Either an artist is highly paid or barely paid at all. And depending on your take of matters artistic, either state of affairs can be deemed glamourous.

The rich, successful artist, whose work has found acceptance and respect is seen as a model, someone to look up to, and draw inspiration from.

The poor struggling artist trying to eke out a living, and gain some sort of recognition, is likewise seen as a model, someone to look up to, and draw inspiration from.

It really depends on which side you like your toast buttered, but whichever that is, there remains a certain number of constants, a certain degree of what is known as BS, that must be tolerated regardless of where you are placed on the financial earnings spectrum.

First there are the opening nights. Your night of nights is sullied by the pretense and verbal garbage some people will speak merely for a glass, or ten, of your Moet. Or perhaps a, shall we say, mass produced sauvignon blanc, as the case may be.

And do such rounded art critics have any intention of buying one of your works? There’s a slight chance you might snare a sale before the last of the chardonnay and cheese vanishes down their art appreciating throats.

Then there are the people who really don’t know a thing about what they are viewing. They are only in an art gallery because they are trying to impress their latest partner, who said he or she loved “spending Sunday afternoons in art galleries.”

And he or she only wrote a line like that on their match dot com profile because they wanted to give the impression they are educated, articulate, and have an appreciation of the “arts”.

So no sale there. And to add insult to injury they are telling you, as they don’t realise that you are in fact the artist, that your work could be “produced by a five year old child”.

Are you beginning to get an idea of how difficult this all is?

Why are people born to suffer, be artists, and then die? Why do you go to arts school to learn the “rules” when art is all about freedom of expression, and not abiding by any rules?

How can making a salary of $5000 (in any currency) be deemed glamourous and fabulous. Well here’s how.

An artist is one of the few people who can create what they dream. Who can follow a wisp of inspiration and toil for days, weeks, or longer, to transform a blank canvas, a piece of wood, rock, or marble, or any other material, or media, they care to work with, into a story, a message, a statement, something that baffles the comprehension, and taxes the imagination of we the onlookers, and sometimes makes us simply stop and stare in awe.

Tell you what, no stockbroker, accountant (not even a creative accountant ), or socialite, could ever do that.

A love of money may indeed be the root of all evil, but any artist will tell they are not in it for the money, they are in it for the art.

The pay is non-existent and the hours are long. Yet it’s a “job” many would give their right arm to have.

Why?

Because office holders are usually “kept” men or women, who live like princes or princesses, and the “long hours” usually entail whiling away the small hours at cocktail parties thrown by the rich and fabulous.

But calling it a job is just a little bit “common”, don’t you think? So let’s refrain.

Besides, being Just Over Broke does not make for a good socialite, now does it? Plus office gossip just doesn’t rate when compared to A-list gossip.

You do not study at university, or trawl the classifieds looking for “openings”, to become a socialite. Either you are born into it, talk your way into it, or marry into it. Period.

So what’s it really like? You know, what’s a day on the (for want of a better word) job all about?

You know, it really strikes me as being like acting. Like a movie star. But you substitute acting ability for pretense. There are air kisses, superficial greeting hugs, and gratuitous use of the word dah-ling (if that’s even a word) aplenty.

I used to live next door to a socialite. I never met her, though I considered it a privilege to catch a fleeting glimpse of her dashing out of the building, and into a waiting taxi limousine.

I think she had a closed circuit TV that monitored the hallways of the apartment building, and she only made an entrance to exit, as it were, when the “coast was clear”.

She was also the only person in the building whose apartment had a balcony, so being a socialite obviously has its advantages when it comes to deciding “who” (such a FAB magazine, by the way, dah-ling) is allocated balconies.

I used dread her parties though, and you had to watch your step if you were walking below her balcony when she was entertaining her (non A-list) friends, lest you were hit by the wayward cork of a campaign bottle.

Incidentally an idea of the grandness of the previous (simply enchanting) evening’s (simply delicious) frivolities could be gauged by the number of discarded corks that littered the courtyard in the morning.

Wait up though. A socialite living in an… apartment block? Yes indeed. Who would have thought it?

But that also says something about being a socialite, doesn’t it? It’s all about appearances and how you carry yourself off. It’s about the face and the cocktail dress. And the ability to explain away unknown quantities.

