Like most people, you’ve probably always wished that you had a job like this:
[The employer] has gone to extraordinary lengths to maintain the anonymity of is [employees]. Many of [the employer’s] top executives have never met [one of these employees].[Employees] are advised not to disclose their line of work, even to their parents… .
Right? But of course you figured that the psychic toll of doing undercover police work or operating as a spy in hostile territory would be too high. You’ve seen Donnie Brasco. You know what Nietsche said:
He who fights monsters should see to it that he himself does not become a monster. And when you gaze long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you.
Indeed. One day you’re protecting the national interests, the next day you’re stabbing a guy in the head with a fork in the hallway of a shitty little hotel in Buenos Aires and it’s all just another day at work.
Well, great news. As I just learned from this fun New Yorker piece (available to non-subscribers), you could always become an inspector for the Michelin hotel-and-restaurant guide. From the sound of it, Michelin inspectors get to have all the fun of being an undercover operator, and the biggest danger they face-psychic or otherwise-is clogged arteries. (Apparently a Michelin inspector “is required to eat everything on her plate” when she is on the job.)
You’re welcome.