The Dirtsmith Variety Show Introduces – TRUE CONFESSIONS OF A PRIVATE DETECTIVE

Here we will explore True Facts about Private Investigation.

(Don’t get too excited)

For many years in this Slapstick Variety Show of Life that the gods bestowed upon me I was a departmental director at a private detective agency. While I have reluctantly embarked on three or four careers, this is the only one anyone wants to hear about. Understandably.

While doing it, I had fun reveling in the details. They were hilariously entertaining and it provided a massive ego boost. But that life ended in a rather spectacular personal breakdown. And by that time I had grown pretty disgusted with the whole business. So, my typically tight-lipped posture surprises most inquirers.

But it’s an engaging topic of discussion that should provide for stimulating commentary.

The general public has a romantic idea about private investigations, probably an echo from the ‘Film Noir’ days.

I guess we imagine brooding, hard-nosed anti-heroes facing off against clearly defined bad guys in a cloak-and-dagger battle of wits, culminating perhaps in a contest of physical strength and violence. Or they imagine him (almost always him) as some sort of knight errant questing on behalf of a mysterious and beautiful dame wronged by a callous lover with ties to shadowy international intrigue. And maybe that’s what it was once upon a time.

After personally working hundreds of cases and directing thousands, I encountered precious little of either.

In rough figures I would estimate that 75% of the cases that engage private investigation now involve workers’ compensation claims. Maybe another 20% are commercial or automotive liability. Perhaps 5% of cases are “private pay;” it’s those that come closest to our picturesque conception.

True Facts about Private Investigation

Please Share TRUE FACTS ABOUT PRIVATE INVESTIGATION!

Was it stimulating and fascinating work? you ask.

Yes. More so than any other I have pursued.

Well, what was it like?!

Personally I’ve found that no matter how stimulating or fascinating any sort of work might be in small doses, when performing it forty hours a week (or more), especially in a high-stress environment, it is simply work. But then I find doing almost any single thing for more than 15-20 hours a week, for any length of time to be deeply depressing. Ultimately it has proven untenable for me, even in a low-stress environment.

Of the three branches of investigative work (Sub Rosa – i.e. Field Surveillance, Statements, and Background Investigations), I ran Background. I’m pretty sure most people would find it far and away the best of the options. As I write this I am experiencing an old temptation to glorify, and glory in, this occupation.

Suffice to say it was often a complete riot. There were periodic outbursts of ecstatic communal laughter (at the expense of our subjects) due to some newly-discovered personal absurdity or shameful secret. Or else spontaneous celebration when an investigator cracked a case through some audacious exploit. I think at some point most of the office staff (and more than a few of the field investigators) would express envy and regret that they worked in different departments.

Were you good at it?

Yes. I excelled at it. I am a better investigator than maybe anything else – certainly any other occupation that has ever paid me.

[Author’s non-sequitor – real time: I strongly recommend you do NOT absentmindedly stir your coffee with the same fork you used to serve the cat his breakfast]

True Facts about Private Investigation

How ’bout that Bottom Line?

Did it pay well?

No. It did not. As an investigator I barely made enough to manage as a single person. This was partially due to living and working in a desirable part of California. This horrific marching price escalation that the rest of the country is just now discovering? That’s the only condition I have ever known.

The sole opportunity for financial growth lay in management. But to get there I had to somehow unhorse my own boss. Astonishingly, I navigated a scenario that involved him stepping down while I became his boss. But even then I didn’t make enough to keep up with the ever-advancing cost of living and the financial demands of trying to support a little family. I had to fight, constantly and like a cornered animal, to claw out sufficient income to provide my frugal little family with an upper-lower-middle class lifestyle while trying to pay down debt and maybe put something aside for a rainy day or the forlorn hope of a down payment on a home in California. But this dreadful and almost constant battle was a deeply traumatic experience in and of itself. I would have been fired many times over for gross insubordination [read – open, notorious, and humiliating public excoriation of the self-styled “CFO” – one of the owners of the company]. But I took refuge in the personal protection of the president and founder of the company, who deeply valued my contribution.

Financially speaking, I think the business is a bit like rank and file work in the entertainment industry. It it attracts talent by virtue of the nature of the work and attendant social cache rather than enticing salaries. You get the bragging rights of “fantasy job” status. But few with any aptitude stick around for long before splitting for for a job with decent pay. These are instantly replaced by another starry-eyed applicant.

True Facts about Private Investigation

Your TRUE FACTS ABOUT PRIVATE INVESTIGATION Suck! Tell Me about The Firm!

What about the company, the product, the service? How did you feel about those?

Concerning our work product within the scope of the industry, I derived great personal satisfaction in our quality. I could easily state that we were the best of all available options. As evidence, our rates were always the highest in the industry.

We were the best because we actually solved cases. Believe it or not, this is a rarity in a field were you are paid for efforts rather than results. The president of the company insisted upon this, often to financial penalty. That man was passionate about investigations and he was profoundly gifted and experienced in all aspects of the process.

We solved cases because the president and the heads of each department – Surveillance, Statements, and Background – were truly gifted and dedicated investigators. More importantly, we worked in coordination. For an operation like ours running hundreds of concurrent investigations, this was no small feat. We were constantly swimming in a sea of information while negotiating complex logistical problems.

And Background Department, apprised of questions and observations from our customers or from field investigation, was the hub of the wheel.

To be continued…

True Facts about Private Investigation

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