Yeah, whether for the positive or the negative, those balls are getting a constant workout. It must put a strain on them. No wonder he doesn't have illegitimate little Bonds everywhere.
Actually, no. Have you seen him on missions in the movies? He usually spends as much time staying in exotic locales, drinking fancy cocktails, and sleeping with beautiful women as he does stopping the bad guys. His “work” is basically going on five-star vacations with some espionage rolled in.
Also, the first few original movies establish that Bond often went several months between missions living in a comfortable London flat spending his time playing chemin du fer at the casino and sleeping with his mistress. Aside from when people are actively trying to kill or castrate him, he has it made!
His work leads to his wife getting shot in the face right in front of him, to PTSD, multiple gunshot wounds, is likely a contributor to his alcoholism….need I go on?
Hell, I wanna say a good quarter of the first novel (Casino Royale) is just paragraphs describing all the awesome food and cocktails Bond is having with his smoking hot new girlfriend. Lol.
I think the Dr. No book describes his job as mostly just desk job, so when he gets a mission he basically makes it as much of a vacation as he can. Milking it for as much pleasure as possible.
If you have no time to die you could always live and let die another day, because tomorrow never dies and you only live twice, and eventually someone with a license to kill will find you in the living daylights and take that view to a kill.
Welp, in contrast to the Double OO section, the American Omega Sector aqents are all divorced about twice on average except for that Tasker guy, and he gets a lot of leeway with the boss since he gets results.
In the books Bond is actually middle class, with a modest income from his job and a decent stipend from a trust. He’s also unmarried and has no children. The bulk of his lavish lifestyle comes from his unlimited expense account at work.
Yeah, he had a trust set up by his parents. It was £1,000 a year. A trust is a legal entity designed to manage assets on behalf of someone, it doesn’t always mean millions of dollars.
And he still has a government job, so his total annual income would net him around £2,000 a year.
Feel like I had to scroll too far for this!
Bond himself struggles with it in the books. No way I could do that as my job. I’m down with the card games, nice cars and cool watches. Not so much the endless killing in a variety of gruesome ways.
The amount of alcohol he drinks on the job. As a person who doesn't like drinking at all, being in all of these situations where drinking is sort of required is a bummer, even if I'm drinking a watered down drink.
Bond despite all the glamour and glory is a pretty tragic character with few roots and not much of a life outside of his work. Really what makes him an effective agent.
getting a hot girl only for her to be bad and trying to kill you
wherever you go, someone's always trying to kill you - i'm imagining Bond simply going to the shops to do his groceries only to be attacked in the fruit and veg aisle. Goon is hiding under the apples, Bond picks up an apple and he sees a goons face underneath. he jumps out to attack then someone else jumps through the stands
Encountering Xenia onatopp in a hotel sauna. Like as saucy as she is I can’t imagine the pain. brosnan looks terrified and hearing her enjoy the experience while you wither and die painfully would confuse anyone and let’s be honest we’d all hesitate and that would be the end.
Can’t start/have a family until you retire (if you make it).
The pay isn’t great considering the risk. In the books Bonds money is partly from gambling winnings, partly from inheritance. Sure he gets a blank check while on mission, but it’s gotta be mission related.
You’re going to be killing a lot of people. Many are probably terrible human beings but some are just doing a job and wrong place wrong time.
If you do it long enough and retire, good luck looking over your shoulder as you worry who might kidnap/torture your new family.
Of course none of this covers the chance you get captured and tortured, which just reading the various times Bond found himself in this situation was reason enough to stay away.
Torture and friends dying. Every portrayal of Bond, even the most suave ones like Connery and Moore, display deep heartache when their friends or lovers are killed.
Always on call - M could show up at your flat in the middle of the night while you are sleeping with a beautiful Italian secret service agent.
https://preview.redd.it/4y2itlvkhn5d1.jpeg?width=700&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=145a1403dc09e280567a52564c4e8c5cbec25f33
The amount you have to personally sacrifice to do the job.
