My wife’s sister’s husband has spent a few years as a corporate lawyer for various companies, most recently for some insurance company working to screw other companies out of their coverage. So he tells me “you know, I just don’t like my job, I’m making a ton of money, but I’m not happy, I want to do something meaningful, I want to help people” etc. I’m thinking “oh, okay, right on.” But then my BIL loses me completely when he tells me “so I applied to become and FBI agent and I have already made it pretty far in the process. So an agent might contact you when they do my background check.”
(First of all, I’m not speaking to a fucking FBI pig for nothing. Fuck that. And I told my BIL so: “I will not be speaking to the FBI. If an agent contacts me, that is exactly the entirety of what I will say to them before I hang up the phone or shut the door.” But I bit my tongue when it came to why I felt that way)
The topic didn’t come up again, but I’ll probably see him again in a couple of weeks. And I feel like I need to say something to him, but what? He claims being an FBI agent has been his dream since he was 15. He apparently thinks joining the FBI is a way to help people. He’s tired of looking after rich people’s money and rich corporations’ money (bro what do you think you’ll be doing with the FBI???) I also feel like a big reason he is doing this is to seem cool and masculine and interesting, not out of a genuine desire to help.
What do you guys think? How should I approach it? What specifically should I bring up to demonstrate that the FBI is not the best way to help people? Should I go all out that the FBI is demonstrably evil? Or should I take the approach that it is lame as hell? What alternative path would you suggest to someone with a law degree who says they want to help people?
I’m not trying to attack him or anything. It is lame and has made me lose respect for him, but I’m not trying to lead with that.
FBI agents actually don’t make a ton of money. Which makes it even more baffling as to why anyone would want to be one.
They easily make twice what teachers make. It’s not “a lot of money” but it’s far more comfortable than the people who actually contribute to society.
Idealism and naivete, unfortunately. There’s a certain mystique attached to being an agent – you’re supposedly on the front line against crime, you defend ordinary people against criminals, etc. Everybody knows the CIA’s hands are not clean. But most USians still persist in the belief, bolstered by propaganda, that the FBI is basically good and incorruptible.
It’s similar to how many kids in the USSR – Vladimir Putin says he was one of them – dreamed of working for the KGB: you got to be a hero, and put your life on the line for something you believe in. Except that, you know, the KGB actually helped and defended people, unlike the FBI. But a lot of USians simply don’t know that.
Propaganda.
Studies show that careers seen as heroic in society often coincide with pay cuts–you’re already being paid in glory, why do you need cash too?
Dick Wolf
it isn’t much but it’s not a bad living. I was reading an article about an FBI whistleblower that got completely fucked when he was found out and 16 years into the job he was making $150k
(Also part of the plan is him making his wife go into finance and making a bunch of money there, something she is not interested in doing. He’s a bit of a jackass tbh)