror temporarily.
And the sights won't be pretty--each one reminding you that one day you'll find your place on the same white porcelain where you will be drained, refilled and cleaned. At least you'll be comfortable with your own mortality, right?
If you do decide to do this, can you get me a discount? I know my ex wife will go cheap if I kick off first for sure...
Sunday, March 13, 2005
The Cynical Career Counsellor Explains Your Future As
A Prospector
Hi there--what the heck is that animal doing outside the window? A mule? Where you'd... nevermind--I should've learned not to ask questions like that. So--you want to be a muleskinner? No? A prospector? Okay, just let me see, I know there's a info sheet somewhere....
Here it is: "So, to start your lucrative career in prospecting, you'll need to find safe passage through the badlands and eventually make it to San Francisco, where you'll find everything you need to strike it rich up in the Klondike at Jones Mercantile..." What the hell is the date on this thing anyway? Nevermind--things are different now. You probably won't even need that mule. It may go something like this:
You'll need a degree or two in various geology-related disciplines, and then you'll probably have to mortgage your parents' home to get the advanced equipment you need to really make a go of prospecting. Don't expect to have a fixed address anytime soon--you'll wander the most forsaken parts of the earth looking for precious metals, oil, or anything else that will pay the exhorbitant expenses you're running up.
Eventually, you find something good--a load of bauxite, unusual for North America. You play it cool--instead of just filing a claim, you manage to buy up the property cheaply. Now you're ready to make the big bucks, but your money's getting very tight. You get a couple of investors to help keep you afloat, in return for a larger percentage than you want to give them. Just when you think you've got things ready to go--an aluminum manufacturer has already promised you a good price for your bauxite--the roadblocks begin.
First, it's the fact that there's an outstanding claim by a native band who says the land is a combination ritual/burial site--that forces you and your partners to invest heavily in lawyers and eventually buy your way into a settlement. Then the Sierra Legal Defence Fund, along with a coalition of 12 other environmental lobby groups, name your project as the #1 potential environmental disaster of the 21st century. Your cries of "what about the damned rainforest" don't help at the frequent press scrums, either.
Even your deep-pocketed partners are starting to sweat as the costs of creating a large wilderness park--the environmentalists' price to stop picketing your road--become clear. More partners are brought on board, and your share of the project's potential profits is cut to a mere 15%. Still, you reason, there should be enough to save you from bankruptcy, and perhaps cover the cost of two or three years of more fruitless prospecting.
A couple of days before you sign your big contract with the aluminum company, there are simultaneous announcements of huge new bauxite finds in Australia and Brazil. The price of bauxite plummets, and it becomes clear that the cost of extracting material from your mine with North American labor will be much more than it will cost to exploit Brazilian workers--so your project shudders to a halt.
Like rats from a sinking ship, your partners cut their losses and sell their interest in the mine to a large multinational holding company. You resist--you hit up all your friends and relatives for cash, and sell everything you own, in a futile attempt to remain solvent. Eventually, you sell your share to the multinational too, for a pitiful amount that doesn't even pay for your bankruptcy lawyer.
A month later, a civil war starts in Brazil--some suspect the multinational holding company is funding the rebels--and your discovery is once again profitable, as Brazil is suddenly too unstable for the taste of the aluminum cartels who now turn their eyes back north. The holding company makes 3000% profit in the space of six weeks.
You squeak out a living under the poverty line by "witching" wells for ranchers for the rest of your pathetic life. You might wanna think about selling the mule...
Hi there--what the heck is that animal doing outside the window? A mule? Where you'd... nevermind--I should've learned not to ask questions like that. So--you want to be a muleskinner? No? A prospector? Okay, just let me see, I know there's a info sheet somewhere....
Here it is: "So, to start your lucrative career in prospecting, you'll need to find safe passage through the badlands and eventually make it to San Francisco, where you'll find everything you need to strike it rich up in the Klondike at Jones Mercantile..." What the hell is the date on this thing anyway? Nevermind--things are different now. You probably won't even need that mule. It may go something like this:
You'll need a degree or two in various geology-related disciplines, and then you'll probably have to mortgage your parents' home to get the advanced equipment you need to really make a go of prospecting. Don't expect to have a fixed address anytime soon--you'll wander the most forsaken parts of the earth looking for precious metals, oil, or anything else that will pay the exhorbitant expenses you're running up.