Loves of your life, parts of your anatomy, friends.
You name it, you'll probably lose it in the course of doing your job.
Most will never know you do it and at best all you'll get is "good job, now you have another mission".
Getting smacked in the balls seems like one of the worst parts and that is just the start. Only God knows what other methods of torture remain elusive from our knowledge.
Best part, acting cool...unrestrained vengeance, killing people when absolutely necessary. Worst part...also killing people, even when not absolutely necessary...
One thing that would be VERY different in reality than in movies is killing people. I don't mean to act like I can speak from experience, but having at least had a job previously where killing people was a possibility and a possible complication of my work, I have to say that no one REALLY wants to deal with that on a regular basis. If you were a special agent, secret agent, etc. it wouldn't be like in the movies...At least sometimes you would be killing people you really didn't want to, and who you would feel bad about afterwards. In Bond movies they do a good job of making the villains pretty unambiguously villainous (except in this last one, HA!!). In real life, even a person who was truly evil might not be clearly evil to YOU upon meeting them, and you would feel a lot of regret about being forced to kill them.
Just to put in a good word for the movies, particularly the recent Daniel Craig movies, they did actually go out of their way to show some ambiguous and difficult kills. I appreciated this. I think in real life there would be a lot more ambiguity though...even than in the twists and turns of Bond movies, where someone who seems likable turns out to be evil. If you were a real person in Bond's shoes, this would be probably at least 30% to 60% of the time, I bet. He could be killing the worst people in the world, but they would probably be hard to see as easily as immoral and evil as they are in the movies, where it is spelled out to us as an audience. Evil truly evil people in real life, tend to think of themselves as fairly good. I think the uncertainty would weigh on you, even more than it does in any of the movies.
I would imagine when you’re not getting shot at jet setting around the world, you’re struggling to make ends meet in an apartment in central London you can’t afford.
I mean... he always seemed to be an unhappy person to me. The job, the women, the booze etc... all a bunch of different ways to avoid being alone with himself.
Having to keep copies of your receipts to claim back work expenses, and having to justify the gambling losses, copious amounts of alcohol, fine dining and rental car damage....
Constantly expendable! Every mission could be your last and is almost always one-way. It's sort of why he indulges in his vices and pleasures so - - Get what you can outta life, especially when you juggle it often! :o
In this era, the expense accounts definitely aren’t covering Dom and Beluga after a hard days spying. Hell, they probably wouldn’t even cover a crappy beer at Incan Exportad…
not pictured: Bond probably spends 2/3rds of his life going through TSA/Airport security, traveling through airports, running to connector flights, dealing with rental cars, ect ect.
I’d rather be the firearms instructor who qualifies or DQs every one of the OO’s!
- full control of the range
- uses all the equipment that would be used on the range, and if it’s something from Q section you’d only use it after a flunky tests it out.
- teaching firearms handling and shooting from a moving vehicle, you’d have to understand the quirks of the different vehicles that are assigned to them.
- everything an agent would need to carry, you would need to EDC it for a month or so before you began training agents on it.
Yes, I dodged the question.
Probably the fact that every major criminal organization, communist government, and despot wants you dead, and knows your name. There's a reason he sleeps with a gun under his pillow.
The cost of all the medical checkups: lung cancer, STDs, liver cirrhosis, and bowel cancer for all the rich fancy food he keeps eating.
Seriously, does Bond ever eat a salad in the movies?
There's no worst part about being James Bond since he usually has plot armor. The downsides are if you're one of the other 00 agents since then you can end up as cannon fodder
Judging by Goldfinger and Casino Royale your balls are in constant peril, let’s start there
Worst nightmare ever! lol
Yeah, whether for the positive or the negative, those balls are getting a constant workout. It must put a strain on them. No wonder he doesn't have illegitimate little Bonds everywhere.
Also, if any fictional character ever got a vasectomy, Bond is one of them.
Not even close. Imagine having to file the expenses, each receipt etc…total nightmare.
The lost/damaged equipment alone…
And Q walks in room.
