Ten Cent Advice, Five Dollar Headache

My father likes to give me advice. This is the guy who wouldn't let my mother leave the house before 9pm, because he refused to watch my brother and I when we were children unless we were asleep. He and my mother divorced when I was five. He didn't have a big part in raising me. Because he wasn't much of a parent, and because he was either too poor or too cheap to give me or my brother any money, he likes to give us advice - which we generally find pretty useless.

He did tell me one thing, which seemed like it might be true.

"It doesn't matter whether you work in theatre or not," he said. "Because every job is an acting job. The most important part of any job is acting like you care."

Whether I'm acting like I don't mind fetching library books or making reservations for six at Lupita's, or acting like I'm really busy, or acting like I emphathize with a client... 90% of my job is acting like a secretary. I'm not a secretary. I'm just playing at being a secretary. It is an acting job.

Of course, I didn't go to college to be an actor. Or a secretary. I went to college to be a director.

My father tried to warn me...

On a Scale from 1 to Bitter: *le sigh*
1-800-Bitterness.com Radio: Tegan and Sara - More For Me
1-800-Bitterness.com Reading List: Still Life with Woodpecker by Tom Robbins