One Person Multiple Careers by Marci Alboher

Author:Marci Alboher
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Warner Business Books

Jane Curtin, one of the early cast members of Saturday Night Live, sold an apartment at 56 E. 11th Street this month, according to records filed with the city. The 1900-square-foot three-bedroom co-op was listed for $1.7 million with Betsy Magee, an independent real estate broker who doubles as a fitness trainer. Ms. Magee “is an exclusive personal trainer to CEOs of corporations, celebrities and groups of runners,” according to her Web site, extremeworkout.com.

—“Sitcom Star’s Co-op Sale,” The New York Times, October 30, 2005

It’s fairly common to find small squibs about famous people and their real estate transactions in the New York Times. But is it really relevant to this news item that the “independent real estate broker” has another job? Probably not, but it’s certainly interesting. And if you were to judge importance based on the proportion of ink dedicated to Magee, the Realtor/personal trainer, over the purported subject of the story, Jane Curtin, you’d think the news was about Magee.

So what does this story show? Simply that people are fascinated by slashes, which is probably why an editor at the New York Times thought millions of readers would want to know that the real estate broker in this transaction had an unexpected side gig. Had Magee been a typical real estate agent, she may not have even been mentioned in the paper and she wouldn’t have gotten that free bit of promotion. Garnering interest—whether from the media or the average Jane who hears about your unexpected other life—is one of the nifty little perks of having a slash.

Driving to the beach one afternoon, I was escaping from the traffic by listening to a hysterical report on NPR about sheep suffering from gastric bloat and the methods for treating them. If the story wasn’t amusing enough on its own, my ears pricked up when I heard the author credit: “Brought to you by Baxter Black, cowboy/poet . . .” Again, hearing an unexpected combination caught my interest, which is probably the reason the commentator uses that particular moniker.

Whenever I talk to slashes, they invariably tell me about the wonderful things that happen when they reveal an unexpected identity. Sometimes disclosing a slash nets a measurable result like getting a job, attention from the media, a promotion, or a client referral. In other cases, a closer personal connection is made because of the discovery of a shared passion. In still others, it just makes for a richer life. This chapter will highlight some of the synergies and interconnections—planned and unplanned— that result from slash careers and the way people manage them.

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