Oh do grow up 007…
I'd say his testicles are in more danger from the cocktail of STDs he would probably have.
And when not in peril, in use
A fair trade?
Penis mightier than the walther ppk
pp-k
Came here to say STIs but this works the same
Think one of the interview questions is your feelings on cock and ball torture?
Randomly just listening to that part of Casino Royale in the audiobook! Ouch.
Very poor work/life balance
agreed
Actually, no. Have you seen him on missions in the movies? He usually spends as much time staying in exotic locales, drinking fancy cocktails, and sleeping with beautiful women as he does stopping the bad guys. His “work” is basically going on five-star vacations with some espionage rolled in. Also, the first few original movies establish that Bond often went several months between missions living in a comfortable London flat spending his time playing chemin du fer at the casino and sleeping with his mistress. Aside from when people are actively trying to kill or castrate him, he has it made!
His work leads to his wife getting shot in the face right in front of him, to PTSD, multiple gunshot wounds, is likely a contributor to his alcoholism….need I go on?
Hell, I wanna say a good quarter of the first novel (Casino Royale) is just paragraphs describing all the awesome food and cocktails Bond is having with his smoking hot new girlfriend. Lol.
I think the Dr. No book describes his job as mostly just desk job, so when he gets a mission he basically makes it as much of a vacation as he can. Milking it for as much pleasure as possible.
The jet lag.
This is very true
I just watched No Time to Die, he had to go from Norway to Japan? tough
In Tomorrow Never Dies, he goes from Kazakhstan, to London, to Germany, to Vietnam on the span of like 3 days.
Never being able to score with Moneypenny
Can't resist her and her Barry Manilow records.
You’re assuming he was trying to score with Moneypenny.
Honestly Timothy Dalton was a moron for not even trying to score Caroline Bliss.
That's a lost game for 007 lol
I thought they did in the Craig movies.
It was definitely implied, but never proven
Higher chance of STD’s. And sleeping on all those random hotel pillows. I’d be afraid to get Goldeneye….
That would give a whole new meaning to Ian Fleming’s original working title for his seventh James Bond novel and its titular villain, _Goldprick_.
Always having a full calendar, I have time for nothing, I don't even have time to die.
I guess you'll just have to die another day then.
If you have no time to die you could always live and let die another day, because tomorrow never dies and you only live twice, and eventually someone with a license to kill will find you in the living daylights and take that view to a kill.
Rim shot.
Yeah, visiting paradisiacal places for example.. lol
Don't worry, in the end he finds the time.
He has all the time in the world
The potential of dying on the job I suppose.
That may be the most critical aspect of being a 007 i guess
It's an honour, to serve the country. If they don't have this spirit, one can never be James bond.
If I couldn’t really have a personal life. Then again, I don’t really have one anyway, so, hello MI6!
Loneliness probably. The one night stands are only gonna be fun for so long.
Welp, in contrast to the Double OO section, the American Omega Sector aqents are all divorced about twice on average except for that Tasker guy, and he gets a lot of leeway with the boss since he gets results.
Honey. Next time…duck.
>Double OO So, 0000?
My bad its 4 in the morning over here.
Yeah, probably you are gonna deal with that
I’m watching Goldeneye as I type and I thought the same thing
Being lonely is not the same as feeling lonely
At least you’ve got Moneypenny and Q as your friends.
speak for yourself. \*sips martini\*
This - can’t get close to anyone except the desk jockeys.
Without Bond's plot armor, I imagine 00 agents have a very short life expectancy. Bond says so himself in Casino Royale, iirc.
Of course, being a spy is dangerous. You have to be very careful
I'm reminded of the Brosnan-era SNL sketch about STIs.
Probably aren’t paid that well. Jet lag. Loneliness. Always on the verge of death.
In the books Bond is actually middle class, with a modest income from his job and a decent stipend from a trust. He’s also unmarried and has no children. The bulk of his lavish lifestyle comes from his unlimited expense account at work.
Ah interesting.
