My Resume

Or

Everything I Know about the CIA and Elvis

By

John Alejandro King

The following document is a resume which describes the job qualifications, education and work experience, relevant biographical information, business philosophy, and other pertinent data relating to your humble applicant John Alejandro King. The purpose of this document is to show employers that employing me will make their business more profitable. As for what kind of employment I seek, I’m open to all sorts of possibilities, though I’m especially interested in doing work that will help people improve their careers and lives. Toward this end I would be pleased to accept any kind of lawful, righteous, and reasonably well-paying employment either in government or the private sector, both of which places, as you’ll see if you keep reading my resume, I’ve done well in thus far.

My current job is that of project manager for the CIA. While I’m not allowed to be very specific about it, please believe me when I tell you that the work I do at CIA is profitable, morally upstanding, and I do it well. Naturally, I have a full set of security clearances.

Prior to my employment at CIA I was a professional bass player for several famous disco and rhythm and blues acts, including several that recorded songs which obtained high positions on the music charts and sold several million copies (you can look it up, as they say). During my career as a professional musician I played bass and was bandleader for the legendary disco singer Miss Thing, which fact I hope shows that I have good management, organizational, and interpersonal skills (to manage musicians, by the way, is all but impossible, so my having been a bandleader also means that I possess a great deal of patience). At no time while I was a musician did I engage in illicit drug use or other inappropriate behavior, a fact which continues to amaze all my friends at CIA who stop by my office from time to time and notice the gold record I have hanging on my wall there as a memento of my ‘past life’. I continue to be drug and alcohol free.

Regarding my education, I have a bachelors degree in mathematics, with academic honors, from a state university in the Southwest, as well as a masters degree in philosophy, also with academic honors, from a state university in the Midwest. As for my high school, let me confess that your humble applicant John King isn’t sure whether he graduated from high school or not. You see, the high school I attended in the 1970’s wasn’t very organized. When, at the end of my senior year, my academic advisor discovered that I was short a few units in Physical Education (which is still hard for me to believe, given that I never studied at my high school but instead spent almost all my time there playing sports), she told me that I would be graduated provided I made up my missing PE courses at a community (i.e., two-year) college. Well, I did in fact go to a community college and take some PE courses there, which I then transferred to the university in the Southwest where I obtained my degree in mathematics. However, I never did go back to my high school and ask for my diploma. In fact, a year or so after I left it, the school was permanently closed. So your humble applicant John King is in the rather interesting position of having obtained bachelors and masters degrees, both with academic honors, but possibly being a high school dropout. As my beautiful wife Tatyana, who was born in the Soviet Union, says: "Eta zhizn" ("That’s life").

Incidentally, I should tell you that several names, as well as some details regarding certain events, in my resume have been changed slightly in order to protect the identities of persons and organizations.

What else should I say in these opening paragraphs of my resume? Well, for one thing I definitely want to let employers know that I’m a very productive worker, and also that I’m punctual and highly dedicated; I come to work on time and stay as long as necessary to complete the task. Indeed, if you need me, regardless of the hour, you can call John King, and I’ll come in and help you get the job done. I’m always available. I guess I could also mention that I’ve played semiprofessional baseball. In addition I want to state that I’m active in my church; in this connection I do volunteer work at jails and nursing homes.

One other topic I suppose I should address here in the beginning of my resume is its length. Perhaps you’ve noticed that my resume is a little longer than average. The reason my resume is somewhat lengthier than most (and I say this without any conceit or boastfulness) is that in my opinion your humble applicant John King has a lot of good things to offer, and I think I should let employers know about as many of these good things as I can (I mean, that’s what a resume is for, isn’t it?). Additionally, it’s my firm belief that much of the information in my resume can help whoever reads it improve their own career.

Of course, some might argue that helping other people improve their careers is not the purpose of a professional business resume. However, since to help people improve their careers is precisely the kind of work I’m seeking, it just makes sense in my opinion to include this kind of information in this document. For all these reasons, then, I’ve decided to make my resume a little longer than others, though let me assure you that in every other way this document follows exactly the guidelines for successful resume writing as taught by leading experts on the subject.

As for my earliest history, there isn’t much that would have any relevance to my resume. I was born in Southern California (wasn’t everybody?). My father, who has Spanish blood, comes from a rather interesting family. His mother was a renowned writer and teacher, had four husbands (that I know about), and was named Romance. Her last known hubby, a successful broadcaster who is of the Jewish faith (and is the only member of our family who shares my interest in religion), adopted my father after marrying my grandma. Although my dear grandmother Romance no longer occupies her worldly body, my grandpa Walter is still alive, in great shape physically and mentally, and says he would like to marry again. So in addition to requesting employment for myself, I’d like to mention that, if there are any eligible and interested senior ladies out there, my grandfather Walter Israel Willy King is available.

As for my loving mom, about all I can think of to say regarding her family is that they’re from Ohio. Seriously, though, my loving mom’s father was a truly excellent and well-read fellow who, despite having almost no formal education and hardly any money, wrote poems that were published in the local church newsletter and also helped raise seven kids with my grandmother until he died in a train accident while working for the railroad company. My grandma bought a nice little apartment in Arizona with the money from his pension.

Like I said, there isn’t much to report about my early years. Although my parents, bless their hearts, tried desperately to be ‘hip’ during the 60’s and 70’s, for the most part they failed miserably. As a result, my parents and their children are all fairly normal, happy people without any serious dysfunctions, resentments, or deep crises of the soul.

It was about one a.m., pitch black above the jungle canopy. I leaned out of the cargo door of the plane as it flew low over the trees with its lights off. The warm semitropical night air blew hard against my face. Below me I saw the jungle clearing and the small luminescent marker that our agent had placed in the open field. I knew he was watching us in the jungle somewhere, waiting for us to make the drop.

I leaned back inside the plane and gestured to the other two intelligence officers staring intently at me. The big plane banked sharply as the pilot swung around to make the final pass. I held on tight to the metal bar that was anchored a few inches inside the cargo bay opening; my fingers around that bar and a thin rope around my waist were the only things keeping me from tumbling out of the airplane into the night. We came in again and this time shoved a couple of small boxes containing the precious cargo out the door. We never saw them hit the ground, but we knew they’d land close enough to the marker for the agent to find them. The whole operation took twenty minutes. Given where we were and what we were doing, it had to be fast.

Admittedly, this was only a training exercise I did when I was a CT (a Career Trainee for the CIA), but it makes for a pretty interesting beginning to a resume, don’t you think?

What? What’s that? You want a story about a real operation? Well, although your humble applicant John King technically isn’t an ops officer, here’s one:

I approached Customs thinking to myself "Whatever happens, stay calm; remember, you’re an official of the US Government." The uniformed man with the gun looked sternly at my nice American clothes and asked me in broken English if I had anything to declare. I nodded and gestured to my suitcase. He shook his head slightly with a look of vague resentment; it meant that he’d have to search my suitcase and thereby perform that dreaded activity called work.

Why had I done such a lousy thing to him? I had a good reason. It’s illegal to take magnetically stored data out of that country. And the diskette I was carrying in my coat pocket had some very interesting data on it, data about that country’s government. This was my gamble: Make my friend Customs Boy spend several minutes of his precious time examining my suitcase, have him find the nearly worthless trinkets I’d bought during my stay, let him get pissed off when he concluded that he was dealing with an ignorant tourist (only ignorant tourists declare trinkets), and then hope that he would wave me through without any further searching. And that’s exactly what happened. I got on the plane, flew back to civilization, handed the diskette to an eager CIA analyst, and went to Taco Bell.

As long as I’m deliberately and shamelessly resorting to these ‘teasers’ in order to get you to read my resume, I might as well offer another true story, this one from my career as a bass player for the legendary disco singer Miss Thing:

I walked out onto the stage in my black leather jacket, my slick black hair combed straight back, and was immediately hit full blast in the chest by something. It was people cheering. In fact, it was forty thousand people cheering. Maybe ‘cheer’ isn’t the right word to describe the sound they were making; a better word, definitely, is roar. And this roar was so deafening, so big, it literally made my chest vibrate.

You see, the great Miss Thing had not one, but two records in the Top Forty, including the number one dance song in the USA. We were literally the hottest disco act in the world at that moment. This, and the fact that Miss Thing was a flaming queen and the audience of forty thousand people included about thirty-nine thousand men, probably tells you all you need to know about why this show was going to be a good one. Lawrence, our drummer, started pumping his foot pedal ‘boom-boom-boom-boom’, I played the first few notes of Dance with Me, and the audience went so wild I thought the stage was going to collapse.

How did your humble applicant John King come to be a musician making million-selling records, touring the world, and playing on television? And how did your humble applicant John King go from doing this to working on top secret projects for the CIA? And how did your humble applicant John King obtain university degrees, with academic honors, in mathematics and philosophy? And how did your humble applicant John King play semipro baseball, marry a beautiful woman from the Soviet Union, help jail inmates write books, and even touch old people at nursing homes and see their sores healed? Without doubt, a big reason I’ve been able to do these and other interesting and pleasing things is that I live according to good principles.

Here’s what I really want to communicate in my resume: Your humble applicant John King is someone you should employ in your business for one simple reason: I can help you get good work done. And the reason I can help you get good work done is that I have good knowledge, good work habits, and a good attitude. And a key reason I have these good things is that I’ve learned good principles, and I really live by these principles.