Eventually, you find something good--a load of bauxite, unusual for North America. You play it cool--instead of just filing a claim, you manage to buy up the property cheaply. Now you're ready to make the big bucks, but your money's getting very tight. You get a couple of investors to help keep you afloat, in return for a larger percentage than you want to give them. Just when you think you've got things ready to go--an aluminum manufacturer has already promised you a good price for your bauxite--the roadblocks begin.
First, it's the fact that there's an outstanding claim by a native band who says the land is a combination ritual/burial site--that forces you and your partners to invest heavily in lawyers and eventually buy your way into a settlement. Then the Sierra Legal Defence Fund, along with a coalition of 12 other environmental lobby groups, name your project as the #1 potential environmental disaster of the 21st century. Your cries of "what about the damned rainforest" don't help at the frequent press scrums, either.
Even your deep-pocketed partners are starting to sweat as the costs of creating a large wilderness park--the environmentalists' price to stop picketing your road--become clear. More partners are brought on board, and your share of the project's potential profits is cut to a mere 15%. Still, you reason, there should be enough to save you from bankruptcy, and perhaps cover the cost of two or three years of more fruitless prospecting.
A couple of days before you sign your big contract with the aluminum company, there are simultaneous announcements of huge new bauxite finds in Australia and Brazil. The price of bauxite plummets, and it becomes clear that the cost of extracting material from your mine with North American labor will be much more than it will cost to exploit Brazilian workers--so your project shudders to a halt.
Like rats from a sinking ship, your partners cut their losses and sell their interest in the mine to a large multinational holding company. You resist--you hit up all your friends and relatives for cash, and sell everything you own, in a futile attempt to remain solvent. Eventually, you sell your share to the multinational too, for a pitiful amount that doesn't even pay for your bankruptcy lawyer.
A month later, a civil war starts in Brazil--some suspect the multinational holding company is funding the rebels--and your discovery is once again profitable, as Brazil is suddenly too unstable for the taste of the aluminum cartels who now turn their eyes back north. The holding company makes 3000% profit in the space of six weeks.
You squeak out a living under the poverty line by "witching" wells for ranchers for the rest of your pathetic life. You might wanna think about selling the mule...
Monday, March 07, 2005
The Cynical Career Counsellor Explains Your Future As
An Antique Dealer
Antiques, eh? Well, I'm not an expert by any means when it comes to collectibles and such--five minutes of that "Antiques Road Show" and I want to put a bullet in my head--but it might go like this:
You'll do like all the wannabe antique dealers--you'll become the hated "early bird" who cruises around the night before garage sales, harassing people into letting you see their stuff before the rest of the public gets a look. Some will refuse, of course, while some may even hit you--have a good lawyer prepared to make some money there--but many will let you look. You'll keep your real feelings hidden as you dismiss their junk as trash, then pause as you're about to get to your car, and halfheartedly offer them a fraction of what the Chippendale cabinet is worth.
Finds like that will be rare, and once you open your shop, you want to cultivate a refined image--so you'll hire a team of garage sale sharks who do the hunting for you--your training gives them an eye for the good stuff.
You build your business, but slowly--there's too much competition and not enough good pieces around. Then you hit upon a brainstorm. The retirement homes/extended care hospitals in your community are sorely underfunded. These are the holding pens for the soon to be dead--to you, the soon to be estate sales. Your competition also read the obits--but then it's a battle to scoop the best pieces from the bereaved while they haven't time to check values. But at the care home you can make a connection first.
You sponsor the small buses that ferry the codgers to their weekly outings--making sure your support is acknowledged. You and your staff start paying visits and holding small social gatherings where you figure out whose places will hold the best loot. Rather than keep all that stuff in storage, you tell them, and their beneficiaries, why not sell it ahead of time and enjoy the cash in this life?
Your technique is a great success--you avoid bothering with the estates of the middle class, and get the inside track on those whose furniture will allow you the most markup.
Your ambition, however, remains without bounds--you borrow way too much to build a new store, and when the bank threatens to foreclose, you turn to organized crime for a quick but expensive loan. A few months later, when you can't pay them back, the mafioso offer you an alternative to crushed fingers and eventual death--counterfeit antiques.
You know how to recognize the real thing by this time better than anyone in your town. You figure, then, that you can create faux antiques good enough to fool the philistines that surround you.