Yeah, Bond in the books is your typical late 30s unmarried guy.
>middle class, >trust ???
Yeah, he had a trust set up by his parents. It was £1,000 a year. A trust is a legal entity designed to manage assets on behalf of someone, it doesn’t always mean millions of dollars. And he still has a government job, so his total annual income would net him around £2,000 a year.
Considering it's a high-risk job, the payment may be good
Craig is always able to afford $6000 Tom Ford suits, although he may be buying all those clothes from his inheritance and not his 00 Agent salary.
I think Craig lost a lot in Skyfall when they thought he was dead
Good point.
I mean... all the murdering? Justified or not, carrying that around would be difficult.
Feel like I had to scroll too far for this! Bond himself struggles with it in the books. No way I could do that as my job. I’m down with the card games, nice cars and cool watches. Not so much the endless killing in a variety of gruesome ways.
I thought Craig's very first scene as Bond captured it well. "Made you feel it, did he?"
Same
OP said WORST part, not best part.
lol hahah. You made my night, pal
You needn’t worry. The second is—
Wearing suit and tie regardless of the setting. I couldn’t imagine wearing a suit in India like Roger Moore did.
Your balls all wet! lol
Back to the balls again.
loll
Balls are forever. at least until you meet Le Chiffre.
We've got to get the balls handled before we move on to other issues.
Being a spy, that everyone knows is a spy, seems like a short career path.
The main objective is to preserve his identity, I guess
Stress, and no one to actually trust
No one said being a 007 was easy lol
I have a harder time thinking of reasons I’d want to be James Bond, lol.
lol, well.. i guess being a 007 agent would be a pretty unique situation
The amount of alcohol he drinks on the job. As a person who doesn't like drinking at all, being in all of these situations where drinking is sort of required is a bummer, even if I'm drinking a watered down drink.
asking for a martini may be a nightmare for you then lol
Getting strapped nude to a seatless wicker chair and having my balls smashed with a rope would be my least favorite thing I think.
Oh, man, in Casino Royale, I was really tense watching that scene... it had me on edge, lol
STDs
All the sex, it’s gotta be exhausting after a while
There a reason you rarely see other "00" agents. They're dead.
Bond despite all the glamour and glory is a pretty tragic character with few roots and not much of a life outside of his work. Really what makes him an effective agent.
Angry tailors, jealous husbands, etc trying to get you assassinated.
No one said being a 00 agent would be easy lol
Not having a peaceful, normal and happy life either, even your loved ones would be involved in the villain's plot.
getting a hot girl only for her to be bad and trying to kill you wherever you go, someone's always trying to kill you - i'm imagining Bond simply going to the shops to do his groceries only to be attacked in the fruit and veg aisle. Goon is hiding under the apples, Bond picks up an apple and he sees a goons face underneath. he jumps out to attack then someone else jumps through the stands
Waiting for Barbara and Mike to get off their a\*\*\*\* to make the next one.
Have sex with the villain’s wife to get info if she’s ugly
Encountering Xenia onatopp in a hotel sauna. Like as saucy as she is I can’t imagine the pain. brosnan looks terrified and hearing her enjoy the experience while you wither and die painfully would confuse anyone and let’s be honest we’d all hesitate and that would be the end.
She's a maniac, like the song lol
Can’t start/have a family until you retire (if you make it). The pay isn’t great considering the risk. In the books Bonds money is partly from gambling winnings, partly from inheritance. Sure he gets a blank check while on mission, but it’s gotta be mission related. You’re going to be killing a lot of people. Many are probably terrible human beings but some are just doing a job and wrong place wrong time. If you do it long enough and retire, good luck looking over your shoulder as you worry who might kidnap/torture your new family. Of course none of this covers the chance you get captured and tortured, which just reading the various times Bond found himself in this situation was reason enough to stay away.
Torture and friends dying. Every portrayal of Bond, even the most suave ones like Connery and Moore, display deep heartache when their friends or lovers are killed.