“I live in an older style apartment building, you understand. Classical yet quaint. But without an elevator. Something to do with the building’s heritage listing, you understand. Therefore makes my place unsuitable for entertaining, you understand.”

Enough about my brush with celebrity though.

Is being a socialite for you? Well if you can handle the A list, the champaign, the tax havens, learjets, and hanging out with movie stars, rock stars, and fashion photographers, then maybe.

And appearances aboard Royalty yachts, and at polo matches don’t bother you either? Brilliant! So if you have that certain something, and the gift of the gab, then go for it!

Any down sides to this sort of “work”, you ask? Well, yes, unfortunately there is. You can never, ever, apply for the unemployment benefit. And that has nothing to do with shame, or pride, either. Unfortunately the welfare office just won’t buy it when you try and tell them you are an “unemployed socialite”!

Soooo sorry, dah-ling!

Possibly the most prominent character the 1991 movie, Father of the Bride, was the wedding planner, Franck Eggelhoffer, played by Martin Short.

His garbled East European accent, combined with his camp flair, made the job of organising the biggest day in the life of two people, seem like, well, a piece of wedding cake.

But don’t let Franck’s apparent cool deceive you. It has to be a facade. People hire wedding planners because they want to pass the stress that comes with arranging the grandest day of their lives onto someone else. Namely you.

The stress factor is the first point I am going to address. Most people taking a job, any job, are concerned about the amount of stress that is likely to be involved. So if any level of stress bothers you, this not is the career for you.

First up are you dealing with the actual stress of organising the event. Why, oh why, isn’t the preferred church free on the preferred day while the preferred venue is?

Then you are also dealing with the “second hand” stress from the couple-to-be. Why, oh why, isn’t the preferred church free on the preferred day while the preferred venue is?

But if the stress isn’t a downside, then the fact that you, as a wedding planner, never quite take full control of proceedings, may be. Organising someone else’s wedding is like minding someone else’s child; in other words it’s never completely your baby.

Being a wedding planner will also test a number of your skills, possibly some you never knew you had before.

You are not just an organiser, you are also a negotiator, a motivator, an inspiration, a magician (should either the preferred church or preferred venue be unavailable), an enforcer, (should either the preferred church or preferred venue be unavailable) and a shoulder to cry on (should either the preferred church or preferred venue be unavailable).

It is also something of thankless job. If all goes well it is remembered as [insert married couple's names here] wedding, whereas if it all goes horribly wrong, guess whose fault it is. By the way, if things don’t quite go according to plan, you may wish to consider the services of a Spin doctor!

Let’s not dwell too much on the negatives though.

If it’s prestige you want, then yes, you have probably come to the right place. Chances are one of your quality crafted weddings will make the social pages of the Sunday papers, and maybe even grace a glossy gossip mag or two.

And if it’s money you want, then again, you have hit a home run. You should be able to turn a half decent profit, and enjoy the domicile of a lavish office (much in the style of Franck Eggelhoffer and associates) since you can take advantage of inflated mark ups whenever the word “wedding” is mentioned.

Oh, and one other thing, just as doctors should never treat their own ailments, wedding planners should not organise their own weddings. Having arranged so many others, the pressure on you to make yours the “best ever” could be unbearable.

If I were you, I’d consider eloping and marrying in the presence of a Justice of the Peace on a secluded beach somewhere. Makes sense, I once knew a wedding planner who said she couldn’t stand crowds!

If you believe the geeks shall inherit the Earth, then their time has come.

That’s if you also believe that someone who keeps an online journal, weblog, or blog, is in fact a geek. And thanks to strides in technology anyone can become a blogger, and by definition, a geek, at the click of a mouse button.

At the height of the dot com boom, way back in the day, 1999, being a web design superstar was the IT (no pun intended) occupation. Now the humble blogger’s time has come. Whoever thought that sitting at home “blogging” about your favourite topic, (ops, I mean niche) could turn a respectable buck thanks to some shrewd ad “placement”?

But you’re no longer a web designer, or even a blogger. You are a “pro blogger”, and with any luck a superstar to boot. And being a pro blogger superstar is more than receiving cheque proceeds for the aforementioned ad placement, each month, from the world’s favourite search engine.

Some of the pros, the big names, spend their time roaming the globe presenting at conferences, speaking on panels, and attending their own book launches. A fairly fabulous, glamorous occupation, no?

