Phase II: Pretend I am Someone I am Not

after my very first job, i promised myself my second job would be the exact opposite of the first. not necessarily because i disliked the first job, but because my experience had been so amazingly educational that i immediately became somewhat of an addict.

there were, of course, several other benefits to working a wide variety of jobs that i discovered throughout time. and those are as follows.

1. a larger spectrum of job experience makes it easier to talk to a larger audience of people.

2. it also lands you more jobs.

3. every job comes with a somewhat permanent "thank you."

4. i can, at any time, pretend i'm stilling working at any number of the jobs, and i can back it up with facts.

while i no longer get an awesome discount at the three soma restaurants i worked, i do still get my favorite table. and my former camera-selling co-workers will still print poster-sized photos for me. also, i think the fact i met techboy at macworld and i happen to know how to break into his fillmore apartment and happen to know he's currently in chicago counts as a job benefit.

but, beneficially speaking, the smartest decision i have ever made was becoming a tour guide of this city. even after quitting, i continued to ride the tour bus to interviews, and i even took the golden gate park tour once in order to pick up a queen-sized bed and bring it back home.

"this might sound weird, but i'm outside your apartment... in a fairly large double-decker tour bus."

"it's not that weird. it is craigslist after all."

but the free rides throughout the city are not even close to the best part about having been a well-versed tour guide. the absolute greatest perma-perk is knowing i can always pull enough san francisco history and trivia from my mind to convince people i am still a tour guide.

and that's where PHASE II: Pretend I am Someone I am Not comes into play.

i didn't really throw it out. it's like that scene when doc brown tears up marty's letter and we think he's going to die in the future but then he tapes it back together and wears a bullet proof vest. i still have the tie.

see, i could easily pretend i still work for atari, or the san jose improv-- i've got a collection of uniforms-- but there is no real point in pretending something so useless.

being a tour guide is a different story.

i used to tell tourists to remember one interesting fact i said on a tour-- hopefully there was at least one-- and to tell people they're a tour guide to see how much they can get for free. the type of laughs most of them gave proved they weren't about to try. but there was that one old couple who pretended to be my grandparents and got free tour tickets.

either way, it was only half-joke. when stumbling into the underground storage room of the clift hotel i had realized, accidentally, the power of the sentence "i am a tour guide."

i happened to be wearing my tour guide attire because, during those days, i almost never changed out of it. i went to work, came home to grab whiskey and went on an adventure that usually ended in time for the next days tours. certain times that came in great use. others not so much.

something about it all made the man pause, and during that pause i decided the best choice would be to pretend i had been directed down there to meet with a general manager for some information for tourists.

i think when people are confused they will grab desperately at any explanation they hear. they almost don't care what the answer is, so long as there was an answer and their previous curiosities have been resolved.

"it's weird that he'd send you down here."

"that's exactly what i was saying. he sends me to this dungeon. you'd think he would've wanted me to meet him in the lobby at least."

but, in the case that they do question your make-believe logic, they're usually pretty helpless if you turn them into you and you into them so that you're on the same confused team.

after that experience, i started telling all sorts of museums and businesses that i was a tour guide-- calling it "research for my job." usually coming with a pre-packaged tour guiding joke helped as well. or, in case of harsher circumstances, my ridiculous tour guiding neck-tie.

everything was discounted or free and it was amazing. sometimes employees would even let me take extremely close-up photos of their faces because it was just something tour guides had to do sometimes.


the only better than that was, "i'm a member of the press." but they each had their strengths.

and, one magical day, i went to a museum and asked for a few complimentary tickets for myself and friends-- explaining that our tour buses passed right by and i wanted to properly sell the landmark. and they just handed me a paper ticket and told me to make it out for the number of friends that were coming.

sort of like that movie, the blank check.

it was a sort of voucher that could be made out to any number of people on any date. i put down nine people and sold the tickets at a discounted price.

and, conveniently enough, i am still a tour guide. i mean, i'm not-- but i am. my blog says i am, right in the subtitle. it's not like i've erased all the san francisco trivia from my brain, or like people stopped calling me to settle bets regarding random city facts. i am very much a tour guide. i just don't work for a company.

leaving out the part about a company is useful. because without that fact museums have no problem giving me more blank vouchers.

i have five. but those five can be made into any number of tickets. one voucher could be 8 tickets-- it could even be 1 million, except the fire marshall would probably argue against the number of people entering a building at once.

the first voucher, and a short walk to union square, brought me $70 and a cup of coffee today-- which is more than i would make in six hours of staring at shoes, wearing a name-tag that falsely declares me a shoe-lover. and this is much more interesting.

it was, admittedly, kind of nice to meet the stranger at union square and pretend i was a tour guide again. tours were always so much fun even though they were always such bullshit.

and there's no direct harm in letting her believe i'm a tour guide. she still gets to go to the museum-- she even gets a price break! i make some money, and the museum has one more potential shopper for their gift shop. sometimes it's okay to pretend to be someone you're not.

as of now, i'm waiting on the second voucher sale ($120), and a few jobs. i haven't heard anything from the camera store which is surprising and horrible-- but we'll see what happens. i've also applied to be a brand ambassador for a marijuana energy drink, and a writer for pub trivias.

also, loving doodle is gaining more audience-- most likely because of valentines-- and that's bringing in a few slow dollars.

i'm at $375 and will be at $495 after this next voucher sale. and even though i'm pretty close to my rent n' bill total, i'd really like a job. but, while i wait for callbacks and apply for other ridiculous positions i will need to pause PHASE II: Pretend I am Someone I am Not and begin PHASE III: Go on an Adventure, quite possibly the most important phase of all.