What are these good principles? Well, the fact is that I’ve filled my whole resume with them in order to show employers who read this document that your humble applicant John King knows how to succeed in the professional world, and that I can therefore be helpful to you if you employ me in your business.

To give you an idea of what I’m talking about, let me share a few of these principles right now. Some of the principles you’re about to read may seem more philosophical, or even spiritual, than ‘professional’; however, one of the most important principles I’ve ever discovered (and one which I’m sure has been a big factor in my success so far) is that truths about life are applicable to business, and truths about business are applicable to life. The fact that a principle is about life (for example, a principle which says that you should care about and try to help other people) doesn’t mean you can’t also use that principle to make big profits and obtain lots of promotions. With this said, let me mention some of the principles that your humble applicant John King practices, and that I’m certain have helped me get to the excellent position I’m in today.

Here’s one of my favorite principles: Think about what you want to do, choose something good, and then work and learn in order to do it.

Here’s another principle that’s very valuable and important in business: Be useful. I’ll talk more about this principle later.

Do you think that these two principles I just mentioned are rather obvious? All right, here’s a principle which in some ways is just as obvious, but in other ways isn’t so obvious: See great possibilities, and see great realities. In other words, recognize that great things can happen, and recognize that great things are happening right now.

Another valuable principle is the following: Feel wonder. Look at life with a sense of amazement and admiration. If you do this, you’ll be more and more interested in things and, if you make the effort, will learn more and more as a result. And of course, the more you learn about things, the more profitably you can work, both for yourself and for others.

Here’s an interesting principle I’ve learned. If this principle seems a little ‘mystical’, then this just makes the principle that much more true and that much more relevant to business, at least in my opinion: Don’t be afraid to die, and don’t be afraid to live forever. After many years of working and studying I now know for a fact that I, and everybody else for that matter, will never actually stop being alive. When you know this truth, and when you accept it with a positive attitude, it can make a big difference in your career (in my case, knowing that I’m immortal has helped my productivity and rate of promotion increase dramatically).

Here’s another very important principle: Be happy. A corollary of this principle is: Don’t be unhappy. To feel unhappy, either for one self or for others, is not helpful. In fact, to feel unhappy usually prevents helpful work from being done.

Care about people and do good things for them. I think this principle is self-explanatory.

Don’t do bad things. A corollary of this idea, and one which is known by every person who has ever succeeded in business, is the following: To spend too much energy trying to prevent bad things, is also a bad thing.

Here’s a very profound and useful principle: If a makes b happen, then b may also make a happen. This principle, which I call The Principle of Reciprocity, is true about many aspects of life and the business world, and to be aware of this principle can be helpful in many ways.

Here are two examples of The Principle of Reciprocity: First, when people see someone doing well at work and they say about that person "He does well at work because he gets good opportunities," then it’s probably also the case that that person gets good opportunities because he does well at work. Similarly, when people say about someone who’s performing badly "He’s a victim of his environment," then you can bet it’s also true that that person’s environment is a victim of him.

Finally, the most important principle you’ll read in your humble applicant John King’s resume, and which is really at the heart of every true and useful business principle, is this: Be loving. Be loving toward everybody, including people who are different from you and people who do things you don’t like. As for what it means to be loving, and how this relates to business, I’ll talk more about these subjects later.

Like I said, there are many additional principles in my resume, most of which are focused more specifically on business than the principles I just mentioned. But if you think that these or other principles in my resume aren’t very relevant to the business world, then let me tell you that every success I’ve ever had in business was a direct result of working in accordance with these truths. And without bragging about it, let me say that I’ve had quite a few successes in both government and the private sector, as my resume will attest.

It was a few minutes before six on a black January morning in the forest. I lay on my back on the frozen ground doing leg raiser exercises with my fellow intelligence officers at the CIA base. I looked up through the dark, silent trees at the bright stars as we chanted "One-two-three-ONE, one-two-three-TWO..." I wondered how many of those stars had intelligent species of life near them. Then I wondered if any species out there were watching us do leg raisers under the trees at that CIA base. I remembered reading about the Theory of Relativity, and I realized that I was seeing many of those stars as they had looked thousands and thousands of years ago. I thought that if anybody near those stars was going to see us doing leg raisers under the trees at that CIA base, they would probably have to wait awhile for our light to reach them.

The significance of this story to my resume? One useful fact I suppose you could derive from this anecdote is that your humble applicant John King is willing to get up before dawn and go to work (although, if I have a choice in the matter, I prefer to do physical exercise in the afternoon or evening).

One of the elements of every good business resume is a job description, that is, a description of what the applicant does (or did) at his or her current (or most recent) place of employment. Now, due to the classified nature of many of my activities at CIA, I can’t talk about my work in detail. However, it’s certainly no problem for me to describe my job in general terms, mostly because, generally speaking, what I do at CIA is this: I carry things.

Naturally, I’m joking a little when I say that my job at CIA is to carry things. In reality I’m a project manager who directs more than twenty-five contractors and CIA intelligence officers. I and my team of contractors and CIA staff people do all sorts of interesting things for all kinds of CIA (and other Government) customers around the world. And let me tell you, my team and I really get results for our clients. I mean, we don’t just do the impossible, we do the unthinkable; in other words, we produce things that are useful and deliver those things to people who need them. I know you probably consider it incredible that the Government could actually do something like this, and I have to admit that I too am occasionally amazed at my team’s accomplishments; but I promise, we really do get good work done! And let me also tell you that my customers are pretty happy with me. Yes, the fact is that, thanks to the overwhelming success of my projects, your humble applicant John King has been promoted from a GS-11 to a GS-14 in less than three and a half years.

Why have I been such a big success at CIA? That’s where my statement about carrying things comes in. You see, one Saturday afternoon when I was a boy I went with my father (who has Spanish blood) to the college where he was Associate Dean. There I helped my pop, a member of upper management at this rather prestigious institution, carry tables and chairs from one building to another. Watching him do this, I realized that the reason my father had been made Associate Dean at that college (and believe me, the position of Associate Dean was highly coveted by many people at that place) was partly that he was an excellent administrator, partly that he had a distinguished academic record (including a Ph.D.), but mostly because he was absolutely indispensable to getting things done. And the main reason my father (who has Spanish blood) was indispensable was that, despite being a member of upper management he didn’t think twice about doing things like going in to work during the weekend to move tables and chairs.

Incidentally, I mention my father’s Spanish ancestry (and the fact that I’m fluent in the Spanish language, by the way) because I want employers to know that I’m comfortable working with people from different cultures, and also in hopes that, if any employer reading my resume needs a ‘minority’, he or she will consider my Spanish ancestry to be a favorable factor when considering me for employment.

Anyhow, a principle I learned from watching my father (who has Spanish blood) move tables and chairs at the college where he was Associate Dean, is the following: If you want to soar like an eagle, then work like an ant. I’ve employed this principle in every job I’ve ever had, and the results have been the same in every job I’ve ever had: I get good work done, and I’m promoted frequently.

Thus it is that my peers at CIA (I’m talking about fellow project managers, branch chiefs, etc.) frequently see your humble applicant John King walking down some hallway at CIA Headquarters with my shirt sleeves rolled up, my tie disheveled, carrying a computer, or some telecommunications equipment, or a big box full of software that I’m delivering to a customer. And whenever one of my peers, seeing me doing this, jokingly says something like "John, don’t you have contractors and staff people to do that kind of work for you?" I respond by saying with a weary-looking expression on my face "My contractors and staff people don’t work for me, I work for my contractors and staff people." Even though I usually say it with a smile, this statement does in fact express my business philosophy. And like I said, the results of this philosophy of mine speak for themselves. I mean, I get a lot of useful things done for my customers, and I’m already a GS-14!

Are you one of those people who absolutely worships their father? I know I am. Let me put it this way: Some people believe their father is right about everything, other people know their father is right about everything, and then some people (like me) think that right, and their father, are one and the same. I mean, when I was a kid (and even now!) if my father (who has Spanish blood) said something, I didn’t even assume that what he said was right, much less question it. No, if my pop said something I automatically loaded it into my memory as fundamental truth.

Now, I’m not saying that my pop is the only pop in the world who’s right about everything. Maybe your pop is right about everything too. But for sure mine is. If you’re asking what relevance this discussion about my father has to my resume, well, every employer who knows about business psychology will appreciate why they should hire someone who thinks the way I do.

A quick story about my pop: The man came home one evening and, upon learning that I, his then teenage son, had done something bad, stood over me quietly for a few moments and then said calmly "I have a dark side, and sometimes I worry that you may have inherited it." Like I said, he has Spanish blood. By the way, my pop now says that, whether or not I inherited his ‘dark side’, I’m a big success in the world and I’ll be extremely valuable to whomever employs me. And remember, my father is right about everything!

I also worship my loving mom, of course.

Although it wouldn’t be appropriate for me to identify them, for several years I helped certain customers become knowledgeable in the art of propaganda operations. During this time I constantly saw demonstrated a fact which every astute ‘populist’ politician understands, namely, that you can usually get away with doing things in the name of ‘the people’ or ‘social justice’ that you could never get away with if it were known that you were really working on behalf of some rich guy somewhere. In other words, a principle I constantly saw demonstrated while doing political work (and which every successful business person knows well) is: A major factor in the success or failure of every policy or operation is how that policy or operation is portrayed. As for why I mention this subject in my resume, I want employers to know that your humble applicant John King has a realistic outlook toward both business and life in general, and also that I possess practical skills and experience that could make me useful in areas like marketing and public relations.

