I, Fixer

I'm a fixer. I'm not a glorified fucking concierge. I don't get people things. I don't hook them up with mutually interested people and wish them the best. I fix problems. I am well-paid for what I do, because my business it to provide results. I know it sounds cliché. To be honest, most of my life is a cliché. Corrupt politicians? Check. Back room deals? Check. Undoing things that have already happened? You bet. So the fuck what?

Everyone has their price. For most people, naturally, it's money. But when fixing someone's usually earth-shattering problem, it is incumbent upon me to understand the variables and account for them. Some people want favors owed to them. Some people just want little things taken care of — little in the grand scheme, but for many of them, they are the culmination of a life's work, a life of service, or sometimes, the steps necessary to keep a life from coming to a premature end.

A lot of people just want to feel like they're juiced into the action. They provide some information, keeping everything me in mind whenever they hear anything that may be, and occasionally is, important. So you have to keep them in line, making them feel appreciated for providing you with the same information that a dozen other people have already told you about. You keep them happy, and make them feel important. It is, frankly, a lot like running spies. You have to keep them in line, and more often than not they will give up everything they know just because they want to tell someone.

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There are freelance political operatives who tend to do the dirty work, but are independent enough to take on multiple clients. These are different from campaign operatives. They are "consultants." "Advisors." In many ways they would like to be fixers. However, they aren't quite powerful enough, or connected enough, or just ... enough (financially, or skillful).

What marks the difference between agents and fixers is that fixers direct their efforts from the top-down, whereas agents represent people on both sides of the divide, but most of the time they end up representing people to the powerful. They are supplicants by proxy. In the politician's example, the agent still has to request money from donors, although they may not have to ask very hard. Fixers, on the other hand, don't have to ask. They lead by example, and give large amounts of money and/or in-kind donations. An agent will ask the union to send volunteers. Fixers tell them to mobilize.

They are, in many ways, wannabe-fixers. They are the junior varsity players. In many instances, fixers will direct actions through agents and onto the bagman, and eventually the operative.

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Confessions of a Fixer in the Sixth World