3:10 p.m., Suite 210.

Hoarse whisper into recording device strapped to left wrist: I am about to enter the unknown zone of Career Advisor HQ and go “behind the wall” at the south end of that room…..stop.

Let me back up. As an occupational investigator specialist, it is my job to plumb the depths of mysterious environs and document what people actually do for a living.

Today’s request is Ben Counter, listed on my case form as Career Advisor, Senior Data Engineer. My job: to determine if the hearsay that he hangs upside down from the ceiling while reciting call lists backwards in Aramaic is factual.

And, to critically investigate whether he owns and operates a ‘cloning switch’ that allows him to function in two or more places at once, a quirk coworkers have reported witnessing.

When I first ask him to report on the systematic status of the divergence of molecular phylogeography on his reputed order of Chiroptera, Ben doesn’t bat an eye. True to his name he counters with, “Senior Data Engineer really doesn’t describe what I do.

“Getting to the danger zone already. I take a deep breath and pan, using my deadly-effective parlor game prompt, “Sounds like?”

He replies, “It is my goal to acquire, quantify, qualify, integrate and otherwise leverage data from internally and externally generated lists into usable records that we can import into the automated predictive dialer and fuel Career Advisor calling campaigns with high quality leads that convert.”

Good thing I took a deep breath first. “I’m beginning to understand now why you are called an engineer. But to turn it inside out (or possibly upside down), help us non-engineers understand what that actually means to Career Advisor?”

Ben, who also assists Career Advisor with training and quality assurance involving some 70 Career Advisor team members who actually take and make in-bound and out-bound calls, said, “Take last October, for example. We helped over 13,000 people connect with at least one school.”

Okay, there it is. Bat-guy or not, this man has cloned his own right arm.
A really deep breath this time. “Okay, Ben, if you’ll just step away from the list generators, please, and raise your, uh, three arms, none of the Career Advisors will get hurt!”

[Postscript: Career Advisor sent Ben to Las Vegas, for a “List Conference.” Me? I’m thinking those one-armed bandits don’t stand a chance against Counter Man.]