Incidentally, on the subject of propaganda operations, a CIA analyst and I used to joke with each other all the time about ‘left-wing’ propaganda. We’d pass each other in the hallway at CIA Headquarters, each of us would raise his fist in a ‘popular revolutionary’ salute, and then we’d exchange leftist quotes that we considered particularly hilarious (and believe me, there are a lot of hilarious leftist quotes to choose from). For example, I found and shared with my analyst buddy a great statement made by a Chinese Communist official during the infamous Cultural Revolution; in an article published in one of the Chinese Communist newspapers at that time, the official wrote "We must carry out Chairman Mao’s instructions whether we understand them or not."

An even better quote from the same country, and one which my friend and I frequently repeated at official Government meetings, at each other’s houses, while shopping at the supermarket, etc., was the following: "Resolutely struggle against right-wing deviationist attempts to reverse correct popular verdicts!" According to a book I read, this slogan was actually chanted by crowds in China. My CIA analyst buddy and I used to wonder how that saying could possibly have been chanted by large numbers of people. We speculated about this for weeks, and finally decided that the Chinese translation of the phrase "Resolutely struggle against right-wing deviationist attempts to reverse correct popular verdicts!" is probably something like ‘Wa ho!’

Here are some additional principles I’ve learned, either from my father (who has Spanish blood) or from my own experience in government and the private sector, and which I’ve employed with great results in both my business career and personal life.

Be useful. This principle, which I mentioned at the very beginning of my resume, is the secret of working successfully, getting promotions, and enjoying one’s career.

Related to the above idea is the following principle: Be busy. There’s no substitute for going to work each day and making yourself so busy doing useful things that you barely even notice what the hour is. In fact, I personally think it’s good to be a little bit too busy much of the time.

Here’s another principle: Do your work right. Work attentively and don’t stop until the job is finished. A corollary of this principle is the following: If you really do your work right, then your work will probably never be finished.

Here’s a principle that’s very important, both in business and in life generally: Control your anger. Most people don’t work well when they’re angry. On the other hand, some people actually seem to work better when they’re angry. If you’re one of these people, then to be angry is acceptable in your case, although you should try to be angry in a calm, loving, and humorous way.

Here’s another important business and life principle: Reflect on what you’re doing from time to time, and consider whether there are better ways of doing it. Trust me, there’s almost always a better way to do what you’re doing.

A corollary of this principle is: Don’t be overly concerned about the fact that there’s probably a better way to do what you’re doing. A lot of individuals and organizations spend so much time trying to find the ‘best’ way of working that they actually get less work done than they would if they simply continued with the way they do things now, or changed the way they do things just a little.

Don’t complain or criticize. Suggest ways for doing things better, rather than complaining or criticizing because things aren’t being done well at the moment. Furthermore, when you make suggestions for doing things better, be prepared to actually do something yourself to help implement the suggestion.

Here’s a principle which no doubt would be better known if more people would pay attention to what other people say: Pay attention to what other people say. A very important corollary of this principle is: Also pay attention to what people don’t say.

This principle I already talked about: Be willing to carry things. Many people are willing to work with their minds but not with their hands. Many other people are willing to work with their hands but not with their minds. A few people are willing to work with their minds and with their hands, and these people, if they want to, usually end up managing everybody else.

And finally: Don’t worry. Believe that everything is going to be all right; because I promise you (and I know what I’m talking about here), everything really is going to be all right, at least if you want it to be.

I’ll mention some more business principles later in my resume. As I said, I’ve used these principles many times in my career, and the results have always been excellent, both for me and for my customers and coworkers. Furthermore, I’m sure that whoever employs these principles will be at least as successful as I’ve been, and maybe even more so.

By the way, you may have noticed that I subtitled my resume Everything I Know about the CIA and Elvis. And yes, the fact is that I do have some interesting information on the subject of Elvis, all of which will be revealed to you if you keep reading. In the meantime, I’ll continue to talk about my work experience and job qualifications, so as not to spoil the exciting ending.

My beautiful wife told me this old Russian joke about employment: A man went to an employer to offer himself for work. The employer asked the man "What can you do?" The man answered "I can dig." Then the employer asked "What else can you do?" The man answered "I can not dig."

I like this joke a lot, though I must confess that your humble applicant John King isn’t as multitalented as the main character in it. No, the fact is that I can only help you work more profitably. I can’t help you not work more profitably.

You know how employers often ask job applicants a question like ‘What do you consider your most outstanding career accomplishment to date?’ Well, if an employer asks me a question like this, then I, your humble applicant John King, won’t refer to the gold records I’ve got hanging in my office and in my living room, to the university degrees and various academic awards I’ve received, or to my many successes doing projects, operations, and analyses for the CIA. No, if someone asks your humble applicant JK what I consider my most outstanding career accomplishment, I’ll answer as follows: My most outstanding career accomplishment was helping a prisoner in a jail write a book about the Holy Spirit. And if anybody asks me "Was it a good book?" I’ll answer (and I bet smart employers will know exactly what I’m talking about when I say this): It’s the greatest book I ever read.

One factor which I think is very important in the shaping of a good employee is their experience in school, and especially in high school. Now, the high school your humble applicant John King attended in the 1970’s was comprised of a student body that was approximately sixty percent African-American, twenty percent Hispanic, and twenty percent non-Hispanic European-American (in other words, white people). In my opinion, going to this high school was quite valuable for me. In the first place I got to spend a formative part of my youth being a member of an ‘outside’ social group, which gave me a useful perspective on living. This isn’t to say that I was treated badly or had unpleasant experiences at my high school. No, despite my being harassed a few times (which happens at every high school, of course), I made many friends and learned a lot about other cultures. Indeed, another reason (and perhaps the biggest reason) your humble applicant John King is grateful for having had the opportunity to attend this particular high school is that I learned the following principle there, which has proven very helpful to me in my many subsequent professional and personal activities all around the world: In some ways people are really, really different, and in other ways they’re really, really alike. Not exactly a major revelation, I admit. But as obvious as it is, that’s how much trouble some people cause for themselves and others by failing (or flat out refusing) to recognize this truth and behave accordingly.

Let me share an interesting story from my high school years, a story which I think says a lot about your humble applicant John King. Now, you already know that I have a bachelors degree in mathematics, with academic honors. Many people, when they hear that a person has done well in some rigorous field like mathematics, assume that the person always had an aptitude for that subject. In my case the opposite is true. Yes, let me confess that your humble applicant JK was naturally terrible at mathematics from the very beginning. The only reason I did well in mathematics in college is that, like everything else I ever succeeded at, I worked hard.

Anyway, when I was in high school we had to, of course, study algebra. It’s important to understand that I was so bad in mathematics when I was younger that, at the age of eighteen, I didn’t even know for sure what the symbols < and > (less than and greater than) stood for. Furthermore, I didn’t want to know anything about algebra or any other kind of mathematics (I wanted to play sports and be a rock musician), so obviously my motivation for studying algebra was going to be a problem, to say the least.

Now, at my high school in the 1970’s most of our teachers believed in the ‘new method’ of education. What this new method of education is, no one seems to know really, but it’s now been in existence for almost as long as the ‘traditional method’ of education. In any case, the teacher in my high school algebra class was a little hippie socialist guy who, I swear, told us on the first day of class "We’re going to study algebra in a new way here; you don’t have to do any of the homework I assign, you don’t have to take any of the quizzes, you just have to come to class every day and be here for the final exam. If you do this, I guarantee you’ll receive at least a B for the course." In telling us this, our algebra teacher made it clear that he was applying the new method of education, and that this was all part of the revolutionary changes occurring in our society, changes that were going to bring about true social justice and equality. Let me put it this way: Your humble applicant John King received a grade of B-minus.

Please don’t get the impression that I think my hippie algebra instructor was a bad teacher. On the contrary, I seem to recall that he was actually a pretty good teacher, since I tended to actually learn something on those rare occasions when he forced me to sit in one place and pay attention to what he was talking about. And the fact that he was pretty nice about it when he was forcing me to learn things did make me more willing to listen to him. No, I’m not blaming my teacher, the educational system, or ‘society’ for my terrible grade in algebra (I mean, let’s face it, if your teacher says a B is the lowest possible grade, and you get a B-minus, you’ve done pretty terribly). As a matter of fact, I’m not even blaming myself for my awful performance. Really, I don’t think there’s anyone to ‘blame’ in this case at all. The truth is that your humble applicant John King just didn’t care about algebra at that time, and therefore wasn’t going to learn much about it. I didn’t do any homework, I didn’t take any quizzes, in fact, I barely attended class, which may be one reason I got a B-minus rather than a B (the other reason could be that when I took the final exam I just wrote a bunch of meaningless symbols on the test sheet, turned it in, and then went outside and played football with my friends).