There are A-lists, the elite, the upper echelons, and the inner circle. And every blogger wants a piece of the action, to be not only above the fold, but also in the fold. But maybe blogging has become a self absorbing obsession unto itself. The focus is no longer on producing content, it’s about web stats, technorati rankings, back links, and page ranks.

But let’s put that superficial stuff aside, and answer the question. How do you make a go of it? How do you succeed and become a pro blog superstar? Well, there is plenty of advice around on the subject, so you have no excuse!

If you don’t have time to read though, let me summarise. It’s about writing articles that are at least 500 words long (like this one) and publishing such articles at least five times a week just so the search engine indexes don’t lose sight of you. It’s about networking 24/7, and trying every promotional gizmo and scheme that someone “introduces” to you.

It’s about being creative, brainstorming and finding inspiration on the fly. Some days the ideas flow, and you’re writing nine to the dozen, while at other times writer’s block descends, and it takes days to knock out the requisite 500 words, or even conceive an idea. And you know what they say; lose a day baby, lose two page rank points!

But there I go being a geek again. Or a wanna-be geek. A plethora of tools and applications means anyone can be a “geek” though. It’s a term of derision that became cool but has now become a cliche.

The writers of those of blogging applications are the real geeks though, the ones we owe our (imminent) success to, and it is their efforts that have bought about the dawning of the instant, or D-I-Y, entrepreneur age.

They somehow missed out on inheriting the Earth, but made millions when they sold their applications though. Now that’s glamour for you.

As a job title wouldn’t this be considered an oxymoron? It must also be about the only time you would see the words television and personality grouped in the same sentence as well.

No, just kidding, really. You see I don’t have a TV, so I think the whole medium is just about a complete waste of time.

I prefer to spend my spare time out at the park, in the lap pool, at the movies, going out for dinner, going out for coffee, engaging in face-to-face conversation, reading (remember that?), networking, blogging, designing websites, and surfing the net.

So it doesn’t leave a great deal of time for the idiot box, I mean TV, does it? Besides, there’s only so many times you can watch re-runs of the Simpsons, right?

So it’s not that I’m biased or anything. I mean a medium that offers no connection, or interactivity, and is responsible for the death of personal communication still has its merits right? Ops, there I go again…

A job as a TV Personality indeed appeals. There’s the fame and the fortune. There’s sitting and chewing the fat with all sorts of people that the rest of us will be lucky to see from 100 metres, as they are whisked into limousines flanked by their minders.

There’s becoming part of the A-list and being invited to the birthdays, weddings, and all manner of other debauched gatherings, of those “who have made it”. Then there’s the Logies, the Emmys, and all the other accolades that are part and parcel of being a TV personality.

There’s the privilege of being part of the inner circle of a very elite clique of well known, beautiful, well groomed and manicured, and impeccably dressed people, who all have pearly white smiles and dazzling bright eyes.

That’s probably (hopefully) enticement enough to see your way passed the back stabbing, cat fights, and intensely bitter rivalry and competition that must be overcome to be able to come anywhere near the studio floor.

Selling your soul (and your actual personality at the same time) may contribute to your “success” though.

So is it really for you? Is this what you want to be? This is an important question, because on screen there is no you.

Being a TV Personality is really just an act. A pretense. A put on. It’s all about regurgitating the auto-cue. It’s not you at all.

The person yabbering away on the box in the living rooms of millions of people may have your name, but what about your actual, real, personality? Is that person really you, remotely you, or a total facade?

So see what I mean when I say oxymoron?

If you want a job that requires having some personality while presenting yourself to people, why not consider a career as a stand up comedian? It is a job where you can truly be who you are, you write and act out your own gigs, and no remote can ever stop or silence you.

Try being a TV Personality and see if you are half as lucky.

Apparently being a stockbroker is a glamourous job. Or fabulous, as we say it at The InterChange Desk.

I read as much in a glossy magazine (whose title evades me now) while sitting in my dentist’s waiting room the other afternoon. (It was an article featuring stockbrokers, not unfortunately, The InterChange Desk, just in case there was any confusion in that last sentence.)

Really fabulous jobs, like being a rock star, actor, fashion photographer, model, et al, the ones that totally evade mere mortals like us, are what I’d consider to be, well, absolutely fabulous.

