Part-time Career Path Detour

Well, so much for my idea of gaining supplementary income in part-time celebrity employment.

A surprisingly large number of people I know are adamantly convinced that being a part-time celebrity is impossible. They believe it’s like attempting to be be part-time pregnant or part-time married or part-time dead. “Either you is…or you isn’t!” seems to be the most (grammar-challenged and) commonly-stated position on the subject. Leave it to your friends to throw cold water on your dreams.

I’m still having trouble seeing it that way since, before TARP and the accompanying credit crisis, I was a full-time architect and am now, for all practical purposes, a part-time architect. Naturally, it was a small leap of logic that celebrity status might be similarly unfixed. Truthfully, I still slip back and forth on conclusions about the matter.

Anyway, I’ve gone back to the drawing board (which in actuality doesn’t exist anymore, having been replaced with computer workstations) and decided that the best supplementary income opportunity for me is to offer marital advice for a small fee.

Why marital advice, you wonder? Well, I’m married myself, my parents are married…heck, some of my best friends are married. I’ve been around married people all my life. I think I could successfully argue that I’m more qualified to offer marital advice than a literature professor who’s never written and published a profitable novel is qualified to teach literature.

Some might point out that there’s already a bunch of advice out there on how to be successfully married but I say, a fat lot of good it’s all doing, right? There seems to be no limit to opportunity, in that there are still a lot of disastrous marriages and people thoroughly confused on the subject. Besides, speaking of confusion, who’s to say my opinions on the subject aren’t at least as credible as anyone else’s?

So, anyone need some marital advice? My first advice is a free sample; after that I’ll have to charge you. I can’t remember where I learned of that business model before, but I’ve heard it helps develop client loyalty, something that we could all use more of.

Free sample advice example: Unless you are very rich and can support two households in lavish fashion, stay married. I’m afraid that any advice beyond this will cost you, but it will still be way cheaper than divorce. I can’t promise that I can help solve all your problems overnight but, that’s why I’ll be charging by the hour.

In order to expand into other fill-able need areas, I guess I should reach beyond marital advice alone and also offer marriage-avoidance counseling, but you need to let me know going in which one you want to focus on so I don’t end up wasting your time and money.

Sound like a plan?

I’m really excited about this new direction. It’s not just about the money either but I’ll be helping other people while also doing something I really love – telling other people what to think and do. I don’t know why I didn’t see this possibility earlier.