One other hilarious memory I have from that high school algebra class is that at the very end of the semester our teacher had a ‘group discussion’ with us about our grades. In this group discussion he announced everyone’s grade and why they got it, and then encouraged each student to ‘share his or her thoughts and feelings about the experience’. When it came time for him to talk about your humble applicant, our teacher said "Although I guaranteed everyone a B at the start of the semester, John got a B-minus. This is because John decided he didn’t want to do very much work and didn’t come to class very often. This was John’s decision. John, do you have anything you’d like to say?" I’m pretty sure this was part of the new method of education. Since I really couldn’t think of anything I wanted to say at that moment, I just shrugged and smiled.

What’s interesting to me about this whole high school algebra experience is that, as I told you, I later obtained a university degree in mathematics with academic honors. Not only that, one of my greatest strengths was algebra! So what does this story of my getting a B-minus in high school algebra tell you about your humble applicant John King? Well, one thing I think it says about me is something I think it says about everybody in the world, that is: The brightest light won’t lead you out of darkness if your eyes are closed. Even though my hippie instructor’s teaching philosophy was pretty laughable, it sure didn’t prevent me from learning algebra. What prevented me from learning algebra was that I wasn’t willing to try to learn algebra, and no teaching method, new or old, was going to change this.

Additionally, my disastrous performance in high school algebra, combined with the fact that I later obtained a university degree in mathematics, is confirmation of another truth that all successful business people know, which is that any person can do well, even at things for which they have no natural aptitude, if they really make an effort. In my opinion it would be hard to find a person with less mathematical talent than I have; yet when I decided to work hard at this subject, I became one of the top mathematics students at my university.

Another valuable experience I had in high school was when I took a mandatory course called Black Studies. This course was taught by an attractive young Black revolutionary-Third World-feminist-Afrocentric woman, whom I therefore was automatically in love with (being seventeen years old at the time, after all). In this course I read The Autobiography of Malcolm X, which definitely taught me about business and life. The reason this book taught me about business and life is that there were a lot of things in that book that were painful for me to read because they were unpleasant yet true, and by forcing myself to read those unpleasant truths even though I didn’t want to, I learned not only those truths, but also another truth which is extremely useful, namely, that to face unpleasant truths can make you a stronger person.

One other thing I remember about my Black Studies course is that our teacher had us do some creative writing in it. The following is a poem I wrote for that course, which I include in my resume to show employers that your humble applicant John King is knowledgeable about and attuned to diverse cultural perspectives. In this poem I tried to use some of the ‘ghetto speak’ that was fashionable when I was in high school, in order to capture the spirit of Black revolutionary prose which, according to what our Black Studies teacher told us, is about alienation, anger, and race and class consciousness. I should mention that the word crib in this poem means ‘place of residence’. The name of this poem is It Be Cold.

It be cold.

Colder than a mo-fo.

I be shiverin’.

In my crib.

It be cold.

I frankly don’t remember what grade I received for this poem. In fact, now that I think about it I don’t believe I received any grade for this poem at all, which is kind of strange given that our Black Studies teacher tended to read our writing pretty carefully and graded everything we did. Who knows, maybe my poem had such an effect on her that our Black Studies teacher couldn’t think of a grade that would do justice to this particular work.

It was February in Russia. It was night. I trudged through the snow and mud of some residential street in an absolutely silent suburb outside Moscow. As I walked past the darkened houses and listened to the sound of the dirty snow squishing under my street shoes, I looked up at the stars in the clear winter sky. I was freezing, I was in a strange and dangerous country, and I felt excellent.

Why did I feel excellent? Partly because I was looking up at the stars on a clear, cold night somewhere in Russia, partly because I had acquired data earlier in the day that I knew would be valuable to my customer and to the cause of international economic cooperation; but mostly I felt excellent because I was walking through the snow and mud to visit a woman I had flown halfway around the world to meet just because I liked her photo and what she had written about herself in a letter.

What does this story have to do with my resume? Among other things I think it shows that your humble applicant John King has the right priorities.

At this point I’d like to say a few things about my career as a musician. I include this information in my resume because I believe it will show that your humble applicant John King is a ‘well rounded’ person (in other words, that I have an appreciation for and ability in the arts, as well as business and science), which successful employers agree is a desirable trait for employees to possess. I also want to talk about this subject because I think information about my music career offers some good insights into my hardworking character, my ability to recognize and exploit opportunity, etc.

To begin with, I wish to state that at the age of eighteen I became the bass player for a legendary disco singer who I call (not so much to protect anyone’s identity, but because everybody who knew him called him this) Miss Thing. Now, what made Miss Thing legendary was partly the genuinely innovative fusion of Gospel, R&B, and disco styles in his music. Something else that made Miss Thing a legend was the fact that he felt quite comfortable going on national television and performing his hit records in drag. In addition to working with Miss Thing, I played on several albums recorded by his backup vocalists, known as ‘The Big Girls’. The Big Girls consisted of two queen-sized Gospel singers, Martha and Amazona, and I believe they ended up selling almost as many records as Miss Thing himself.

In any case, it’s a safe estimate that Miss Thing and the Big Girls sold at least four or five million records combined; and on many of the songs on those records your humble applicant played bass. During my music career I toured all over the world with these folks, met famous people with them, and was famous people with them (to give you an idea of how big we were at our peak, one time Miss Thing played at the Roseland in New York, and the Village People opened for him). Indeed, the stories I could tell about my good and bad times in music would easily fill a whole book, and would no doubt make for entertaining reading.

But how, you may ask, did an eighteen-year-old kid get into bands that were so successful? Well, the first answer is that, starting when I was fifteen, I did the hard work, you know, studying and practicing bass many hours every day, going to band rehearsals and playing shows in crummy clubs all around the San Francisco area, carrying tons and tons of musical equipment (that’s right, carrying things!), getting paid little or nothing much of the time, and then coming home at two or three or four o’clock in the morning, going to sleep, and starting the whole process again the next day. That’s one reason I got to be on TV and play on records when I was eighteen.

Another reason is that I made lots of good business contacts. For example, if I knew a musician who was connected to a ‘name’ in the music business (if they were friends with a well-known performer or record producer, for instance), I tried to get in that person’s band, or write songs with them, etc. A third, and very important, reason I did well in music is that I was distinctive. You see, I played bass in a style (the ‘slap’ style) that was fairly new in those days. Looking back, I now think that my bass playing at that time wasn’t very good, to be honest about it. But let me share a famous principle about business and life, a principle which I didn’t fully understand at the time even though I myself was living it: Sometimes it’s as important to be distinctive as it is to be good.

I’ll never forget how I got the job of playing bass for Miss Thing. I was in a group called Messiah. Messiah was a ‘glitter’ R&B band, you know, weird clothes, weird hair, and literally pounds of glitter flying all over the stage. We didn’t have many good songs, but we sure looked interesting (and yes, quite distinctive). Anyway, a couple of the singers in Messiah named Arnold and Jerry (whole books could be written about these guys, too) had sung with Miss Thing previously and were friends with him. At this time Miss Thing had achieved a small national hit with his disco remake of a great Ashford and Simpson tune called ‘Over and Over’. I never really liked Miss Thing’s version of the song, though I give him credit for having the vision to realize that it could be turned into a dance record.

Anyhow, Miss Thing had something that, in those days, was a rare and awesome commodity: A recording contract and a record on the charts. Something else Miss Thing had was a group of musicians who really could only be described as hippies; I mean, the chemistry just wasn’t there. Miss Thing knew it, and decided to make some changes. That was how I got my big break.

When I heard through the grapevine that Miss Thing was looking for a new band, I started thinking about what, if anything, I could do to be his bass player. Then came the kind of news I was hoping for: Our group Messiah would open for Miss Thing at a benefit concert in San Francisco to raise money for Harvey Milk’s election campaign (Harvey Milk was an openly gay politician who was elected to San Francisco’s Board of Supervisors; I’d like to think it was partly because I showed up at his benefit concert and played a great bass solo that he won the election). In any case, at the concert I very deliberately played my butt off to impress Miss Thing and his management. I didn’t know if Miss Thing was even aware that I existed, but I remember playing bass at that concert with my teeth, behind my back, etc., in order to make sure that, if anybody from Miss Thing’s entourage was watching from backstage, the chances would be maximized that your humble applicant JK would get noticed.

To this very day I can see in my mind that magic moment when, through the glare of the stage lights, I discerned the outline of Miss Thing himself (in his ‘Josephine Baker’ outfit) standing in the backstage doorway watching me play my bass solo. I didn’t say a word to him or to his management that night (I hadn’t been introduced to them); but I drove home after the concert knowing that something good was going to happen. Indeed, so sure was I that I had favorably impressed Miss Thing that I remember telling myself that same evening in an awestruck voice "I’m going to be on records." And I was right.

The very next day at rehearsal Jerry told me that Miss Thing had proposed after the concert that Jerry, Arnold, and your humble applicant John King join his band. I was ecstatic. Jerry, however, wasn’t ecstatic, because he didn’t like the idea of being a ‘lady-in-waiting’ to The Queen of Disco. This, in fact, was why he and Arnold had left Miss Thing and joined Messiah in the first place (and eventually got their own recording contract, by the way. I later co-wrote with Arnold one of the songs on their album; it’s called ‘Thank You’, and although it’s not bad, unfortunately the album only sold about twelve copies).

So Jerry and Arnold, hoping to succeed with their own act, decided to turn down Miss Thing’s offer. As for your humble applicant JK, I of course was more than happy to take the job. Though he didn’t like it, Jerry gave me Miss Thing’s telephone number. I waited a couple of days, rehearsing what I would say to the legendary Miss Thing when I spoke with him, then got up the courage to call.