Your arrogance gets you caught sooner than you'd hoped, and you plead ignorance as to the origin of the fake--but it's too hot to keep trying that game, so the mob offers you another chance. This time you'll have to ship furniture all over the globe--they finance your new internet antique company--but you'll have found ways to ingeniously hide drugs and all manner of other contraband in the pieces you send away.
It's probably enough to keep you successful and alive for at least three or four years--but eventually, prison cell chic will be your only decor.
Hey--whaddya think this desk is worth?
Antiques, eh? Well, I'm not an expert by any means when it comes to collectibles and such--five minutes of that "Antiques Road Show" and I want to put a bullet in my head--but it might go like this:
You'll do like all the wannabe antique dealers--you'll become the hated "early bird" who cruises around the night before garage sales, harassing people into letting you see their stuff before the rest of the public gets a look. Some will refuse, of course, while some may even hit you--have a good lawyer prepared to make some money there--but many will let you look. You'll keep your real feelings hidden as you dismiss their junk as trash, then pause as you're about to get to your car, and halfheartedly offer them a fraction of what the Chippendale cabinet is worth.
Finds like that will be rare, and once you open your shop, you want to cultivate a refined image--so you'll hire a team of garage sale sharks who do the hunting for you--your training gives them an eye for the good stuff.
You build your business, but slowly--there's too much competition and not enough good pieces around. Then you hit upon a brainstorm. The retirement homes/extended care hospitals in your community are sorely underfunded. These are the holding pens for the soon to be dead--to you, the soon to be estate sales. Your competition also read the obits--but then it's a battle to scoop the best pieces from the bereaved while they haven't time to check values. But at the care home you can make a connection first.
You sponsor the small buses that ferry the codgers to their weekly outings--making sure your support is acknowledged. You and your staff start paying visits and holding small social gatherings where you figure out whose places will hold the best loot. Rather than keep all that stuff in storage, you tell them, and their beneficiaries, why not sell it ahead of time and enjoy the cash in this life?
Your technique is a great success--you avoid bothering with the estates of the middle class, and get the inside track on those whose furniture will allow you the most markup.
Your ambition, however, remains without bounds--you borrow way too much to build a new store, and when the bank threatens to foreclose, you turn to organized crime for a quick but expensive loan. A few months later, when you can't pay them back, the mafioso offer you an alternative to crushed fingers and eventual death--counterfeit antiques.
You know how to recognize the real thing by this time better than anyone in your town. You figure, then, that you can create faux antiques good enough to fool the philistines that surround you.
Your arrogance gets you caught sooner than you'd hoped, and you plead ignorance as to the origin of the fake--but it's too hot to keep trying that game, so the mob offers you another chance. This time you'll have to ship furniture all over the globe--they finance your new internet antique company--but you'll have found ways to ingeniously hide drugs and all manner of other contraband in the pieces you send away.
It's probably enough to keep you successful and alive for at least three or four years--but eventually, prison cell chic will be your only decor.
Hey--whaddya think this desk is worth?
Sunday, March 06, 2005
The Cynical Career Counsellor Explains Your Future As
A Clown
What's that? You want to be a clown? The circus kind or... Oh--the kids' party kind. Yeah, I know a little bit about that. My ex-wife's lawyer thought it was relevant that the guy I hired for our son's birthday had just been released from... nevermind--let me tell you what's ahead.
First of all, there's really not one particular place to get trained for all this--despite the "Clown College" you heard about on The Simpsons, the best way to go about learning it is to work as gofer and general slave for someone already doing it successfully. You'll need a catchy name--looking at you I'd guess Roly Poly might fit--and try to avoid overdoing the whole hair/makeup thing. What most people doing the clown schtick don't realize is that most kids are terrified of clowns.
Once you've learned to pull off the basic balloon animals and a few simple card tricks, you're ready to leave your mentor and start your act. You'll need a prop tricycle, a lot of annoying noisemakers, and the basic clown suit. You'll buy a crap van that spews blue smoke and you'll get one of those sad magnetic business signs to stick on the side--too bad there won't be enough real metal left on your van to stick it on properly.
You figure out that the only way you'll break into the cutthroat world of party clowning is to undercut your competition. You charge about 2/3 of what your previous boss did, but that just gets you the really cheap, unpleasant customers who deduct that one piece of cake you ate from your pay. You aren't really getting enough money to survive on, so plan B saves you. You carefully orchestrate a variety of rumours about the main competition in town--your whisper campaign hints of drug use, child abuse and more. You couple this with some radio ads--you clean out your savings to pay for them--emphasizing your identity as the "safe" entertainer for children.
