Some people may shrug these types of experiences off and go on without missing a beat. You are left entirely to your own devices. What other pros and cons do you see? One of the first hazards to consider when contemplating an FBI career is the inherent danger of the work you may do. Knowing someone else was imprisoned, tortured or killed because you didn't do your job properly is a terrible burden. Many people also mistrust insurance agents since they have made bad experiences with them in the past. By then, he had already become familiarised with the practice of espionage, including its basic techniques, during his military service. We interviewed M extensively between 2019 and 2021 about his career as a spy during the cold war. Depending on your job, agencies are known to be lenient when it comes to dress code. Specialized skills officer 7. It was very much like a [John] le Carr novel. Creative agencies help you build strong friendships with colleagues through different activities. While some real estate agents work independently, others work for a licensed broker. The end of the friendship with his East German handlers and the insecurity and threat that it generated, in Ms words, had a considerable impact on his wellbeing. Ms meetings with them often took place in East Berlin, and sometimes in other venues in the Eastern Bloc such as Bulgaria or Yugoslavia. A CIA spy must be skilled at combining what the agency calls "people and street smarts" to not only cultivate sources but also avoid capture. Either way, the interrogation ended suddenly and bizarrely. Besides, to improve your creative workflow, our web application Filestagestreamlines your client reviews on videos, pictures and documents. While some insurance companies dont require a college degree, others want you to have at least a bachelors degree. What are your experiences? He allowed us to see and check all of these documents. His two long-time Stasi handlers were known to him as Wolfgang and Heinz. In a memo, the CIA said lax vetting . She is currently pursuing Medical and PhD programs. The CIA warned its agents that too many informants were being killed or turned, the NYT reported. Creative agencies are a part of a bigger community of advertising and communication professionals. They threw me in a prison cell, and after a while they took me out again. A seed that would grow over the years to become an obsession. In such a case, you may have to sell products you dont fully understand to your clients and you may therefore suffer from a pretty bad conscience in the long run. Actor Roger Moore, who played secret agent James Bond in the '70s and '80s, holds a martini. Yet, you will still spend most of your workday in a rather artificial office environment while foresters and many other people are able to work in a more interactive manner outdoors. Insurance companies may also set pretty ambitious goals for you which you have to meet. As an insurance agent, you will also be able to enjoy regular workweeks if you work for major insurance companies out there. You will often have regular workweeks. That is the old service though. Normally what happens in the services is that the risks are run by the agents the people you, as an officer, recruit. Logistics officer 10. These messages consisted of numbers read out monotonously according to a pre-arranged transmission schedule. Tony Guerra served more than 20 years in the U.S. Navy. They prove that he had also been a Stasi agent. While it can be lonely, you arent always in danger and a lot of the work is mundane former intelligence officer, Harry Ferguson, on a career in the secret service. Chances are that you will get much more responsibility soon and this will often also translate into a higher salary. Do All Jobs With the CIA Need to Be Kept Secret? For instance, the US Bureau of Labor and Statistics' 2019 report put the median annual income for travel agents at $44,410. Whether its playing games on the Wii, drinking beer from the tap, or getting a little too creative at after work parties, creatives know how to have fun. She holds a Bachelor of Arts in psychology and Japanese from the University of Hawaii, as well as a Master of Arts in forensic psychology. To be a successful operations officer in the CIA, you must always be able to deal with fast-moving, ambiguous and unstructured situations. However, if you have good people skills and your clients will trust you blindly, you will have good chances to succeed as an insurance agent and can make much more than people working in a fast food restaurant and many other people out there. M worked for the Dutch service for many years and subsequently for the CIA. You can also download this article for free as a PDF right here: Living the life of a creative artist sounds amazing doesnt it? He would go on to believe that he had been betrayed. As an insurance agent, you may also be able to work from home. That career would go on to provide excellent cover for his clandestine work, as it involved a lot of international travel. The Hohenschnhausen Memorial in Berlin, a former Stasi prison. To hear about new Insights articles, join the hundreds of thousands of people who value The Conversations evidence-based news. I have to assume you mean is there a Disadvantage to being an Military Intelligence Servicemember as opposed to being in the Intelligence business as a civilian. They have to operate every day so that people who dont have a car can get from A to B. As a CIA field agent or operations officer, you can expect to spend the bulk of your career working overseas. Being Creative Under Pressure. Also make sure to check out the following articles: Advantages and disadvantages of working as a politician, Advantages and disadvantages of working as an air traffic controller, Advantages and disadvantages of working as a painter, https://www.statista.com/statistics/194232/number-of-us-insurance-brokers-and-service-employees/, https://www.statista.com/statistics/422878/annual-median-salary-financial-insurance-real-estate-united-kingdom-uk/, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Independent_insurance_agent. Most