Terry Gaither Advice is a sponsored advice column in which Mr. Gaither lends his own advice and wisdom from his twenty years of working in the professional field on Wall Street and his last six years working from his cell in a maximum security, 24-hour watch mental facility.
“Dear Terry,
I’ve been offered a fairly lucrative position at a nearby investment firm, but I like where I’m at with regard to everything but pay. How do I leverage this job offer to make more money but stay put?
Loving Life,
Frank Backbrace”
Oh, well, look at you, bragging on the Internet about lucrative offers being made to you. “What do I do with all of this possible money, Terry?! I couldn’t possibly think to spend it on recreational activities! Where’s the nearest non-profit or charitable cause I can burn down and rebuild with my wonderfully excessive amount of income?!”
I can think of two outcomes, both of which will work out well for you, while killing me from the inside out: one, you get a new job that pays you more money. Think of all that money! You’ll be able to finally purchase the love of your precious children once-and-for-until-they-want-more-love-ransom with a bike or life-sized dollhouse. Or two, you talk to your bosses and they realize you’re a singular commodity and worthy of a pay raise.
Personally, I don’t think you’re worth a used-red-headed-merkin. Maybe you can leverage yourself for that position. You’d do well doing that.
“Dear Mr. Gaither,
A good bit of my business involves travel, and it’s getting more and more costly. Food, board, planes, trains and automobiles…It’s all too much! How would you propose I cut down on these various travel expenditures?
Out of Time,
Charlie Lynn”
It sounds to me like you’ve got every business priority you could possibly have all whopperjawed. You need to invest heavily in cheap, cheap alcohol. This will “handle” (see, this is a pun, because a large quantity of alcohol – like the variety I’m recommending – come in containers commonly called handles…Classic Terry!) all of your sundry travel expenses.
• Where are we going to stay tonight, boss? The need for a roof over one’s head at any given point is immediately erased! With enough brown liquor swimming in your blood stream, you’ll be able to sleep just about anywhere; on a bar stool, in an alley way, in the trunk of an auction police vehicle. And you’ll sleep like a baby, too!
• Where are we going to eat, boss? Just keep drinking!
• How are we going to ever get to/from this meeting, boss? With the copious amounts of preferably homegrown booze destroying brain cells like a summer brush fire, you won’t have to worry about making any sort of appointments, meetings or maintain any sort of schedule whatsoever. That’s the beauty of alcohol. It leaves you completely unfettered and detached from any sort of social responsibility whatsoever.
If this doesn’t work, try PCP.
“Dearest Terry,
My girlfriend and I are both in Ad Sales for competing publications. At first, we thought it was interesting we were both in the same field, but we’ve had a problem of taking business from one another. Some of my clients won’t run with her because they’re running with me, and vice versa; it’s causing a strain. Help!
Pleading,
Robbie Rowboat”
These questions…these questions are always the hardest to answer. Not because the balance of careers and relationships can become complex or any sort of Nicholas Sparks scenario, but because these people who ask this dumb question aren’t willing to do what it takes to get it done: You must stop at nothing to not only bankrupt your competing other half, but to make her wholly dependent on you, embarrassing her in broad daylight for the world to see.
You have privileged access to her account information? YOU STEAL THOSE ACCOUNTS. You have privileged access to her personal flaws or maybe past indiscretions? YOU PUBLICIZE THOSE INDISCRETIONS. She doesn’t have any personal flaws or past indiscretions? YOU FABRICATE AND PLANT THOSE AFOREMENTIONED FLAWS AND INDESCRETIONS.
Clearly, you’re a moron, since you didn’t think of it first. So here are some good examples. Fill her purse with some used condoms and pictures of Fred Savage from his days on The Wonder Years, with hearts drawn around his face in her lipstick. If that doesn’t scare off her clients, you probably don’t want those clients. Or maybe you do, in which case, do the exact same thing, but with Fred Savage and his brother Ben from Boy Meets World. You know, just to up the ante.
If none of this works, break up with her, because that relationship is going to be whopperjawed from there on out. Whopperjawed is a word I like to use when I’m dealing with people who make me want to bite my own legs off.
Whopperjawed.
ZACK STOVALL 