Hey Occulties,
It probably doesn’t surprise you that I have some friends in the occultist for hire field, and probably surprises even less of you that I speak to others in my field who I’m not friends with on a regular basis. While I’d never name names, here’s some of the most common stuff I hear that might surprise you or give you some insight into our world.
“I have a life outside of work.” Years and years ago when I’d been offering services for maybe 2-3 years, a client was trying to schedule a reading and I said something to the effect of “oh, I can’t that day because I’m getting dental surgery and I’ll not be up for talking after.” The client blurts out “I forgot you had a life outside of work — omg, I’m so sorry it’s just like weird you see the dentist, too!” They were of course horrified at having said this aloud, but I assured them it was quite alright. I’d heard similar before. In these cases most practitioners I know are not angry unless it becomes something stupid like a hate group (they exist,) discussing medical or personal appointments of ours in some conspiratorial way which is stalkerish and feels quite creepy. Like I shouldn’t have to give you a note from the dental surgeon or prove to your circle of friends that’s why I couldn’t schedule you on Thursday, nor is my root canal caused by anything other than an old filling finally failing and the tooth needing a root canal. But I get it (as do many of my peers,) - it’s easy to forget that I’m also a human with regular issues like you.
Practitioners have medical appointments, argue with their partners, have sick days, sick family to tend to, go to court, have jury duty, deal with house fires and auto accidents, have to attend graduations and weddings and funerals, have animals and families, etc. All the things you deal with in your life, we deal with too.
And so we are not always available to get out of bed at 3am, or to deal with your crying jag while in court (this has happened to more than one person I know with a client having a meltdown while the practitioner needed to settle civil court stuff,) to comfort you while in the middle of a root canal (this one happened to me and the client tried to fire me for not talking to her whilst there was s drill in my skull,) or to schedule your appointment on our day off. Remember you are dealing with another human who has many of the same obligations and problems you have when you work with anyone.
“I don’t and can’t like everyone I work for.” It’s very normal to meet people in your life that you don’t like for any number of reasons, and in some cases these people are perfectly nice and polite— they just aren’t anyone you enjoy the company of. It can be anywhere from tedious to downright awful to have to deal with these folks on a daily basis, but most adults can soldier through it… It’s just hard when the client wants to be your friend. Thing is, the vast majority of practitioners I know, while also being absolutely lovely people, rapidly become maxed out on socializing from doing their job, and already have to make an effort to make time for family and friends from the enormous amount of work required of them as well as the very draining aspect of dealing with emotionally traumatized people frequently on a daily basis.
And some people are rude, entitled, petulant, and incapable of accepting fault or responsibility and they come to us too. Mind you, I’m one of a handful of people who has and will fire anyone who continually acts like an asshole. If you think you can cop an attitude with me, threaten me, or act in any gross manner, you’ll find yourself fired. I bend over backwards for people who are pleasant and well-mannered, — but get sullen and pushy and rude, and watch me warn you one time then tell you to kick rocks if it keeps up. There’s absolutely no excuse to behave like that, and 99% of the population doesn’t, so I’m not sorry for dealing with those who do by cutting them off.
Most of the time, though, it’s that practitioners are the only one still listening to the fears and concerns of a very upset client who really needs a friend, and tries (consciously or not,) to be our friend. I do have clients who have become my friends but at the end of the day most clients are just clients. I appreciate their business and I respect them, but I don’t consider them buddies. Most people who do this job feel the same way.
“I detest having to put on a show.” I guess it’s popular for some very young spellcasters to enjoy putting on a show or for people to expect us to want an audience all the time because people born after a certain date think this is normal. Frankly, it’s not really, In the sense that….well… All through human history this has been seen as déclassé and to be avoided - and I mean among basically all of human kind. We didn’t even want to see our famous people looking bedraggled or doing mundane things. But reality shows and social media made some unfortunate trends. So, it may be a new normal for you but since occult means hidden knowledge, it is especially abnormal to your average spellcaster. That, and I assure you, a great deal of what you see is staged and not real. I’m not even criticizing the person showing it as they know as well as I do that a fair amount of spellcasting is rather utilitarian and not impressive to view and when you get overly fancy you’re not doing anything on a more impressive level, just being frivolous in many cases. But if you need to make someone impressed visually, you may use stage tricks if that’s your thing. It’s not mine but I know people who do it.
This job is a bit more like being a doctor than you might think. It is, at its root, a science, and a scholarly pursuit. It isn’t easy to learn in the sense you will quickly reach adepthood. On average it takes around 5 years of intense study and practice to hit being an intermediate, often more if you’re lackadaisical in your studies. So needing an audience should be the least of your concerns while you work to achieve this. While some of you might want a doctor who videos themselves all through their bachelor degree to graduation and beyond working on their hopefully willing-to-be-filmed patients….I’d prefer a doctor who doesn’t make me think my next check up is for public scrutiny, and who spent more time honing his or her knowledge over gaining followers and crafting their image.
I have seen, in my life, several entertainers - people who’s literal job is putting in a show, - begin to resent and even avoid large gaudy displays they enjoyed putting on in their youth. Imagine then being in a profession which is more like being a doctor than anything else, and being expected to put on a spectacle to attract patients. I assure you that most people who crave an audience and followers only for the idea of fame and power are in not really those who do well as a practitioner for hire as knowledge is the reward of our study, and fame is a fickle and tenuous reward sought by people who’s power will be short-lived for their desire for it to come coupled with fame in most cases, soooo it’s a ridiculous feeling to have earned your laurels and have to put on a display for a generation of people who evolved to think everyone and everything should be out for visual consumption, no matter how much this detracts from serious work or study time.