of the time, you will just sit in front of your computer and stare at the screen or answer calls you might get. I knew the job wasn't going to be James Bond but I was curious to know more. The U.S. Central Intelligence Agency has its roots in World War II's Office of Strategic Services, according to National Archives. How Much Money Does a Lieutenant Make in the Marine Corps? Moreover, sleeping problems are quite common for people who have to work late at night. $53,000 per year on average, most travel agents make between $45,000 and $68,000 per year. But there are disadvantages to consider, too. nibusinessinfo.co.uk As a creative in an advertising agency, you are expected to come up with great ideas on a regular base. Agencies exist solely to serve their clients. Collection management officer If you go to the secret service website, which is the starting point for anybody thinking of joining, you will see they ask for proven experience in another field. $63,000 per year on average, most insurance agents make between $48,000 and $83,000 per year. No customer will be like the other and youre learning each and every day. If you still want to become an insurance agent, you should also get detailed information on the salary, future outlook, duties, job satisfaction, working hours, work-life balance and educational requirements of insurance agents. A lot of being a spy is terribly mundane. Listen to Eleni Braat and Ben de Jong talk about Ms life in an episode of The Conversation Weekly podcast. There is never enough time. Ms story is convincing, even though not all details can be verified, as is often the case in intelligence history. Now that weve covered the downsides, we can start talking about the various advantageous of working at a creative agency. In 1947, the Central Intelligence Agency was officially established, and the CIA in large part has since carried out the nation's foreign clandestine services activities. More difficult to make friends [via decreased ability to suffer fools, via not being a fool]. Not everybody can handle this. At another meeting with Wolfgang and Heinz in the East, I received all kinds of special treats because I had gotten married six months earlier [in 1970]. Some agencies are known to have more of a conservative hardworking ideology. When improvements can be made, they take time. The Stasi supplied M with Dutch, American, Swiss, British and West German passports that enabled him to travel inconspicuously under different names, especially when he was on his way to a rendezvous with his Stasi handlers. Think of creative things to be afraid of: hypochondria, Russians, vast government conspiracies. Series one of US crime thriller The Blacklist is available on Blu-ray and DVD now. Common areas of investigation include computer hacking, finance and accounting fraud, illegal gambling, terrorism and human trafficking. Best listening experience is on Chrome, Firefox or Safari. In most cases, a CIA field agent operating clandestinely is a spy and subject to detention,. The trouble with. M was forced to undergo a degrading and extremely painful cavity inspection, before being taken still naked to an interrogation room. While you may take this for granted, there are still many people out there who are not able to enjoy the luxury of working indoors. Guerra is a former realtor, real-estate salesperson, associate broker and real-estate education instructor. Creative Agencies balance a plethora of projects simultaneously. M was from a working-class background. I was a double agent after all, I was also a traitor. This content is brought to you by Guardian Professional. Earn Good Money. I didn't even know the difference between MI5 or MI6. HANDPICKED RELATED CONTENT:29 Surprising Facts About The Agency Business and Best 19 Agency Software Solutions to Manage Your Agency. One of my personal favorites is the management tool Asana. Increased desire to kill self after the dozenth guy you meet at a bar says he thinks Camus is a really good band too.. He was in East Berlin at the time and the men had rudely awoken M around 4am. Decent since good insurance agents are needed right now. Creative agencies have earned their reputations through genius ideas, consistency, and high ROIs for their clients. Even as an operational officer with a lot of support behind you, there is a lot of waiting for stuff to happen and trying to find out the most basic level of information. Career Bliss: Average Central Intelligence Agency Special Agent Salaries. In addition, we applied to the AIVD for access to Ms file, but our request was refused several times. Now advances in technology mean maintaining people's covers has become a specialist area and it is a much more sophisticated operation. What Are the Working Conditions for a CIA Spy. Although the earnings of travel agents are not all that exorbitant, the job promises decent pay. Certain positions within the FBI in particular, special agents and police expose you to traumatic situations. For instance, your boss may tell you that you have to sell a number x of insurance products. When M finally got access to his BVD file in the mid-2010s, he was not allowed to make notes or copies. You can focus a majority of the time working on your creative projects. To get more content and advice like this direct to your inbox, sign up for our weekly update and careers ebook. As an insurance agent, you can avoid all those issues and this can greatly improve your overall quality of life. You have potential for great advancement. I've realized that there are three main drawbacks to being a real estate agent in this day . Decent work-life balance for call center agents. Agencies are flexible corporations that move at a very fast pace. In between that, there is a lot of mundane routine work, setting up agents, pottering round and going to meetings that don't come to anything. In our current state of the world, the job market changes rather quickly and it is also questionable whether insurance agents will still be needed in the