I met up with mr. Jepen at one of Conoban's dining establishments, a place that makes soups in front of you with fresh ingredients. Mr. Jepen mostly gets the attention of starting capsuleers. More experienced ones look down on him. These older capsuleers rarely go back to career agents, and if they take and do missions from him, they complete them in an instant, they don't even look back as they finish the career track.
He seemed happy that I showed respect and some humility.
We talked about the career office, and mr. Jepen explained me that he was a level 3 agent before. He messed up. Two times in a row, he sent the capsuleer to a wrong deepspace location and got them podded. It was the stress of delivering good enough missions that got to him.
There's a sort of hierarchy in agents: the higher the level, the more esteem they get. The higher-ups get to deal with more experienced and more reknowned capsuleers. When one messes up... badly... you end up as a career agent. The lowest rung on the agent ladder. He does feel bad about it and wants to go back to high level missions. I tried to tell him he was reaching a lot more capsuleers as a career agent, and dutifully doing God's work, but that didn't seem to provide comfort...
It's often so strange, where people get their worth from.
