I put in my application this morning to be a role player at a law enforcement training facility. Is there a more appropriate job for a writer?
Don't be surprised if you see my name nominated for an Oscar next year if they add the category "best performance in a faux hostage simulation including paintball pelting."
It says something that if this job comes through it will not be the strangest one I've had... or likely will have.
I was recently amazed by the real pain someone I love suffered when his lifelong employer folded and he was forced into taking an equivalent job with another company. It turned out to be a step up in pay and responsibility, but he really struggled.
For me, it's like changing socks.
When I worked at a race track and no one in my department wanted to teach handicapping for the Hong Kong racing signal that came in the wee hours of the morning, I did it. (Did you know they run races clockwise there and because land is at such a premium the entrants are limited to the horses stabled in an adjacent stable tower with elevators?) With me half understanding what I was talking about and the audience half understanding English we made several hundred dollars the first night on our classroom illustrations. I wound up liking that job a lot.
Almost as much as the media liaison in Germany job that required my photographer and I to tour every brewery in North Rhine - Westphalia. Or the time I got the real estate company I was working for to do a celebrity golf tournament. Or pretending I was Woodward and Bernstein as a reporter at Love Canal in the 70s. I even passed as a corporate swell at a la-de-da resort.
This other role playing stuff will be a breeze.