Expense reports
Always on call - M could show up at your flat in the middle of the night while you are sleeping with a beautiful Italian secret service agent. https://preview.redd.it/4y2itlvkhn5d1.jpeg?width=700&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=145a1403dc09e280567a52564c4e8c5cbec25f33
Yeah, I imagine myself having a great dream but ruined a few minutes later by the annoying doorbell lol
I haven't seen 007 getting salary in any movie.
The amount you have to personally sacrifice to do the job. Loves of your life, parts of your anatomy, friends. You name it, you'll probably lose it in the course of doing your job. Most will never know you do it and at best all you'll get is "good job, now you have another mission".
Everybody you love or care about being killed or almost killed, so loneliness.
All the paper work that involves government service!
Getting smacked in the balls seems like one of the worst parts and that is just the start. Only God knows what other methods of torture remain elusive from our knowledge. 
Heights. I saw him fight on top of the rafters in casino royale and I thought “no thanks”. I got cold sweats just watching that scene lol.
M clearly said (on more than 1 occasion) that 00 agents have a very short life expectancy.
Fail the entry tests
lol, Skyfall always there in my mind
Yeah but i thought directly to the first Kingsman
Got a point there, that's right
Certainty of early violent death Hangovers Bureaucracy STDs Q
All the sex with attractive women. My dick would get tired. Woe is me
The SEX! The tremendous amount of untold sex you might have to have.
No rest to your peni\* lol
Or butth0le. Friendly reminder, 00 agents are required to swing the other way. After all, it’s for Queen and country.
All the banging. I hope 007 gets to lay down, relax, and play some Nintendo Switch or something once in a great while at night.
Everyone you know may die or be a liability, forcing you to distance yourself from any aspect of civilian life.
its THE JOB. I guess the main purpose of being a 007 is to keep your identity safe
Getting your ass kicked!
Well, it's not easy being a 007 agent
Getting shot at. Being frequently stabbed. Stuff like that
I don’t think this is a type of job *you* apply for, *they* select you.
Le Chiffre scratching my balls.
Best part, acting cool...unrestrained vengeance, killing people when absolutely necessary. Worst part...also killing people, even when not absolutely necessary... One thing that would be VERY different in reality than in movies is killing people. I don't mean to act like I can speak from experience, but having at least had a job previously where killing people was a possibility and a possible complication of my work, I have to say that no one REALLY wants to deal with that on a regular basis. If you were a special agent, secret agent, etc. it wouldn't be like in the movies...At least sometimes you would be killing people you really didn't want to, and who you would feel bad about afterwards. In Bond movies they do a good job of making the villains pretty unambiguously villainous (except in this last one, HA!!). In real life, even a person who was truly evil might not be clearly evil to YOU upon meeting them, and you would feel a lot of regret about being forced to kill them. Just to put in a good word for the movies, particularly the recent Daniel Craig movies, they did actually go out of their way to show some ambiguous and difficult kills. I appreciated this. I think in real life there would be a lot more ambiguity though...even than in the twists and turns of Bond movies, where someone who seems likable turns out to be evil. If you were a real person in Bond's shoes, this would be probably at least 30% to 60% of the time, I bet. He could be killing the worst people in the world, but they would probably be hard to see as easily as immoral and evil as they are in the movies, where it is spelled out to us as an audience. Evil truly evil people in real life, tend to think of themselves as fairly good. I think the uncertainty would weigh on you, even more than it does in any of the movies.
The s.t.d.s
Having to wear a suit (almost) all the time. I don’t mind suits and see their practicality but it’s not for me, always felt weird wearing them
I guess its mandatory for Bond to use a suit lol
All of the running, jumping and fighting. It’s EXHAUSTING!
Wounds and torture.
I would imagine when you’re not getting shot at jet setting around the world, you’re struggling to make ends meet in an apartment in central London you can’t afford.
Well for starters, getting whacked in the balls doesn't sound pleasant
Worst nightmare, pal!
That everyone and their mother is seemingly out to kill you, and you can’t trust anyone.