Eventually all birthdays, bar mitzvahs and kindergarten graduations begin to look the same. There's always one or two kids who try to pull off your fake nose, and you see more kids vomit from overindulging on party food than you can count.
You get married--fortunately your wife will have a real job; unfortunately she will resent your pathetic income once the novelty of being "Mrs. Poly" wears off. You'll struggle to find clown work during the winter, and be forced into a variety of unsatisfying, low-paying jobs--all you're suited for due to your lack of a real education.
You'll come home beat and your wife will berate you for not being a more involved parent. "You go make everyone else's kids laugh--try it with your own" she'll scream. Of course, your children have long since seen and heard everything you have to offer, and by the time they're 12, you're simply a source of extreme embarassment that only raiding their mother's prescription bottles can alleviate.
By the time you're 45, you'll have to go back to school to learn some sort of useful skill that might earn you a few dollars above minimum wage. Of course, since you wasted half your life trying the futile clown business, you'll then have to work until you're 75 before you can ever hope to retire.
Hey--you know any good jokes?
Read all 20 career explanations here.
What's that? You want to be a clown? The circus kind or... Oh--the kids' party kind. Yeah, I know a little bit about that. My ex-wife's lawyer thought it was relevant that the guy I hired for our son's birthday had just been released from... nevermind--let me tell you what's ahead.
First of all, there's really not one particular place to get trained for all this--despite the "Clown College" you heard about on The Simpsons, the best way to go about learning it is to work as gofer and general slave for someone already doing it successfully. You'll need a catchy name--looking at you I'd guess Roly Poly might fit--and try to avoid overdoing the whole hair/makeup thing. What most people doing the clown schtick don't realize is that most kids are terrified of clowns.
Once you've learned to pull off the basic balloon animals and a few simple card tricks, you're ready to leave your mentor and start your act. You'll need a prop tricycle, a lot of annoying noisemakers, and the basic clown suit. You'll buy a crap van that spews blue smoke and you'll get one of those sad magnetic business signs to stick on the side--too bad there won't be enough real metal left on your van to stick it on properly.
You figure out that the only way you'll break into the cutthroat world of party clowning is to undercut your competition. You charge about 2/3 of what your previous boss did, but that just gets you the really cheap, unpleasant customers who deduct that one piece of cake you ate from your pay. You aren't really getting enough money to survive on, so plan B saves you. You carefully orchestrate a variety of rumours about the main competition in town--your whisper campaign hints of drug use, child abuse and more. You couple this with some radio ads--you clean out your savings to pay for them--emphasizing your identity as the "safe" entertainer for children.
Eventually all birthdays, bar mitzvahs and kindergarten graduations begin to look the same. There's always one or two kids who try to pull off your fake nose, and you see more kids vomit from overindulging on party food than you can count.
You get married--fortunately your wife will have a real job; unfortunately she will resent your pathetic income once the novelty of being "Mrs. Poly" wears off. You'll struggle to find clown work during the winter, and be forced into a variety of unsatisfying, low-paying jobs--all you're suited for due to your lack of a real education.
You'll come home beat and your wife will berate you for not being a more involved parent. "You go make everyone else's kids laugh--try it with your own" she'll scream. Of course, your children have long since seen and heard everything you have to offer, and by the time they're 12, you're simply a source of extreme embarassment that only raiding their mother's prescription bottles can alleviate.
By the time you're 45, you'll have to go back to school to learn some sort of useful skill that might earn you a few dollars above minimum wage. Of course, since you wasted half your life trying the futile clown business, you'll then have to work until you're 75 before you can ever hope to retire.
Hey--you know any good jokes?
Read all 20 career explanations here.
Monday, February 28, 2005
The Cynical Career Counsellor Explains Your Future As
A Personal Assistant
Hi there--so you want to do what? Personal Assistant? Hmm--never had that one before--most people don't lose all their pride and self respect until after high school. Still, I guess I could figure it out.
Don't fall for the idea that there's some sort of publicist or management course you can take that will prepare you for this line of work. You see, you'll need to become the ultimate generalist--the "jack of all trades" competent in both legal and illegal actions to aid in the comfort and safety of employer.
