Brevity Is The Soul Of Wit

Thanks to Twitter, texting and instant messaging, there has never been a more glorious time for creative abbreviations and shorthand. Though Shakespeare once wrote, “Brevity is the soul of wit,” he could not in his wildest, Midsummeriest dreams have imagined the lengths to which future generations would go.

And Shakespeare, was, like, TOTES awesome. So one might think, yeah! Why waste energy on all those extra letters?! One MIGHT think that, until that fateful night when one MIGHT be walking down a crowded city street with one’s friend and one MIGHT loudly exclaim that one “can’t wait to get some tasty cocktails!”  Only one MIGHT not say “cocktails”. One MIGHT, before one realized the outcome, choose to abbreviate that word. One MIGHT never live it down.

Something for one to think about. Not like that, you know… HAPPENED to anyone here. No.

It is, however, a cautionary tale this job poster would have done well to consider.

Personal Ass Position

 

Highlights:

  • The profoundly wrong (on so many levels) way in which “assistant” was abbreviated.
  • The jarring juxtaposition of non-stop shorthand/random MySpace-style capitalization with the request for “a bright girl.” Weird hypocrisy. Also, just plain weird. Like a brain was deposited into the poster’s skull, mid-sentence: “u smart??? u got hott azzz? lol u shld apply 4 r jobz! [BRAIN DEPOSIT] What the– oh. Well. Yes. Excuse me, miss? Would you kindly apply for this finance job? Wonderful. I am Laughing Out Loud!”
  • The brazen, all-caps insistence on INTERNS ONLY aka SLAVES ONLY aka NO PAY DO YOU UNDERSTAND WE WILL NOT PAY YOU.
  • The request for “pix”. Sigh.

If the concept of an unpaid personal ass position sounds appealing to you, I suppose we cannot stop you from applying. Hopefully someone will stop you from procreating. Best of luck.

Everyone else: avoid this job.

(thanks to Jessica for the submission!)

Brevity Is The Soul of Wit

5 Replies to “Brevity Is The Soul Of Wit”

  1. Also: former English majors, theater geeks and language nerds have all undoubtedly noted to themselves that while Shakespeare WROTE the line, he had Polonius SAY it. At the end of a bunch of windbaggery, which is fairly important contextually. But it seemed a useless digression to actually get into that in the post. So I am doing it here! lol u guyz i luv u.

  2. You know, the most puzzling thing about all of this is that Craigslist, unlike Twitter or a newspaper ad where you have a very limited number of characters, allows plenty of space to type everything out. Which means that this job poster is just incredibly lazy and/or stupid.
    The other possibility is that we’re misinterpreting here, and that this poster is indeed seeking a female ass intern.

  3. While brevity might be the soul of wit, “levity is the lubricant of a crisis.” – Wally Schirra
    By “crisis” he meant awkward sexual situations, and by “levity” he meant the new brand of KY lubricants that promote LOL while simultaneously decreasing the coefficient of friction that occurs during interpersonal intercourse. You see, the coefficient of friction is defined as the ratio of the tangential force [F] required to produce sliding divided by the normal force between the surfaces [N]. In other words, levity gives you a tickle and makes you giggle.
    At this point, you might be wondering why I’m sharing this with you, and to you, I would say, “I do not know.”
    P.S., As a former business major and expert in business matters, I’m pretty sure that “pix,” “brightness,” and “ass” are legal bona fide occupational qualifications (or BFOQs).
    kbye 😀

  4. Text lingo should not exceed the text box. I still can’t get past the subject line. In a way, it can be misconstrued for a lot worse. After all, who would want to be called a foul name or implication before they even get the job?

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