A few months later I played on Miss Thing’s album Step to This. It sold more than a million copies, had the number one dance record in the country for twelve consecutive weeks, and landed two songs in the Billboard Top Forty. I toured the world, was on half a dozen television shows, made many more recordings with many additional artists, and met about a million interesting people and had about a million interesting experiences. I even made some money. I received several gold records and other awards for my work during those years. Today I have one of these records hanging in my office at CIA. Many of my CIA buddies have seen it and, when they realize who I played bass for, ask me in amazement "How did you pass your security investigation?" I’m happy to say that I can look at them and truthfully answer: Living right.

Incidentally, although I no longer play professionally very often, the fact is that your humble applicant is still quite a good bassist, and if you use me I’m sure I can help your sound. Indeed, it’s one of the great ironies of my music career that now, when I no longer try to be technically impressive on the bass or even practice very much, but instead just try to provide a solid musical foundation to support my fellow musicians, my bass playing is better than it ever was when I was making million-selling records and practicing hours and hours every day. There’s definitely an insight or two about business and life to be gained from this situation. In any event, if you need a good bass player, please contact me. It doesn’t matter what kind of music you do; I like and can play everything.

I don’t remember when I first began practicing the following business principle, but I can tell you that doing so has really helped me profit. Here’s the principle: Treat your humblest customer as if they’re going to be listed as a reference in your resume. Yes, the fact is that your applicant John King appreciates the great importance of customer relations, and I really make an effort to treat every customer well, which is another reason I think you should employ me in your business.

Still another reason I think you should employ me is that I can work with anyone. I mean, if it isn’t obvious from what I’ve already written in my resume, then let me state here and now that your humble applicant John King has worked successfully (and is working successfully at this very moment) with people of every race, gender, age, and lifestyle.

In addition to requesting information about career accomplishments, many employers ask job applicants the following kind of question: ‘Have you ever acted improperly at work or done something that you regretted?’ To be honest about it (and after all, shouldn’t a person be honest in their resume?), I would have to answer that question: Only about a million times! Yes, your humble applicant JK must confess that I’ve done many things I wish I hadn’t.

As for what these things are, well, without getting too specific I’ll just say that I’ve done the usual bad things like tell lies, be inconsiderate on occasion, be lazy, you know, the normal stuff (I also have a criminal record, but it’s no big deal, just a minor weapons violation. I’ll tell you about it later in my resume). Having made this confession, I’d also like to state that over the years I’ve significantly reduced the frequency and seriousness of my bad behavior, to the point that I now almost never do anything bad at all, and if I do commit a transgression occasionally, it isn’t a grave one. That’s the truth of the matter, and frankly, what more could you reasonably expect from a real flesh-and-blood person?

This whole topic reminds me of another thought I’d like to share, and which I hope will be taken into consideration by that tiny fraction of people who might read my resume and not approve of something I say in it (frankly, I don’t see how anybody could disagree with more than one percent, at most, of what I’ve written in this document, though I do recognize that many different interpretations of a thing are possible). Here’s what I want to say: The fact that you might not like one or a few statements made by your humble applicant John King doesn’t mean that, on the whole, I can’t be extremely useful to you. A wise business person won’t fail to understand what I’m talking about.

Did you ever see the film Apocalypse Now? I think it’s fabulous. Really, it’s one of those films which, once I begin viewing it, I can’t tear myself away (and if I remember correctly, the short story on which it’s based is also pretty excellent). Having actually done some paramilitary work, however, I can tell you that not every aspect of the movie is totally realistic. For example, when Martin Sheen and the other guy get out of their boat one night to go into the jungle to take a leak (you know, when they’re headed upriver into enemy territory), they stand there in the trees talking loudly enough for, oh, maybe the entire Vietcong army to hear them from about two hundred miles away. In a real operation of that kind they probably would have done this and several other things differently from the way they were done in the film. That said, though, in many other ways the film is quite accurate.

One story I have to tell you about the CIA that reminds me of Apocalypse Now: When that movie was only a few years old I was at an Agency base getting training in paramilitary operations. Several of the instructors at this base had done real operations that in many ways were just as wild as the fictional op described in ‘Apocalypse’. Unfortunately, I think these operations are still classified, so I can’t tell you about them. Suffice to say these guys knew what they were teaching.

Anyway, at the base where I was getting this training there was an instructor who was pretty young; at that time I don’t think he had done as much in the way of ‘black ops’ (which is what the highly sensitive covert operations are called) as the older guys had. This instructor went by the cover name of ‘Kurtz’ (he even had this name sewn on his camouflage), and yes, he made a point of looking and acting quietly and menacingly strange, just like the ‘Kurtz’ character in the movie.

Well, early one evening while a group of us were sitting around in the jungle waiting to be radioed and told to return to camp following an exercise, Kurtz (who had been our instructor for that exercise) climbed up on a big rock, sat down on it, gazed off into the distance, and said quietly but just loud enough for us to hear him "The horror ... the horror." That’s right, exactly like the Kurtz character in Apocalypse Now! I’m not lying to you, he really said it. I had to look away in order to keep from bursting out laughing.

Why do I mention this story in my resume? Well, for one thing I think this story illustrates the importance of being tolerant and understanding toward coworkers. I mean, almost everybody in this world has a fantasy or two that they’d like to live out, and as long as it doesn’t hurt business, why not let them do so? Obviously it was a major fantasy of Kurtz’s to join the CIA, become a paramilitary operations officer, and climb up on rocks in the jungle and say "The horror ... the horror." The point is, I think I showed good professional judgment in keeping quiet and not responding to Kurtz’s statement with a comment which might have made him feel unappreciated and thereby possibly lowered his morale and productivity (not that I seriously considered making such a comment; after all, the guy could probably kill me with his bare hands).

Looking back, though, maybe I could have done even more. In particular, maybe that evening at the CIA base when Kurtz gave us his big performance I could have offered what some business psychologists call ‘reinforcement’. For instance, perhaps I could have gone up to him afterwards and, with an admiring tone of voice, said something like "You remind me of that guy in Apocalypse Now. I bet you’ll probably take over a small country some day. Do you write poetry?"

During my business career I’ve discovered an interesting principle which I call The Principle of Opposites. The Principle of Opposites can be stated this way: If you want something, look to its opposite.

The following are several examples of The Principle of Opposites, which I hereby include in my resume for the usual reasons, i.e., to show employers that I’m knowledgeable about business and can be a valuable asset in their operation, and to provide people seeking good employment with information that can assist them in obtaining the best work possible.

First: If you want to get something, give something. An important corollary of this idea is: If you want to get everything, give everything. As for how to give everything, there are several excellent sources of information on this topic, probably the best of which (at least in my opinion) is the Bible (see especially the chapters in the Bible about Jesus).

Here’s another example of The Principle of Opposites: If you want to be recognized as knowledgeable, confess your ignorance. The two kinds of people who ask their coworkers ‘How do you do that?’ and ‘What do you mean by that statement?’ are senior experts, and junior employees who will soon be senior experts.

If you want to get the best assignments, be willing to do the worst assignments. Remember how I told you that when I was a boy I watched my father (who has Spanish blood) carry tables and chairs on a Saturday at the college where he worked, even though he was a member of upper management there?

Here’s a less pleasant example of The Principle of Opposites: If you do good work, expect to receive a good deal of criticism, and if you do great work, expect to receive a great deal of criticism.

Here’s an example of The Principle of Opposites which your humble applicant JK has applied again and again with excellent results: If you’re going to give people orders, ask them to give you orders. Many are the times I’ve said to someone whom I was managing "Tell me what to tell you to do." The results of this management strategy of mine speak for themselves.

The following is a classic example of The Principle of Opposites: If you want your good work praised loudly, then do your good work quietly. If you quietly do useful work, good people will laud you and bad people will try to slander you or take credit for what you’ve done, all of which actions will result in favorable publicity for you and are sure to ‘raise your stock’ among coworkers and management.

A valuable corollary of the above idea is: If you want to be ignored, offer to tell everybody everything that you’re doing. Many times at CIA I’ve scared away overly inquisitive people by telling them what I was doing in excruciating detail. One ‘technical briefing’ on the project in question, and most of the time they never bothered me again.

I would consider myself irresponsible if I didn’t include the following statement about The Principle of Opposites (note, by the way, that this statement is itself an example of The Principle of Opposites):

If you want to be able to apply The Principle of Opposites and have it work every time, then don’t expect to be able to apply The Principle of Opposites and have it work every time.

I could go on and on with these truths, but I think you get the picture. The Principle of Opposites and the idea of giving everything, however, do remind me of a couple of additional principles that are of the utmost importance both for one’s professional life and for living in general:

If you want to be like God, be like a regular person.

And: If you want to be like a regular person, be like God.

One midnight on a dark, deserted highway somewhere in Ohio, I found myself standing on the side of the road looking at the trailer that was carrying all my worldly possessions and thinking about how to fix a latch that had broken from the backdoor of the trailer and was now dragging along the ground. There I stood, at least a thousand miles from my destination and several hundred miles from where I had begun my journey, knowing that if I drove any farther I risked having everything I owned fall out of the back of that truck. I gazed down the highway and saw the twinkling lights of far distant houses. I was deeply impressed by their beauty. I was also impressed by the fact that, except for those lights twinkling far, far away, there wasn’t a sign of life anywhere.