First of all, you should know that normal people don't have personal assistants. You will work for someone who is both wealthy and disfunctional--musicians, actors, lottery winners, children of corporate scions... Yours will be the 80+ hour week, and your personal life will be nonexistent. There is no way you can raise your own family when you have dedicated your life to parenting an incredibly selfish and needy adult.
You will start off on a professional level, at first--whatever you do, don't ask what happened to the last personal assistant--such a question shows you lack the tact for the job. There will be dozens of questions that are never asked: "Why does your passport list that as your birthday?" "Should I put your mother's call through?" "How old were those girls last night?"--and so many more. You will need to anticipate every whim before it is spoken, and should anything "kill the buzz" of the group, you will be hauled in and berated by your barely-coherent boss. You will never, of course, disrespect your employer in public, and you will sacrifice your own happiness, safety and reputation on a daily basis to keep theirs intact.
You will help them cheat on their taxes, you will calm angry hotel and restaurant managers, you will fire long time employees, you will track down and purchase all manner of illicit substances, you will pimp when your employer is horny, and you will lie to spouses and boyfriends/girlfriends so effectively that you will frighten even yourself. Don't even ask what you'll have to do for their collection of diseased, incontinent pets and relatives.
Ultimately, should you be under 280 pounds and of a gender that your employer finds at all attractive, you will be "hit on"--usually as part of a drunken, drug-addled stupor. By this time, you'll be so far removed from normal social interactions that you won't resist this final act of subservience. The next day, you'll realize that a new level of awkwardness has encroached upon your relationship with your boss, and the clock is now ticking until your replacement is found. This is when you should begin your serious embezzling of funds. Get a swiss bank account, copy and save incriminating documents, phone recordings and videotapes, and remember that everything disgusting and embarassing that's happened over your four years with this overgrown baby is now the substance of your retirement fund--you'll sell your silence to your boss, or peddle your story to the highest bidder.
Just be careful--some personal assistants find that retirement from some employers can be hazardous to one's health.
Previous Cynical Career Counsellor Advice Here
Hi there--so you want to do what? Personal Assistant? Hmm--never had that one before--most people don't lose all their pride and self respect until after high school. Still, I guess I could figure it out.
Don't fall for the idea that there's some sort of publicist or management course you can take that will prepare you for this line of work. You see, you'll need to become the ultimate generalist--the "jack of all trades" competent in both legal and illegal actions to aid in the comfort and safety of employer.
First of all, you should know that normal people don't have personal assistants. You will work for someone who is both wealthy and disfunctional--musicians, actors, lottery winners, children of corporate scions... Yours will be the 80+ hour week, and your personal life will be nonexistent. There is no way you can raise your own family when you have dedicated your life to parenting an incredibly selfish and needy adult.
You will start off on a professional level, at first--whatever you do, don't ask what happened to the last personal assistant--such a question shows you lack the tact for the job. There will be dozens of questions that are never asked: "Why does your passport list that as your birthday?" "Should I put your mother's call through?" "How old were those girls last night?"--and so many more. You will need to anticipate every whim before it is spoken, and should anything "kill the buzz" of the group, you will be hauled in and berated by your barely-coherent boss. You will never, of course, disrespect your employer in public, and you will sacrifice your own happiness, safety and reputation on a daily basis to keep theirs intact.
You will help them cheat on their taxes, you will calm angry hotel and restaurant managers, you will fire long time employees, you will track down and purchase all manner of illicit substances, you will pimp when your employer is horny, and you will lie to spouses and boyfriends/girlfriends so effectively that you will frighten even yourself. Don't even ask what you'll have to do for their collection of diseased, incontinent pets and relatives.
Ultimately, should you be under 280 pounds and of a gender that your employer finds at all attractive, you will be "hit on"--usually as part of a drunken, drug-addled stupor. By this time, you'll be so far removed from normal social interactions that you won't resist this final act of subservience. The next day, you'll realize that a new level of awkwardness has encroached upon your relationship with your boss, and the clock is now ticking until your replacement is found. This is when you should begin your serious embezzling of funds. Get a swiss bank account, copy and save incriminating documents, phone recordings and videotapes, and remember that everything disgusting and embarassing that's happened over your four years with this overgrown baby is now the substance of your retirement fund--you'll sell your silence to your boss, or peddle your story to the highest bidder.
Just be careful--some personal assistants find that retirement from some employers can be hazardous to one's health.
