White Collar Ficlet - Career Advice
Aug. 20th, 2012 04:36 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
elrhiarhodanTitle: Career Advice
Author:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
elrhiarhodan
Fandom: White Collar
Rating: PG
Characters/Pairings: Neal Caffrey, Peter Burke (Implied P/E/N)
Prompt #112 - Laugh
Spoilers: None
Warnings/Enticements/Triggers: None
Word Count: 300 – Exactly
Summary: Not everything you read is true
A/N: No beta, all mistakes are mine and mine alone.
__________________
They had a good arrangement.
Friday nights, particularly those when El was working and Peter and Neal weren’t, were spent in Neal’s apartment. So were Saturday mornings, when El showed up and they all went for breakfast.
This Friday was as typical a Friday as Neal could ever hope for. He was sitting on the couch, enjoying a good book. Peter was at the table and working on some of the never-ending FBI paperwork. It was domestic bliss, as Neal would define it.
The book was good, and to his occasionally warped sense of humor, amusing. So much so that Neal let out a sharp bark of laughter, shaking his head in bitter-tinged amusement.
“What’s so funny.” Peter looked up from the case file he was annotating.
“Nothing – just something I read.” And he read it again, and laughed again. It was still unfunny in the funniest of ways.
“Come on, what gives?” Peter set the file aside and joined him on the couch. Neal didn’t even both to play keep-away when Peter reached for his book. “The FBI Career Guide? Are you serious?”
Neal snatched the book back. “It was on the remainder shelf at Rizzoli’s; it looked interesting.”
“Okaaaaay. Then what’s so damn amusing?”
Neal cleared his throat. “Informants do not operate out of the goodness of their hearts. Some want money, and truly exceptional informants may be paid substantial sums.”
“Don’t tell me that after all this time, you’re still pissed off about your salary?”
“You mean my pittance?”
Peter gave him The Look. The one meant to cow. It didn’t work. Still, Neal kept his amusement to himself when he read the words on the next page:
“There is an old saw in the Bureau that has much truth: Never fall in love with an informant.”
FIN
Author’s Note: The FBI Career Guide: Inside Information on Getting Chosen for and Succeeding in One of the Toughest, Most Prestigious Jobs in the World, is a real book (clearly I would not make up quite such a fatuous subtitle). It was written by Joseph W. Koletar, a former FBI agent, in 2006 and published by AMACOM, the American Management Association. I was looking for the definition of “case agent” and came across this book, and a six page excerpt in Google Books. The last line in the excerpt was the last line of this ficlet.
Despite the misinformation about how agents should not fall in love with their CIs (Philip Kramer may have had a hand in that chapter), the book provides an excellent overview of the training, the FBI hierarchy, and how an agent progresses up the career ladder. Thinking that someone should send a copy to Jeff Eastin.
Author:
elrhiarhodanFandom: White Collar
Rating: PG
Characters/Pairings: Neal Caffrey, Peter Burke (Implied P/E/N)
Prompt #112 - Laugh
Spoilers: None
Warnings/Enticements/Triggers: None
Word Count: 300 – Exactly
Summary: Not everything you read is true
A/N: No beta, all mistakes are mine and mine alone.
They had a good arrangement.
Friday nights, particularly those when El was working and Peter and Neal weren’t, were spent in Neal’s apartment. So were Saturday mornings, when El showed up and they all went for breakfast.
This Friday was as typical a Friday as Neal could ever hope for. He was sitting on the couch, enjoying a good book. Peter was at the table and working on some of the never-ending FBI paperwork. It was domestic bliss, as Neal would define it.
The book was good, and to his occasionally warped sense of humor, amusing. So much so that Neal let out a sharp bark of laughter, shaking his head in bitter-tinged amusement.
“What’s so funny.” Peter looked up from the case file he was annotating.
“Nothing – just something I read.” And he read it again, and laughed again. It was still unfunny in the funniest of ways.
“Come on, what gives?” Peter set the file aside and joined him on the couch. Neal didn’t even both to play keep-away when Peter reached for his book. “The FBI Career Guide? Are you serious?”
Neal snatched the book back. “It was on the remainder shelf at Rizzoli’s; it looked interesting.”
“Okaaaaay. Then what’s so damn amusing?”
Neal cleared his throat. “Informants do not operate out of the goodness of their hearts. Some want money, and truly exceptional informants may be paid substantial sums.”
“Don’t tell me that after all this time, you’re still pissed off about your salary?”
“You mean my pittance?”
Peter gave him The Look. The one meant to cow. It didn’t work. Still, Neal kept his amusement to himself when he read the words on the next page:
“There is an old saw in the Bureau that has much truth: Never fall in love with an informant.”
