Getting Paid

Everybody has an opinion on just about everything. Whether you’re willing to admit it or not, you have an opinion. The best thing about having an opinion is you can actually get paid for it! Yep, that’s right. For instance last night I got paid $85 for my opinion on advertising for Parliament cigarettes. Now, I don’t smoke Parliament cigarettes, but a friend does and she got me into this survey. Let me lay this out for you, there are six women sitting around a table with a moderator at the head of the table, each of us has a handwritten name card in front of us and at the end of the room is a mirrored wall. Now this being my first survey; and being smart enough to correctly deduce there are people behind the glass, we begin our discussion. The ladies are asked what comes to mind when you think Parliament. Most of the ladies have done surveys before so they’re coming up with “crisp” “recessed filter” “smooth taste” “clean” and some others I can’t quite recall, but all the buzzwords the marketing people behind the glass want to hear. The thought being that if you’re going to get paid for your opinion, why not make it a good opinion? What did I come up with you ask….old men in white powdered wigs. Yep, that was my answer, that was my five-full-minutes-of-laughter answer and as the laughter died down in our room, I could still hear laughter coming from behind the mirrored wall.

If nothing else, apparently my humor was worth the $85 they spent on me.