On Tuesday, a friend told me they wanted to fire their therapist and felt uncomfortable about it. I asked how much they pays the therapist, and they said $350 a week. I offered them a deal: you give me a hundred dollars and I’ll send an email that fires your therapist. They laughed, then I said, “And the best part: then I’ll give you a hundred dollars back. So you get to have no therapist, and a hundred dollars!”

They said that they would go home and fire the therapist and that they wouldn’t come back to the office (we share a coworking space) until they fired him. 

For two days, I didn’t see her, which surprised me. 

Then on Friday, they text me saying:

• “Okay, I have like 90% succeeded at firing my therapist, I am going to count that as enough success to return to the office today. I technically need to send a follow up email on Sunday confirming that today will have been my final session as we agreed I would think about it over the weekend but the groundwork is clear.“

I had thought she was joking! 

I find this very funny. Not only due to the amusing structure of someone wanting to fire their therapist but feeling unable to because they don’t want to hurt their therapist’s feelings (which is already funny). Not only due to the amusing financial machinations (paying for another session this week – at $350 – when I’m pretty damn sure the whole point of that session was to cancel), which is itself the sort of thing that a therapist should help someone upskill but apparently this therapist does not (lol at therapy financial incentives). But also due to the self-inflicted rule that was clearly some sort of self-enforced punishment to mandate a behavior, but which was quite possibly not good for anyone as it prevented them from working from their ideal location despite no meaningful connection between working from my living room and firing their therapist. 

Games played

I realized today what my job is: I’m a bounty hunter! I establish bounty-based contracts with people for achieving specific ends (often paired with a small retainer). I’ve now signed one agreement to this effect, with a ~70% chance of another coming in the next week. So far, I have happy clients. Now, ‘tis time for me to deliver. 

If only that friend had paid me the $100: she’d’ve saved $250 ($350 if she wanted the $100 back), and we’d both be better off.