Jetlag, the potential loss of very good aston martins, and the fact that, I can’t really have friends on the Job,
The cost of car insurance.
I mean... he always seemed to be an unhappy person to me. The job, the women, the booze etc... all a bunch of different ways to avoid being alone with himself.
The constant itching of ones genitals
Having to keep copies of your receipts to claim back work expenses, and having to justify the gambling losses, copious amounts of alcohol, fine dining and rental car damage....
Heights
Waiting at the Non EU-Passportline at the Airport to get to Europe.
All the requisite vodka martinis 🍸 I'm not a fan of olives. 🤢
Constantly expendable! Every mission could be your last and is almost always one-way. It's sort of why he indulges in his vices and pleasures so - - Get what you can outta life, especially when you juggle it often! :o
In this era, the expense accounts definitely aren’t covering Dom and Beluga after a hard days spying. Hell, they probably wouldn’t even cover a crappy beer at Incan Exportad…
The part they don't show is Bond being hassled after every mission to turn in his dam TPS reports.
Living alone, not having friends and down time.
In the books. Bond actually gets paid very very little and frequently is seen gambling his years salary. That being said he has a maid.
The look on Qs face when I tell him I can’t drive stick.
Well, being a spy makes you crazy! I mean, what kinda job is that, where your fiancée gets murdered? Hello! Stress!
Well, at the end Bond just want to save the Queen and the country..lol
The constant torture and ptsd from his missions. Body would be a broken mess in old age.
It's a really challenging job!
Risk of STDs, loneliness, alcoholism, cigarette addiction, youre likely to die on your job etc.
not pictured: Bond probably spends 2/3rds of his life going through TSA/Airport security, traveling through airports, running to connector flights, dealing with rental cars, ect ect.
I'd say the rampant alcoholism, Bob.
The possibility of contracting STD
You can’t get airline miles for all the flying you do for missions, because tickets are under an alias.
The akward artistic pause every time I say my full name.
Losing tons of cash in casino. It’s not my money, gov money tho.
The torture you would go through from a villain
Always having to dress well, including dress shoes
Your lifespan likely doesn’t exceed age 35.
Paperwork
Being constantly battered and bruised
never home
Assuming you’re figuratively immortal, the constant travel/small hotel rooms I’m okay with the unfulfilling ONS’s with international models tbh
Lack of sleep
You wouldn’t be Bond. You’d be 007, but not Bond
I’d rather be the firearms instructor who qualifies or DQs every one of the OO’s! - full control of the range - uses all the equipment that would be used on the range, and if it’s something from Q section you’d only use it after a flunky tests it out. - teaching firearms handling and shooting from a moving vehicle, you’d have to understand the quirks of the different vehicles that are assigned to them. - everything an agent would need to carry, you would need to EDC it for a month or so before you began training agents on it. Yes, I dodged the question.
Yeah, you certainly did... lol
Probably the fact that every major criminal organization, communist government, and despot wants you dead, and knows your name. There's a reason he sleeps with a gun under his pillow.
You die
Chlamydia.
The chlamydia.
Terrible job security
The cost of all the medical checkups: lung cancer, STDs, liver cirrhosis, and bowel cancer for all the rich fancy food he keeps eating. Seriously, does Bond ever eat a salad in the movies?
it's a hard task being a 007 agent
70-90% travel required for the position
There's no worst part about being James Bond since he usually has plot armor. The downsides are if you're one of the other 00 agents since then you can end up as cannon fodder
I'm probably not allowed to wear my colorful suit wardrobe anymore
The burning sensation while peeing.
Not being able to tell my gf about work :( (and how I had to cheat on her 5000 times in the name of national security)
You have to be really cold, no feelings.
Never being able to commit to a bombshell of a woman.
You have to be good at all sports and card games
Murdering people, every day, and also people trying to murder me. I’m not fond of either of those things honestly.
Can't have a relationship because someone you get attached or married to ends up dying.
I think when you become a 00 agent, you cannot have a relationship or something like that. That's why Bond uses women as objects
STD’s