In short, most practitioners for hire older than 30 or so probably resent the commercialization and displays younger clients desire. Virtually every single one I know bemoans at least parts of it. It’s fun to interact with people on a student level but becomes annoying when you’re expected to perform like an entertainer on a regular basis.
“Please stop asking other ‘muggles’ for advice.” I’ve said this so many times before but the reality is if you’d never seen or driven a car before, you’d probably be wise not to ask people with the same experience of cars for advice on cars, especially when the experts among you rode in a car one time and yet don’t know how to turn it on or how it’s powered and think it’s a fake car when they don’t turn the ignition but pump a pedal and it expect it to go. It would be generous to compare muggles helping muggles to this scenario. In reality it is a bizarre miseducation of each other, whilst reinforcing incredibly bizarre beliefs, sometimes listening to rival wanna-be casters (or if you’re lucky, a woman who couldn’t steal my husband away and was never a client saying that despite my lack of any criminal record, that I’m whatever awful thing and a fake spellcaster,) say untrue things in an attempt to harm their target’s business, or just downright stupid ideas like spellcasting is like a vending machine that just spits out what you want regardless of your behaviors or any other factors or else it’s fake (which is totally NOT how spells work.) The absolutely atrocious levels of misinformation spread intentionally and unintentionally is nauseating…
Plus there’s that whole lust for results problem. Basically you’re supposed to keep your mind off of the situation and the spell and you’re inviting others to think on it which in turn means they could impact your active spellwork and even kill it.
”Casting a few spells doesn’t make you an expert.” Oh the amount of times we hear that someone understands spellcasting and then is completely flummoxed when we mention very elementary aspects and gloss over them, having been led to believe they at least have an intermediate level of knowledge of the art. Fixing a stair does not make you a master carpenter, cleansing out a wound doesn’t make you a doctor, writing an editorial doesn’t make you a journalist. Stop putting on the cap of an expert if you are a dabbler as it makes you seem (and act) far more ignorant than a person who may have tried out a few things an expert does in that field but admittedly only has a layperson’s knowledge thereof.
“I’m exhausted.” This job is INCREDIBLY TIME-CONSUMING AND DRAINING. It requires just about everything out of you, and yet someone still wants an off-hours reading or a free redo (at cost to yourself,) which they aren’t entitled to. You will be expected to google things for the lazy, to be an on-demand therapist, to explain rudimentary spellcasting concepts, to state and re-state absolutely unnecessary information more because someone wants confirmation you haven’t run off, and then your thanks will be someone bitching you haven’t replied fast enough because the 20 hour day you worked today didn’t include you repeating the start day of the work you told them three times already since you really wanted to sleep. And if you’re exhausted, don’t say it, because then you’re ungrateful. How dare you want 6 hours of sleep tonight. How dare you not hold every hand and act as a free therapist or search engine and not be grateful that this unpaid part of your day exists. I’ve had clients chastise me for taking the day off for needing to attend a funeral, and feeling drained and upset afterwards to the point I didn’t reply to the email I got that day.
We say it to each other often enough — your practitioner is exhausted. If even half of our clients stopped expecting service 24/7 or tried reading back on a thread, we’d save hours every day. I understand both sides of this - it’s really hard when you want something to be fixed and it’s taking it’s time to manifest; it’s really hard to have to be patient with a lot of anxious traumatized people when you can’t remember the last time you took a vacation (ten years ago for me, at this writing.) So we try to be patient with you and hide our exhaustion…maybe try to find your answers for things like scheduling or get less pissy if your practitioner doesn’t reply in 48 hours and both sides will benefit.
”Please use one form of communication to conduct business with me.” I have friends who prefer chat services to speak to their clients. I am not a chatty person and much prefer email, but all of us find it incredibly annoying to have clients on several different platforms because it doesn’t keep the information in one place. Eventually you lose track of something or don’t reply because someone’s using the wrong platform and drama ensues. If you stick to ONE platform (email for me, chat for some others,) then you make your practitioner’s life easier, and business runs more smoothly.
“Clients get reputations, too, and yours precedes you.” If you honestly don’t think your reputation is at risk and could rapidly become wretched the moment you act terrible or start bad mouthing any practitioner, think again. There is a fair amount of warnings out there for people who act out towards their workers or who try to destroy anyone’s business. I’ve told a few people I couldn’t help them merely from hearing of all the awful things they tried on others well before contacting me. And I hate mudslinging so Lord knows if I heard about you, you’re absolutely notoriously awful because I don’t listen to most of that stuff
“Stop asking me for free stuff.” Unless you feel like paying money out of your pocket to work a very draining, high energy job for 60-80 hours a week every week for the rest of your life, you should not expect your worker to want to do that. Pay people for their work and don’t demand freebies.
No this wasn’t about anyone particular, yes I’ve heard all of these from several practitioners. No this isn’t an excuse to get insulted, rather it’s intended to give the client insight when they previously would not have understood how a behavior could be troubling or difficult.
~Cat
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