Previous Cynical Career Counsellor Advice Here
Saturday, February 26, 2005
It's kind of creepy, but...
there are probably a lot of blogs out there written by people who've died. The blogs just sit there, not updated of course, while visitors just assume after a while that the person just got bored and moved on. Over time cyberspace will be filled with these strange memorials--a graveyard full of the thoughts of the dead.
I have a friend who knows my password, I think. (the signin is jpurple) I would hope if I did die, that she'd find a way to post a little note or something. Of course, I guess it wouldn't matter much to me at that point.
I was randomly looking up ICQ i.d's a few months ago, and I found one belonging to someone I know who died about three years ago. Her parents had just left a message on it asking that only her friends use it to communicate about her. (I don't use icq so I'm not really sure how it works)
Yeah, I know, this is kind of a morbid post. I must need some sleep.
J.
I have a friend who knows my password, I think. (the signin is jpurple) I would hope if I did die, that she'd find a way to post a little note or something. Of course, I guess it wouldn't matter much to me at that point.
I was randomly looking up ICQ i.d's a few months ago, and I found one belonging to someone I know who died about three years ago. Her parents had just left a message on it asking that only her friends use it to communicate about her. (I don't use icq so I'm not really sure how it works)
Yeah, I know, this is kind of a morbid post. I must need some sleep.
J.
Friday, February 25, 2005
The Cynical Career Counsellor Explains Your Future As
A High School Teacher
What? You really want to know that one? Have you seen the people who work here? What in the hell makes you think they have a lifestyle that could in any way be appealing? Seriously, I know these people, and they're freaking misfits, every one. Summers off? Yeah, that might seem nice--but let me explain.
S0, you'll go to college, but before that, maybe you'll work in some job to raise cash for school. Remember that job--if you'd stayed there, you'd have kept on earning money--probably more as you climbed up in seniority and skill, and you wouldn't have had to pay tuition fees. Instead, you'll waste five years at college, when you could learn everything you needed to teach in two. If you ever calculate the difference between going to college and teaching, or staying in your old job, you'll realize that you'll have to work until you're 85 to be ahead on the deal.
When you graduate, you won't find the job of your dreams just waiting--you'll either travel to some godforsaken outpost where all the kids are siblings, engaged to each other, or both, or you'll rot on some substitute teaching list waiting for the phone to ring. After a year, you'll figure out that the more popular subs are those who find subtle ways to bribe the teachers who call them in to work.
Subbing will be tough--you're fresh meat for the truly sociopathic members of the school community--which is about 50% of any given school's population--and few of the regular staff ever get your name right, unless they have to seek you out to blast you for parking in their spot.
Eventually you get a job at a school--not full-time, of course, and the salary of teachers early in their careers is about half of their older, burned-out colleagues, so you won't really be pulling in much more cash than some of the kids you teach manage to earn in their after school jobs. The difference is they still live at home, so they can use their earnings to buy late model cars and clothes that fit, while you lie to yourself that no one laughs at your Pinto and that one day you won't need to pin those pants that a more svelte incarnation of you once wore with ease.
Staff meetings are hell--the pathetic divorcees who live alone with their cats have one venue each month to vent their anger at the world, and you must suffer through it--of course, maybe you'll be lucky enough to share a department with these special individuals, and that means even more quality time hearing why your gender is scum. The only thing worse will be those rare unpleasant social gatherings that include drink--these interactions will scar you for the rest of your life.
Students, of course, will be the source of all that is both good and terrible about your day. Parents won't believe their kids need the ritalin, but you'll know better, and it only takes one or two angry violent teenagers to ruin a decent class. Sadly, some of the worst will excel only in their attendance records.
Even the good ones can't be trusted. They'll mock your wardrobe, particularly if you ever wear the same article of clothing in any 10 day period, and you'll eventually realize that you are lied to about 40 times a day. Your favorites will eventually disappoint you when you find mocking charicatures of you scribbled on the backs of the binders they forget in your classroom. Your feeble attempts to be "relevant"--which means painfully embarassing misuse of 10 year old ghetto slang--will be particular fodder for their parodies that stop when you walk too close...
Eventually, you'll be too old to try to connect any more, and it becomes a sad parade of years wishing 10 months gone to enjoy the all too brief moments of July and August. You become the old fart that everyone wishes would retire, but you can't really afford to. You and your students are united only in your mutual loathing of each other. After the first 10 years, you give up even trying to make the occasional class interesting--too many swine have brutishly trampled the pearls of your creativity.