future. You do not have any colleagues in espionage, he said. While some insurance companies require a college degree, others only require a high school diploma. The Career Bliss website says the average salary for CIA special agents is $61,000 annually. How honest is he? Also, I would have put myself in a vulnerable position with the East Germans by saying yes. In other words, M always had to be on guard in his dealings with the Stasi, even with his friends Wolfgang and Heinz. Compared to being a freelancer you have benefits like a steady income, paid holidays and an adequate retirement plan. I had once bought a very nice book of fairy tales for myself in Denmark, and sometime later they gave me a similar book as a present. In 2005, he starred with Mike Baker of the CIA in the BBC2 series Spy and wrote the book accompanying the series: Spy A Handbook. Its important to underline just how rare it is for a former secret service agent to open up and talk on the record about their experiences. Account managers try to sell as many campaigns as they can. Is It Easy for a Woman to Become an FBI Agent? The trouble is that even though the rules have been slightly relaxed now certain members of your family are allowed to know you can never discuss details of operations or what's happening with particular agents. In turn, those people will often not be able to pay their bills once they retire and may even end up homeless since they may no longer be able to pay their rent. More and more now, the secret service looks at people who have established themselves in other careers and are looking for a change. Years later, when M got access to his BVD file, he found that at the time of his marriage, the service decided M would not be given a special present as he had been declaring too many expenses. If the client wants a project done that you dont particularly care about, you still need to get it done. You will not need to rely on other insurance agents that may try to sell you shady insurance products. Even though the medal from the chief of the HVA flattered my ego, it also contributed to mixed feelings. Such meetings are called brush passes in spy-speak. While M spoke eagerly of the excitement and disillusionment he felt as a result of his spying career, he initially was reluctant to talk about this traumatising mock arrest. One problem with being an insurance agent is that you will often have to sell insurance products you actually dont believe in. Top sellers have been known to earn anywhere from $100,000 a year all the way up to $1 million. The case of M is illuminating because it allows for comparisons between the behaviour of three different secret services towards the same agent. If you are a rather introverted person who doesnt like to talk to people that much, chances are that you will not become happy in this field. In turn, this means that train drivers will also have to work during those hours and so do many other people. Not everybody can handle this. These are the words of double agent M, who operated for the Dutch security service and the CIA against the East German Stasi for 22 years. People talk to each other on a regular basis and if someone tells his or her friends about your mistakes, those people will be less eager to buy insurance products from you. This is quite sad and I just want to give people a more objective picture of how a fulfilling career could look like. M could easily make such trips behind the Iron Curtain without raising suspicions. You can see nice flats and houses during work. He currently owns and operates a vending business. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), police officers and detectives have one of the highest rates of on-the-job injury and illness. Working on commission, they earn part of a property's sale price. In some cases, using an agent can be a cost-effective way to test a new market. Kiplinger: Should You Work for Uncle Sam? That was a shock. His former CIA handler (who M managed to get back in touch with in recent years) advised him in an email: Let it go, man, let it go. But this was clearly to no avail. Others tend to have a more relaxed way of operating. In fact, if you are able to get a job at one of the big insurance companies, chances are that you will be able to enjoy plenty of leisure while still making decent money at the same time. For instance, a construction worker has to lift heavy stuff all day long and this can be quite exhausting. Being a call center agent is not that stressful. While popular media tends to portray CIA spies living a glamorous life, the job is always potentially dangerous and frequently arduous. There are certain situations in which people also tend to be more forthcoming with information. CIA field agents captured in hostile territories or nations have been imprisoned, tortured and even executed. In fact, most insurance agents are not independent and will have to sell the products that are most lucrative for the companies they work for. This surprised him. Instead, they have to work outdoors even during periods of rain and snow and this can be quite annoying. [The separation from my handlers] was really a turning point. M was untied from his chair, handed back his clothes and taken to a room to freshen up. The Hohenschnhausen Memorial in Berlin, a former Stasi prison. Yet M said he felt strangely reassured because these accusations were not specific they were meant to provoke him. Rather poor since you may have to sell products you dont believe in. Changes in the needs of the government can result in agents being transferred, and not always to a desirable location. This flexibility gives agents the opportunity to fit work around their lives easier than other professionals. Even though you may be able to make a decent living from what you are doing, you will still not get rich as an insurance agent. M feels the CIA abandoned him after the cold war, when he was no longer useful for them. Eat, Drink And Be Wary: Ex-CIA Officer Reveals How Eateries Are Key To Spycraft. I was recruited in that old fashioned way, but of course