I looked one more time in each direction and ascertained that there was no other human being around to help me; then I thought "Well, let’s see what we can do to improve this situation." I looked again at the latch that was hanging off the back of the trailer, did a quick mental calculation, and said to myself "What I need is four feet of rope." I looked straight down at the ground and noticed some gray fibers poking up out of the roadside dirt. There, buried an inch under my feet, was a section of rope. It was four feet long. I squatted down, dug the rope out of the dirt with my fingers, shook it as clean as possible, then used it to tie the latch to the back of the trailer. Then I got into the truck, turned the music back on, and drove that trailer a thousand miles to my destination without once having to readjust the latch, the rope, or anything else.

What’s the significance of this story to my resume? First, I think this story shows that your humble applicant JK remains calm in difficult circumstances and looks for solutions to problems instead of panicking. Second, I think this episode shows that I’m willing and able to find simple, practical solutions to problems, and that I don’t object to getting my hands dirty and improvising when the situation calls for it.

Third, this story suggests, at least in my opinion, that angels probably exist, and that they’re fond of your humble applicant John King (I’m sure, of course, that God’s angels are fond of everybody, and that they help everyone who lets them). Because of this I expect that whoever uses John King in their business will, in addition to profiting from the good work I do for them, receive ‘bonus’ help from Heaven, you know, as a kind of extra reward for employing someone whom the angels obviously like (I mean, this Ohio incident isn’t the only time I’ve had amazingly good luck, let me tell you).

For me, though, the most significant element of this story isn’t any of the things I just mentioned (not even the part about the angels). No, for me the element of this story that’s most important to my resume is the fact that, standing alone on a deserted highway at midnight with my vehicle disabled in the middle of nowhere, I was deeply impressed by the beauty of lights twinkling in the far distance. It’s my firm belief that every successful employer who reads my resume will appreciate this statement and consider it a major point in your humble applicant John King’s favor.

Now, in order to successfully apply for a job, a person usually needs to mention not only what kind of work they’ve done previously, but also the kinds of people they’ve worked with. The reason for this is that an applicant’s description of his or her coworkers often tells employers a lot about that person’s attitude toward people, which in turn can indicate whether the applicant works well with others, which is obviously an important consideration in deciding whether the applicant should be hired. In addition, how a person talks about his or her coworkers can reveal quite a bit about that person’s attitude toward working and toward life. And as wise employers and employees know, even as a person’s attitude is partly determined by their job situation, their job situation (and in particular, their job performance) is also determined by their attitude (you know, The Principle of Reciprocity I talked about earlier: If a makes b happen, then b may also make a happen).

In this connection, therefore, I’d like to describe some of the more notable characters with whom I worked during my career as a musician.

There was, for example, James, Miss Thing’s long-time guitar player. Really I don’t have a lot to say about James, except that he’s a hardworking musician and songwriter who ended up earning a lot of money in royalties from songs he wrote for Miss Thing. While playing for Miss Thing I too attempted to write songs and get Miss Thing to record them, but since for the most part I couldn’t stand disco music, whatever dance tunes I tried to write and sell were usually doomed from the beginning because they stunk (I like disco music now, though).

This situation illustrates an important lesson about working and living, one which can be stated as follows: If you don’t like what you’re doing, you probably won’t be very good at it. This isn’t to suggest that you can’t ‘learn to like your work’, as they say (indeed, to be able to learn to like one’s work is a major requirement for success in business); nevertheless, there are some things that some people just aren’t right for. This truth brings to mind yet another principle about life and work: No matter how hard you try and no matter how good your intentions are, there are some things you just aren’t going to make happen. To recognize when you’re facing a hopeless situation and to make the strategic decision to go where you’re better able to contribute something good to the world, is a sign of true maturity.

Another great guy with whom I played in Miss Thing (and with whom I made plans to start a punk rock group, although these plans were never actually realized) is Sol Bauman. Sol is a saxophonist who played with people like Eddie Money (in fact, when I knew him he was great friends with Eddie Money and toured with him after leaving Miss Thing). While playing saxophone with Miss Thing Sol taught himself electric guitar and, I have to admit, became rather hot at this instrument in a very short time, to the point that he even played a guitar solo on a recording by a rock and roll artist named Stu Blank (and it was a good solo, too). Sol liked me and thought it was incredibly funny and profound that, when we were backstage once in the dressing room of some big arena getting ready to play a concert and he asked me to explain a guitar line to him that I was playing in the dressing room shower, I just shrugged and said "It’s everything." He never forgot that statement of mine and most likely jokes about it to this day.

Still another member of Miss Thing was a tall, handsome Irish trombonist named Dan O’Regan, otherwise known to everybody simply as ‘Bone’. One interesting thing about Bone was that he felt irresistibly attracted to black women. Not that I think there’s anything strange or inappropriate about people from different races being romantically involved with one another (on the contrary, before being married your humble applicant John Alejandro King had at least three African-American girlfriends, as well as an East Asian). What was humorous about Bone’s fascination with black women was that it was so automatic, so deep in the core of his being, and he was so utterly incapable of hiding it. I mean, whenever Dan met a beautiful black woman his eyes would get big and his whole face would light up with an expression which seemed to say ‘Oh BOY!!!’. Sol and I used to laugh about this all the time, as did Miss Thing, if I remember correctly.

And needless to say, playing disco music in the Seventies in places like LA, New York, and Rio de Janeiro, Bone met some beautiful black women. And not only in those places, but in places like London, too. A great story about Bone: One night after we had played the famous Hammersmith Odeon theater in London (we were the headline act and sold the place out, by the way) he met a tall, absolutely insane, but pretty and very personable black lady who had some weird name like ‘Sassafras’.

Well, after the show Dan and Sassafras got on the band bus with the rest of us to return to our hotel, and everybody in the group, even Martha and Amazona, were sitting there laughing while the two of them necked in the back seat. But it was Sassafras herself who really brought the house down, because at one point while we were all good-naturedly making fun of the two lovebirds she called out from the back of the bus in her proper British accent "Let’s hope he’s as big as he looks!" I mean, we almost died laughing. Incidentally, it would seem that Dan was in fact as big as he looked, because Sassafras, or whatever her name was, stayed with him for some time.

But wait! There’s even more about Bone. Years later when I was in San Francisco seeing ‘the guys’ one last time before reporting for duty at CIA, I had lunch with Bone at a cafe on Haight Street. We laughed together about old times, and then he told me something interesting. It seems that he had realized a life-long dream a few years earlier (while I was away studying mathematics in the Southwest) by moving to New York and playing Salsa jazz in loft bands there. In New York he met and married a beautiful woman (who was black, of course), and everything went fabulously until he learned that she was living under a false name. Although he begged her, she wouldn’t tell him who she really was, where she was from, or what had happened in her past that had caused her to assume a fake identity. According to Dan they got a divorce not long after that. It does make me wonder what sort of interesting life this woman had before she met Bone. Who knows, maybe she worked for the CIA.

Another musician with whom I worked was a keyboardist named Mike Fernden. Mike was a ‘leather queen’ who got sexual pleasure from having his male lovers ‘be rough’ with him. Mike used to tell me amazing stories about going to ‘fisting’ parties where guys would, well, fist each other. I expect he told your humble applicant these things because I was only eighteen at the time and he wanted to shock me.

One funny anecdote involving Mike Fernden: During the famed ‘Summer of Love’ in San Francisco in the late 1960’s, my father (who has Spanish blood) felt drawn as if by a magnet to Haight-Ashbury and Golden Gate Park where all the hippie concerts, protest marches, and marijuana smoking was going on. For some reason he decided that it made sense to take his ten-year-old son with him when he went to see all this stuff, and I’m oh-so-glad he did. Anyhow, my pop and I drove up the Peninsula to San Francisco every Saturday during this time and did things like sit and talk with hippies on the street, march in anti-war protests, and go to free concerts. As a result I saw the Grateful Dead, Janis Joplin, Country Joe and the Fish (and would you believe that, years later, I actually played on one of Country Joe’s albums? It’s a fact!), the Jefferson Airplane, Santana, and other legendary groups.

Well, one of the bands my pop and I saw one Saturday afternoon in Golden Gate Park was a group from Oregon called ‘Hercules and the Chickenfat People’. As I learned later, Hercules and the Chickenfat People were yet another bunch of disaffected late-Sixties youths who had been scratching out an existence playing Top Forty music in some God-awful town somewhere, heard about ‘the thing’ that was happening in San Francisco, and put all their belongings in two cars and drove there to be part of the great historic Freakout. But you had to see these guys to believe them. When they performed (I assume they didn’t dress this way all the time) they wore tuxedos with little black derbies on their heads. The day I saw them at that free concert they played ‘Gimme Some Lovin’ while jumping from side to side in unison, with those dopey outfits on, and it was really funny. Since it was San Francisco and The Summer of Love, the audience didn’t react with hostility to this ridiculous spectacle; on the contrary, everybody cheered and took another hit on their joint.