Parents treat you no better--sure there are the occasional ones who find something positive in what you do, but every parent night has at least a couple who've shown up to work out their anger from their own tragic high school experience on you. Even the good ones are convinced that you are a scam artist stealing a full-time paycheck for working four or five hours a day.
Your family, if you have one, will be under constant financial pressure, and your pile of marking and preparation work is a burden that you carry like Atlas shouldered the globe. You are the only one who ages in a room full of the perpetually young, making you constantly conscious of your own mortality and physical deterioration.
Of course, if it gets too bad, you could always switch to counselling...
What? You really want to know that one? Have you seen the people who work here? What in the hell makes you think they have a lifestyle that could in any way be appealing? Seriously, I know these people, and they're freaking misfits, every one. Summers off? Yeah, that might seem nice--but let me explain.
S0, you'll go to college, but before that, maybe you'll work in some job to raise cash for school. Remember that job--if you'd stayed there, you'd have kept on earning money--probably more as you climbed up in seniority and skill, and you wouldn't have had to pay tuition fees. Instead, you'll waste five years at college, when you could learn everything you needed to teach in two. If you ever calculate the difference between going to college and teaching, or staying in your old job, you'll realize that you'll have to work until you're 85 to be ahead on the deal.
When you graduate, you won't find the job of your dreams just waiting--you'll either travel to some godforsaken outpost where all the kids are siblings, engaged to each other, or both, or you'll rot on some substitute teaching list waiting for the phone to ring. After a year, you'll figure out that the more popular subs are those who find subtle ways to bribe the teachers who call them in to work.
Subbing will be tough--you're fresh meat for the truly sociopathic members of the school community--which is about 50% of any given school's population--and few of the regular staff ever get your name right, unless they have to seek you out to blast you for parking in their spot.
Eventually you get a job at a school--not full-time, of course, and the salary of teachers early in their careers is about half of their older, burned-out colleagues, so you won't really be pulling in much more cash than some of the kids you teach manage to earn in their after school jobs. The difference is they still live at home, so they can use their earnings to buy late model cars and clothes that fit, while you lie to yourself that no one laughs at your Pinto and that one day you won't need to pin those pants that a more svelte incarnation of you once wore with ease.
Staff meetings are hell--the pathetic divorcees who live alone with their cats have one venue each month to vent their anger at the world, and you must suffer through it--of course, maybe you'll be lucky enough to share a department with these special individuals, and that means even more quality time hearing why your gender is scum. The only thing worse will be those rare unpleasant social gatherings that include drink--these interactions will scar you for the rest of your life.
Students, of course, will be the source of all that is both good and terrible about your day. Parents won't believe their kids need the ritalin, but you'll know better, and it only takes one or two angry violent teenagers to ruin a decent class. Sadly, some of the worst will excel only in their attendance records.
Even the good ones can't be trusted. They'll mock your wardrobe, particularly if you ever wear the same article of clothing in any 10 day period, and you'll eventually realize that you are lied to about 40 times a day. Your favorites will eventually disappoint you when you find mocking charicatures of you scribbled on the backs of the binders they forget in your classroom. Your feeble attempts to be "relevant"--which means painfully embarassing misuse of 10 year old ghetto slang--will be particular fodder for their parodies that stop when you walk too close...
Eventually, you'll be too old to try to connect any more, and it becomes a sad parade of years wishing 10 months gone to enjoy the all too brief moments of July and August. You become the old fart that everyone wishes would retire, but you can't really afford to. You and your students are united only in your mutual loathing of each other. After the first 10 years, you give up even trying to make the occasional class interesting--too many swine have brutishly trampled the pearls of your creativity.
Parents treat you no better--sure there are the occasional ones who find something positive in what you do, but every parent night has at least a couple who've shown up to work out their anger from their own tragic high school experience on you. Even the good ones are convinced that you are a scam artist stealing a full-time paycheck for working four or five hours a day.
Your family, if you have one, will be under constant financial pressure, and your pile of marking and preparation work is a burden that you carry like Atlas shouldered the globe. You are the only one who ages in a room full of the perpetually young, making you constantly conscious of your own mortality and physical deterioration.
Of course, if it gets too bad, you could always switch to counselling...
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