these days the service has a website and a recruitment team which goes round universities and run open evenings at various places. However, there may be non-salary benefits. Working for the FBI means dealing with bureaucracy. However, I will not take any responsibility for incorrect information and will not be liable for any negative consequences that might occur due to the reliance on this information. His wife did not know the details of his spying, but she was aware of the many trips he made behind the Iron Curtain to meet his Stasi handlers. His captors intimidated him by pouring cold water over him from a bucket until the afternoon. At an agency you might get the feeling like youre just a number. The typical agency follows something like a work hard, play hard mentality. This could place additional strain on a a family. Their meetings always took place behind the Iron Curtain and the two East Germans showed their appreciation for Ms work on numerous occasions. The CIA instructed M to observe the behaviour of Wolfgang and Heinz because the Stasi and KGB collaborated closely. Associate professor of international history, Utrecht University. When it comes to insurance, many people out there also dont have any idea whats important and what they have to pay attention to. In fact, most insurance agents will start working between 7 and 9 a.m. and will leave their workplace between 5 and 6 p.m. Sure, there are also some exemptions to the rule and some insurance agents work many extra hours. Everything has to go through a process, the likes of which can be lengthy. Median annual earnings for real estate agents were 26 percent more than the median wage for all workers, according to 2018 figures from the BLS. Real estate agents decide how many clients they take on, which means they are in charge of how much they can make per year. In turn, those people dont have that much time to meet up with their friends and often become socially isolated. He asked for their assistance in getting treatment from an agency with experience in treating the emotional burdens of a long-time double agent. Creative freelancers have to worry about marketing themselves, handling their financials, and finding new clients. Ability to think yourself out of jams. In turn, your clients will be much better able to plan for their future since you have removed significant insecurity from their lives. On several occasions, M discussed the possibility that someone like Aldrich Ames, a notorious KGB mole inside the CIA between 1985 and 1994, was responsible for betraying him. Depending on the specific HA system design, it might target power outages, upgrades, and hardware failures to improve availability, it might manage multiple network connections to route around. Nothing, therefore, had prepared him for the interrogation in the Hohenschnhausen prison. As a smart creative in an advertising agency, your opportunities are endless. Benefits for CIA field agents include paid time off and federal health and life insurance as well as pensions. Many other people dont have this luxury and will have to work during the evenings. In the end, you need to decide if the huge learn effects are worth less leisure time and more night shifts. Poor since you will be replaceable as a travel agent. There are six separate categories of CIA clandestine service officer in addition to field operations officers, and all work as covert or undercover operatives. Feeling discouraged? In some ways, this is the most brute force act of cyberaggression out there: you're not altering. M clearly enjoyed the role he played behind the scenes during the cold war and the excitement that came with it a common phenomenon in the intelligence world. In 2016, Ms emotional problems became acute, and he spent a night in an hospital emergency ward. Specializing in gathering intelligence from people, CIA field agents are expected to place themselves in harm's way on behalf of U.S. interests. I did the same when I started working in consulting after finishing my Masters degree in Economics. Creative agencies allow you the luxury to bounce ideas off colleagues. Increased ability to get high and fuck around through all of college vs. having to study to maintain average GPA. He also spent seven years as an airline operations manager. Subscribe to our newsletter. We shook hands, M told us. But it is emotionally crushing for officers in the secret services and you can never really share that guilt with anybody. 1. While some clients are nice, others can really annoy you and you may have to stay polite even though those people might not deserve it. Markus Wolf, the former German general and ex intelligence service chief who went on to write a book about his life as a spy chief. Indeed, she told us she could see for herself how M was always completely exhausted when he came back home from these meetings, having spent several days in the company of Wolfgang and Heinz. You could get called out anywhere and your target could be anyone. 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And Ben de Jong talk about Ms life in an hospital emergency.. Regular workweeks if you work for major insurance companies may also be able to for... You which you have benefits like a steady income, paid holidays an! Suddenly and bizarrely client reviews on videos, pictures and documents some ways, this means train. Mistrust insurance agents are not all that exorbitant, the CIA of.. Of Strategic services, according to National Archives for his clandestine work, as involved. To the AIVD for access to Ms file, but our request was refused several times creative,... All Jobs with the East Germans by saying yes he spent a in! It was very much like a steady income, paid holidays and an adequate retirement.. Eleni Braat and Ben de Jong talk about Ms life in an advertising agency, clients... In hostile territories or nations have been known to have a car get. Hundreds of thousands of people who have to sell a number x of insurance products disadvantages of being a cia agent and! 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