As a stockbroker you have to wear a suit. A gray pin-stripe suit at that. Not to mention dull ties, and boring business shirts, and while I’m laying on the generalisations ad lib, bowler hats. Unless you’re a stockbroker working in New York.

You also have the privilege of working in an office.

And it is on that basis I fail to see how stockbroking could possibly be considered… glamorous.

Sorry to break it to you, but there is nothing glamourous, fabulous, or otherwise cool, about working in an office. Why do you think this column is called the FAB (pro)files? Because so far none of the occupations reviewed have been office based.

Nor do they involve wearing a suit (Ok, aside from a uniform here, and a SPACE suit there…). Unless it was personally designed by one of the fashion gods.

And sure, Ricky Gervais made office work look cool, but that was all made up. No one really had to suffer “working” in those beige conditions, under those beige fluorescent lights.

Truly fabulous jobs entail not getting out of bed each morning for anything less than ten thousand dollars, and even then only working for 20 minutes a day. Or something. Truly fabulous jobs only require the uttering of a smart one-liner, or posing with a suitably sensuous pout and smoldering darkness in your eyes.

Also I don’t know how shouting yourself hoarse on the overcrowded trading floor of a stock exchange is remotely glamourous. That sounds more like a long hard night at the Roundhouse bar during O Week at the local university.

Then again stockbrokers are on a pretty good retainer. They probably have a few Mercedes and Rolls parked in the garage. Vintage models and late models. And the garage probably has ten parking bays, and is also air conditioned.

It sits underneath the 35 room mansion stockbrokers live in, which is accessed by elevators from the garage. Out in the backyard you’ll find an Olympic size swimming pool, and most likely a nine hole golf course.

They probably have a couple of holidays homes along the coast, and take two month vacations to where ever takes their fancy annually.

So yes, all up, it’s not a bad lark really. They probably even get a few tax breaks as well. Depreciation on the vintage cars, or something.

Still I think classing it a fabulous job is a tad over the top. I think someone’s had a whiskey or three. Peated single malt, 12-year-old whiskey, that is.

Either you have it or you don’t. No degrees in medicine or philosophy could ever bestow you with the brazen attitude (or is that audacity), that being a doctor of this sort requires.

Let me describe it to you. A spin doctor helps someone else out of the corner they have painted themselves into. Except of course they haven’t painted themselves into a corner. In fact there’s no paint, and there’s not even a corner, come to that.

Is there?

In “reality” someone has merely paused temporarily on one the other side of the room while they reassess their options before issuing a public statement.

In other words you get to cover up the gaffes, goofs, and extra martial affairs of your clients, by putting the whole mess down to being “a misunderstanding”. Your clients are usually married politicians, married celebrities, and married anyone-elses who are somehow in the public domain.

In fact spin doctors have been responsible for covering up some of the biggest rorts and scandals in recent times. How? Well you take a fight fire with fire approach. If you can’t somehow explain away one person’s “difficulty” then you simply create a diversion, and point the spot light on someone else.

And this means keeping close tabs on the (soon to be former) friends and acquaintances of the aforementioned married politicians, married celebrities, and other married “hanger-oners”.

It also helps having your ear to the ground, your finger on the pulse, and knowing what a bevy of politicians, celebrities, and sure, even a couple of bloggers, are up to. That way when a client calls up needing help, you are instantly able to divert the media’s attention onto some other poor sod’s misdemeanours.

You also need to be handy with neologisms, and ready to fire off terms like values migration and paradigm shift, the second you see a reporter or camera crew come into sight.

Also you need to be able to go back on yourself without appearing to, and devise, often on the fly and with scant information, elaborate and confusing stories designed to send the media scurrying down blind allies.

Yes, sir, it’s a tough job, but someone has to do it.

Ironically, with their quick thinking, and mental dexterity, “spinners” could probably solve many of the world’s problems. Sadly though, another waste of talent and ability. And tax payers’ money.

Actually now that I think about it, there’s nothing the least bit glamourous, or fabulous, about this sort of work at all. Where’s the prestige in airing one person’s dirty laundry, while concealing someone else’s at the same time?

But a good spin doctor can do something about even that. Can’t they?

Alternatively you could try saying “I work in public relations, but my work is classified.” Actually don’t mention the public relations bit, and people will think you’re a spy.

And trust me, people will be a lot happier to talk to a spy at a dinner party, than a spin doctor.