Author’s Note: The FBI Career Guide: Inside Information on Getting Chosen for and Succeeding in One of the Toughest, Most Prestigious Jobs in the World, is a real book (clearly I would not make up quite such a fatuous subtitle). It was written by Joseph W. Koletar, a former FBI agent, in 2006 and published by AMACOM, the American Management Association. I was looking for the definition of “case agent” and came across this book, and a six page excerpt in Google Books. The last line in the excerpt was the last line of this ficlet.
Despite the misinformation about how agents should not fall in love with their CIs (Philip Kramer may have had a hand in that chapter), the book provides an excellent overview of the training, the FBI hierarchy, and how an agent progresses up the career ladder. Thinking that someone should send a copy to Jeff Eastin.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2012-08-20 10:44 pm (UTC)It's way too late for Mr. Eastin. His take on FBI procedures is already canon. I think of it like his grasp of New York geography, odd and occasionally charming but not particularly accurate.
no subject
Date: 2012-08-20 08:46 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-08-21 01:09 pm (UTC)I LoL'ed and LoL'ed when I read it - like HOW MORE PERFECT COULD THIS BE!
no subject
Date: 2012-08-20 08:54 pm (UTC)And your A/N note was evil :P, I went right away to google books to get a look on that one! (and put on my reading list... should be a requirement for fanfic writers ;))
no subject
Date: 2012-08-21 01:09 pm (UTC)It definitely should be required reading for anyone who's writing WC fic, particularly of the casefic variety.
no subject
Date: 2012-08-20 09:08 pm (UTC)Thank you, love it :D
no subject
Date: 2012-08-21 01:10 pm (UTC)The book is very interesting - and not just for the advice on working with CIs. :D
no subject
Date: 2012-08-21 01:20 pm (UTC)*hugs*
no subject
Date: 2012-08-20 09:23 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-08-21 01:11 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-08-20 09:59 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-08-21 01:08 pm (UTC)The book is invaluable! I am going to have many happy hours writing more accurate fic.
no subject
Date: 2012-08-20 10:31 pm (UTC)So I came across to this one and thanks for this funny ficlet, exactly what I needed.
It's really interesting that this last line does really exist! :))
no subject
Date: 2012-08-21 12:34 pm (UTC)And the book is fascinating, seriously.
Thank you for your feedback.
no subject
Date: 2012-08-20 10:58 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-08-21 12:34 pm (UTC)It is an honest-to-god real book, and it is extremely informative if you're writing fiction about the FBI. In fact, a number of the reviews this book has on Amazon are from authors looking for the granular type of inside information it provides.
no subject
Date: 2012-08-20 11:02 pm (UTC)And now I'm amusing myself by imagining Mozzie's reaction to the book.
no subject
Date: 2012-08-21 12:32 pm (UTC)Yeah - that would be something to contemplate.
no subject
Date: 2012-08-20 11:03 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-08-21 12:31 pm (UTC)I can tell you, he ignored it completely.
no subject
Date: 2012-08-21 01:16 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-08-21 01:17 am (UTC)The book is fascinating, a must read for anyone who's writing WC fic - at least casefic or backstory.
no subject
Date: 2012-08-21 01:50 am (UTC)“There is an old saw in the Bureau that has much truth: Never fall in love with an informant.”
I wonder how often that has happened for real that it would need to be included in a book? :)
no subject
Date: 2012-08-21 12:31 pm (UTC)The book actually talks about how agents and their informants can get way too close - friendship, companionship - not just romance!
no subject
Date: 2012-08-21 02:10 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-08-21 12:30 pm (UTC)Thank you!
no subject
Date: 2012-08-21 02:59 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-08-21 12:29 pm (UTC)Thank you.
no subject
Date: 2012-08-21 04:51 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-08-21 12:29 pm (UTC)(It's actually quite informative, seriously).
no subject
Date: 2012-08-21 11:03 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-08-21 12:27 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-08-21 04:41 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-08-21 05:22 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-08-22 02:07 am (UTC)I like their little scene of domestic bliss. :-)
no subject
Date: 2012-08-22 02:32 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-08-22 10:19 am (UTC)I bet Neal finds something he finds ridiculous on almost every page.
LOL that Kramer wrote that line.
no subject
Date: 2012-08-22 07:14 pm (UTC)I do think that Neal will enjoy the book immensely - it'll go far in preparing him for the next time he has to go undercover as an FBI agent.
:D
no subject
Date: 2012-08-22 07:11 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-08-22 07:13 pm (UTC)That's just the reaction I wanted.
no subject
Date: 2012-08-26 11:09 am (UTC)