So when I became a professional bass player years later, I was telling this story about Hercules and the Chickenfat People at a Miss Thing rehearsal one afternoon, and everybody was laughing except Mike Fernden. When I had finished the story he looked at me and announced quietly, like he was jokingly pretending to be embarrassed "I was in Hercules and the Chickenfat People." Well, needless to say, your humble applicant nearly fell out of his chair on hearing this news. Mike then proceeded to relate to me in detail the whole history of Hercules and the Chickenfat People, how they had come to San Francisco in 1968 to ‘be a part of history’, and had in their own way succeeded. Now, I know you’re going to be shocked to learn this, but apparently Hercules (the lead singer) ended up becoming a heroin addict or something. I knew you’d be surprised. Hercules and the Chickenfat People. It has a certain ring to it, don’t you think?

One other ‘coworker’ from my music days whom I must mention is Lawrence, a drummer I knew in high school and who I helped get a job playing with Miss Thing. Lawrence and I were buddies from our early teens and, even while we were still playing in garage bands, made a vow to each other that we would each help the other person ‘move up’ in the music business. If reading my resume makes you think that I was less than a model high school student (which of course is true), then let me tell you that compared to my friend Lawrence your humble applicant JK was a Rhodes scholar. I mean, Lawrence’s idea of ‘going to school’ consisted of strolling onto the campus every fourth day or so, standing in the halls for a couple of hours talking with friends about music, dope, and girls, smoking a joint or two, and then going home.

Do you remember how Woody Allen (I think it was) said something like "Eighty percent of life is showing up?" He was right, of course. For example, one time Miss Thing’s management was auditioning people to replace our old drummer who had been fired because he didn’t play hard enough. Well, first they brought in some young kid who literally didn’t know how to play at all. Then they brought in another fellow, a middle-aged Brit who, I swear, couldn’t play the disco beat (I mean, how can you be a professional drummer and not be able to play the disco beat???!!!). After this they couldn’t think of anybody else to audition, which meant that, thanks to our management’s usual great planning, we had no drummer and no candidates for the job. In effect, then, the position of drummer in Miss Thing’s band was available to whomever was musically competent and could show up and claim it.

Now, my buddy Lawrence happened to be more than competent musically (he was damn good, to be frank about it), and he also happened to like playing the drums very hard. True, he tended to speed up his tempos a little bit, though this was actually a conscious preference on his part (and in any case Miss Thing liked for songs to be played fast). So after I put in a good word for Lawrence to MT’s management, drove over to his house, picked him up and brought him and his drums to rehearsal, Lawrence auditioned and, of course, got the job.

Poor Lawrence. You see, eighty percent of life (if not more than that) really is just showing up. He got the gig with Miss Thing, and a chain of events was thereby initiated that culminated in his going to prison. Here was the problem: My old pal Lawrence had never seen the kind of money we were making in Miss Thing. So naturally, being a poor blood from East Palo Alto in the Seventies, Lawrence spent every cent they paid him to buy marijuana. That, and incredibly stupid-looking clothes. I remember one night when the whole Miss Thing entourage assembled at San Francisco International Airport to fly somewhere to start a tour, Lawrence showed up at the airport in a pair of boots made of goat hair, or something. I mean, the hair on those boots was a couple of inches long at the bottom; it was literally spilling out onto the floor! I tell you, with those boots on, his feet looked exactly like the feet of the ‘Wooky’, or whatever that creature is called, in the movie Star Wars. I thought Miss Thing was going to die when he saw what Lawrence was wearing. Of course, Lawrence himself thought that he looked like a rock star.

In any event, Lawrence was playing with us, making a lot of money, and buying almost nothing but weed with it. He smoked so much of the stuff that it began to seriously hurt his playing. To my great sorrow Miss Thing’s management finally had to replace him (they flew in a new drummer while we were playing a weekend engagement in Atlanta, Georgia). What made matters worse was that Lawrence went home with all his dope and his remaining money and proceeded to go into the drug-dealing business. This in turn led to his trying to rob a liquor store with a toy gun in San Francisco one night. Apparently the police were able to get a good description of him (I can just imagine the cashier at the liquor store telling the police investigator "The robber was wearing some really weird-looking boots"); and so my buddy Lawrence went to live in San Quentin state prison in Northern California for three years.

I remember Lawrence’s mother telling me that Lawrence was innocent. That was during the first few days of his court case. After awhile, though, she said "Ah hell, he guilty." Lawrence’s mom is a very devout Christian, so for her to use the word hell in a sentence means that she wishes to add special emphasis to what she’s saying. Lawrence and I wrote to each other while he was in prison, and believe it or not, his writing wasn’t too bad. This is pretty impressive when you consider that he never even came close to graduating from high school (I, at least, came close, for crying out loud).

What lesson did I learn from helping my buddy Lawrence get the job opportunity of a lifetime and then seeing him end up in prison as a result? Well, among other things this episode impressed on your humble applicant JK the following truth, which I think you’ll agree is as relevant to business as it is to life in general: You can never know for sure what you’re doing. You may think you’re doing something noble and profitable, and then realize afterwards that the consequences of your actions were disastrous. Then again, you may rue the day you did something, believing that your actions were disastrous, only to find out later that what you did helped someone immensely.

For this reason I don’t feel too badly about the fact that my buddy Lawrence went to prison after I tried to help him. After all, maybe in the ensuing years Lawrence has reflected on these events in his life and gained insight from what happened. Who knows, maybe after he got out of jail he was inspired to pursue an education, studied hard and obtained a degree, got a good job, and is now a big success somewhere. Or maybe you don’t think that a guy with a criminal record and no high school diploma can become a success.

Let me speak briefly about how I came to be employed by the CIA. First of all, as everyone who has ever applied to the CIA knows, the application process is a long one, involving months and months of background checks, interviews, and tests. And really, given the fact that Agency people have access to such incredibly sensitive information, this is how it should be. Certainly things were no different in the case of your humble applicant John King. I should also mention that I came into the Agency as a ‘CT’, that is, a participant in (and subsequent graduate of) the Agency’s Career Trainee program. The ‘CT’s’, as it’s called, is sort of like a CIA version of West Point (I say "sort of" because, although the CT’s is truly an elite program and a lot of the Agency’s leading people are graduates of it, there are many excellent high-ranking Agency officers who were never CT’s).

Anyhow, when I was in the final year of my mathematics studies I decided it would be fun, and also helpful to the cause of freedom and democracy, to get involved in the struggle against international Communism, terrorism, and stuff like that. So one afternoon I spoke with a CIA recruiter who had come to my university on ‘Federal Government Career Day’ (or whatever they call it). He told me that another recruiter from the Agency would be visiting our campus later to have substantive interviews with students. Then he gave me a ‘Personal History Statement’ (a biographical information form) to fill out and recommended that I see our university’s job placement counselor to schedule an interview with this other CIA person.

Well, I filled out the form, went to the job counselor, and was told by her that I couldn’t possibly interview with the CIA because the CIA was only looking for graduate students in chemistry and computer science. I asked her "Please put my name on the interview list as an alternate in case one of the students scheduled for an interview doesn’t show up." Being a good bureaucrat, she naturally was unwilling to do this. So naturally your humble applicant went out, bought a business suit, and showed up at the job placement office on the appointed morning anyway. And naturally the CIA interviewer, who (naturally) hadn’t heard that the CIA was only looking for graduate students in chemistry and computer science, was happy to talk to me. In fact, the interview went well enough that he gave me a ticket for admission to a special battery of tests they had scheduled the next week for people they thought they might actually want to hire.

So I showed up the next week, took eight hours of written tests, and was invited a few weeks later to go to Washington DC for approximately one million additional tests and interviews. I won’t bore you with a detailed account of all that happened during this process, though I will mention a couple of things. First, several of the CIA security and medical people who interviewed me were interested in the fact that I had been a musician in a famous disco group. Apparently it wasn’t the disco part of it that they cared about (they were willing to overlook the fact that I had played disco music); rather, what interested them was that I had been in the pop music business, where illicit drug use has been known to occur on occasion. What can I tell you? As my tests showed, I just hadn’t done drugs while I was making records and touring the world with ‘the beautiful people’ (like I said earlier, I was and am drug and alcohol free).

Another interesting thing about my application to the CIA is that they didn’t seem very concerned about the fact that I have a criminal record (that weapons violation I told you about previously). Although I had to submit paperwork about it, the only person who actually mentioned my ‘criminal past’ during my application process was a fellow from one of the covert operations offices that interviewed me. I can still see this eccentric little guy sitting at his desk, reading through my file, and saying casually without even looking in my direction, "You know, John, if you’re hired as a Career Trainee for the CIA you’ll have to become adept in the use of firearms, though as I read your personal history I see that this shouldn’t be a problem." I thought it was a pretty humorous statement.

When all the interviews and tests were completed a man from CIA Personnel met with me for a final briefing and told me, in a genuinely nice way, "John, you’ve come farther in the application process than more than ninety-nine percent of our applicants. I must tell you, however, that your chances of being hired, like those of all applicants who get this far in the process, are still less than fifty percent." Then he said "If you do beat the odds and are hired, there’s almost surely no way they can get you into the Career Trainee class that’s scheduled to begin next week. So go back home, enjoy the summer, and if you’re hired by CIA, we’ll see you this fall."

Now, one of the most basic principles of obtaining employment is: Let an employer know you’re available. Another principle, which is very well-known in the professional world, is: When you say that something is impossible, you frequently make that thing possible by saying this. Having learned these two principles during my previous years in ‘the music biz’, and therefore smelling opportunity, your humble applicant said politely to the CIA Personnel guy "If for some reason you do get space for another student in next week’s CT class, even if it’s at the last minute, please call me and I’ll turn right around and fly back here."

He smiled knowingly and told me (again in a genuinely nice way) "John, I’ve never seen such a thing happen in all the years I’ve been here at the Agency." Then he added, for emphasis I suppose, "If you are hired and get enrolled in the CT class that’s starting next week, I’ll personally seek you out and shake your hand."

Do I really need to tell you what happened next? I flew home to California on a Thursday night (by this time I had graduated with my degree in mathematics and was staying in Northern California at my parents’ house). The very next morning at about eight a.m. the phone rang and a female voice asked me if I could report for duty at CIA Headquarters the following Monday at 0830 to begin CT training. She said "We’re sorry to give you such short notice. You don’t have to come now if you don’t want to. We can always bring you on board when the next CT class begins this fall."

I re-packed my bags, got a ride to the airport from my father (who has Spanish blood), flew to Washington, found a place to live that same weekend, and showed up to work Monday morning looking for that guy in CIA Personnel who had promised to shake my hand if I was hired. Alas, after eleven years at the Agency I still haven’t found him! I think he’s hiding from me.

My experiences in applying and being accepted for employment with the CIA illustrate a number of important truths about business. Here are a few of them:

First: Respect the system, be polite to the system, obey the system whenever possible, but don’t automatically accept what the system tells you. Remember that lady at the job placement office at my university who said I couldn’t possibly meet with the CIA recruiter? And remember how that man from CIA Personnel told me there was "no way" I’d be hired the next week? Well, when I mentioned this guy’s statement to my father while he was driving me home from the airport following my return from interviews in Washington, my father (who has Spanish blood) calmly answered "I think they’re going to hire you next week." As always, my pop was right.

Second (and obviously this principle is related to the principle above): Be persistent. Keep working to achieve your objective, even if you encounter obstacles. And if you discover that you can’t get over an obstacle, try going around it, or through it, or under it, or back the other way, around the whole world if necessary, in order to come up behind it.

Third: Don’t be afraid to do things like apply for employment with a US intelligence agency, play bass in a disco band, fly halfway across the world for a date, write a business resume that’s many pages long, etc. The exact meaning of this principle is hard to explain, although it’s definitely related to the following well-known fact about business: Other things being equal, the greater the variety of interesting experiences in your life, the greater your potential productivity.

Although it may seem hard to believe, the fact is that your humble applicant and CIA intelligence officer John King is married to a woman who not only isn’t a US citizen, she’s from the Soviet Union. Indeed, not only is she from the USSR, she’s even a former Komsomolka, in other words, a former member of the Communist Youth League! This woman, my beautiful wife, is named Tatyana, and needless to say, I love her completely and would do just about anything she asked, including not write about her in my resume if that was what she wanted. But when I asked her the other day if she would permit me to mention her in this document she said "Why not? It’s your work, my darlink." Well, she didn’t actually say "my darlink" that time, but she did once comment after going with me to a meeting at my church "Is no different from Communist Party." In some ways I don’t agree with her, of course, though I have to admit that in other ways she’s right.

I remember the first time I went to Moscow to see Tatyana. It was 1994 and your humble applicant was researching international technology issues. There I was, sitting at CIA Headquarters thinking about my beautiful Tatyana and wishing I could be with her, when a plan began to form in my mind. You see, I had a number of US Government customers who desperately needed good information about business and technology in the former USSR. That, plus the fact that I had been meeting government officials and business people from the former Soviet Union at professional conferences in the US and had been invited by several of these people to visit Russia, inspired me to request authorization for a ‘TDY’ (an official trip) to Moscow to ‘gather intel’.

Now, please understand that your humble applicant’s intentions were completely noble here. I knew people in Moscow who could help me get good data, and I had customers in the US Government who were crying for this data; it wasn’t my fault that my beautiful Tatyana happened to live in Moscow too, and that in effect I would be getting an all-expenses-paid trip to go see her!

My getting the Government to send me to Russia is an example of a business practice which smart employers know is crucial in the modern professional world. This practice is often called working the bureaucracy, and I’m happy to say that I’m as skilled at working the bureaucracy as anyone. So using my ability in this area your humble applicant JK obtained the appropriate signatures on the appropriate documents, got a Government-paid ticket, and flew to Moscow.

The business part of my trip went pretty well. I acquired some very good data from my Russian contacts (analysts back home in the US Government were quite pleased with the information I obtained and asked me to get more for them). I wasn’t spying, you understand; I simply met with government and private business people and collected data on products, companies, and business activities, for which data I paid cash. But for me, the more interesting part of my trip to Moscow was meeting my beautiful Tatyana. As long as I live I’ll never forget that magic moment when we were introduced. Tatyana was absolutely breathtaking. Indeed, I knew from the instant I first glimpsed my lovely Slavic firefly that I had to offer her my life and hope she would accept it.

One interesting fact about my beautiful wife: She’s such an upstanding and careful person that in the beginning of our acquaintance, despite my relatively wealthy lifestyle, she wasn’t sure she wanted to have anything to do with me. Apparently she had heard some things that had given her a negative impression of Americans (I figure this was either due to Communist propaganda, or maybe she heard one of those disco records I played on), and she therefore doubted whether she should be friends with, let alone marry, your humble applicant. Tatyana and I resolved this issue eventually, though let me add that, despite my having come half way around the world to see her, during my visit she wouldn’t even let me kiss her on the cheek!

This story brings to mind a very important topic, one that’s highly relevant to business and which every modern business person needs to address in his or her resume, namely, the topic of cultural awareness. You see, if you’re going to do successful business with people from other societies, as I have done and am still doing, you must appreciate the cultures of those people and, just as importantly, be a good cultural representative of your own society.

Let me give you an example. One evening during my visit to Russia I was sitting with Tatyana and members of her family in their apartment. We were chatting prior to dinner when someone suggested to Tatyana’s mom that she recite a famous Russian poem. Now, in many Slavic countries it’s customary when one invites a special guest to one’s home (especially if the guest is a foreigner) to recite a poem, sing a song, or offer a proverb or two to that person, and then, if the guest wishes, let them respond in kind. Obviously it’s good to have a sense of culture in these situations, and fortunately I do. Therefore, after Tatyana’s mother (a very educated and refined woman) had recited a beautiful, haunting Russian poem, and all eyes turned toward me to respond, I was ready. After sincerely complementing Tatyana’s mother and the wonderful Russian poem she had recited, I said "Now I’d like to share some famous American prose. The words of this song are very meaningful, and I hope you like it." My hosts nodded eagerly and waited. I then sat back in my chair, gazed upward, and proceeded to recite slowly and with great feeling:

Sha-na-na-na

Sha-na-na-na-na-na

Sha-na-na-na

Sha-na-na-na-na-na

Sha-na-na-na

Sha-na-na-na-na-na

Sha-na-na-na

Sha-na-na-na-na-na

Aw

Dip-dip-dip-dip-dip-dip-dip-dip

Hum-mum-mum-mum-mum

... Obtain employment

When I had finished I looked at everyone, and from their silence it was clear that they were deeply moved. Then I explained that the song I had recited, Get a Job by the Silhouettes, is an example of a very important American musical art form called Doo Wop, and that Doo Wop is widely considered to be one of America’s greatest contributions to world culture. Later, after another member of Tatyana’s family played guitar and sang some classic Russian folk songs, your humble applicant made sure America was well represented by performing a sensitive rendition of the theme song from the TV show Batman.

So hopefully you can see that your humble applicant JK, in addition to my many other business skills, knows how to interact well with other cultures and is a good ‘cultural ambassador’.

Incidentally, I should mention that my beautiful wife recently had her application for permanent residence in the US approved, so there’s very little doubt that she’ll obtain US citizenship. And although Tatyana is going to be a mother soon and therefore might not be available for a few months, her fluency in Russian and her great intellect and work habits make her an excellent candidate for any kind of analysis or database work relating to business and technology issues in the former Soviet Union.

So if you’re looking for someone with these kinds of skills, my beautiful wife has her work permit, and I know she’d enjoy the experience of earning a paycheck in the USA. In fact, I’d even go so far as to say that she can probably pass a background investigation and obtain a security clearance (I mention this in case anybody reading my resume needs people with Russian language skills to do classified Government work). After all, as a CIA security officer said to me when they were investigating Tatyana (so that I could keep working for the Agency after marrying her) "If they let her in the Communist Party, she must be from a pretty respectable family." Indeed, so talented and industrious is my beautiful wife that the other day I joked to her "I’m going to make you work, and I’m going to stay at home and be a writer." My beautiful wife, bless her heart, replied "Anything for you, my darlink."

Recently a coworker remarked after reading parts of my resume, "It’s obvious that in this document terms like ‘resume’, ‘business’, ‘employer’, and ‘employment’, besides their professional connotation, have another meaning. The question is, what is this other meaning?"

I told that coworker "It takes a person’s entire career to learn what these words really mean, in my opinion. In fact, to learn what these words really mean, in my opinion, is the real meaning of the word career."

Incidentally, I’d like to make the following request: If you know a business that needs help, and if you think John King might be right for that business, please give the appropriate person there a copy of my resume. If that business subsequently employs your humble applicant, I promise you’ll be paid a finder’s fee for your efforts.

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