HI WHY ARE WE YELLING

Bottoms Up!

Looking for a waitressing, bartending or other food/beverage/hospitality type job in South Florida? If so, I’d like to say how sorry I am about that, for a variety of reasons, not least of which is job posts like this one. Hope you’re feeling extra hospitable!

HI, YOU ARE CREEP, ALSO I DO NOT HAVE PANTIES WITH HEALING PROPERTIES! BUT IF YOU FIND SOME LET ME KNOW BECAUSE I BET THE ARMY WOULD WANT TO KNOW ABOUT IT, THEY LOVE WEIRD TECH STUFF LIKE THAT, DID YOU SEE THE ROBOTS THEY MADE TO TEST ARMOR THEY WERE REAL CREEPY JUST LIKE YOU! ALSO I AM UNSURE HOW I WOULD “WEAR” FUN BUT SOMETHING TELLS ME IT WOULD BE BOTH PHYSICALLY AND EMOTIONALLY UNCOMFORTABLE AND WOULD LIKELY LEAVE MARKS ON MY BODY AND ALSO ON MY SOUL. LET’S GET STARTED!

One thing about which you were not wrong,  job poster: This is some serious cry-teria. Ho-oh! Hey-ey! HOLLA! RIMSHOT, BOOM, MIC DROP, SEACREST OUT.

But the pay ain’t (too) bad! Which puts you above 97% of ATJ posts. That said: there are many, many, MANY moist and musty recesses of the internet for you to post jobs that require Silkwood showers at the end of the day just to hose off the sticky, fragrant combination of massage oil, pine-sol and regret. Alas,  the Food/Beverage/Hospitality job category is not one of them. But best of luck to you in your noble and chivalrous quest, please just move it on over to the appropriate channels, as your average job-seeker is going to want to Avoid This Job.

Petman Did Not Avoid This Job

(Many thanks to our submitter Ayesha! .)

Shake It Like A Polaroid Picture

Poloroid Picture

Poloroid PictureWith the national unemployment rate hovering around 10%, these days employers don’t need to seek out applicants; they can just sit back and wait for the job-seekers to come to them. Spend time writing up a cogent, comprehensible job post? Eh, who needs it. Just have that feral cat who lives in the dumpster walk all over a keyboard. Those things look like words, right? Sure. Somebody clean the paw marks off the keyboard, then add in a couple lines stressing that the job itself offers zero benefits and minimal pay. Push a button and throw it into the black maw of the craigslist job boards…. and voila! An avalanche of resumes, perfumed with the sweet scent of desperation and a ripe hint of unused master’s degrees rotting in the background.

Point being…? We get it, employers: you are the belle of the recession ball! You’ve made yourselves a glorious frock from the tattered dream-curtains of unemployed Americans! Your dance card is full! And yeah, you don’t NEED to try. Your job listings don’t NEED to be helpful, or succinct, or informative….AND YET… Please. Just proofread. Spell check. Pretend for one moment you care about this even 1/100th as much the job-seekers do. Is that too much to ask?

…Oh. OK.

Music Video Job

 

Just… come ON. Come on. There are only three words in the title of your job post. And yet you have managed somehow to make a TYPEWRITTEN SENTENCE illegible. It’s almost impressive. Almost.

To be fair, the bar IS set lower for craigslist ads. And far lower for what is essentially a casting call for body parts (“Wanted: Shapely Buttocks” would probably have sufficed here.) But still. A modicum of care, the teensiest indication that someone wrote this while sober… or even awake! I mean, you’re still professionals, right?

Professionals Ad

 

Exactly! We all need to be doing professional, you guys. Seriously. Now, suppose I consider myself a professional Videos Gilrs (P.S: I do): what type of videos is I doing professionalling at?

Continue reading “Shake It Like A Polaroid Picture”

Getting Paid For It

Exclamation Mark

Exclamation MarkAh, the exclamation point! Admittedly not the most versatile of all punctuation, but the exuberant little fellow has its time and place, and is certainly beloved by AvoidThisJob.

Let’s have a brief refresher, shall we?

Things Exclamation Points Suggest

  • Innocent enthusiasm!
  • Surprise!!!
  • Amazing deals!
  • YELLING!!!!
  • Danger!!

Things Exclamation Points Do NOT Suggest

  • Professionalism!
  • Maturity!
  • GRAVITAS!!!!!!
  • Sobriety!
  • Discretion!!

And so it probably seems self-evident that job listings (and, by extension, resumés and cover letters) are NOT a great place for the exclamation point to make its presence truly felt. And yet…

 

Unprofessional MassageUm….yeah. OK. Soo….

….. a better question would be: who DOESN’T?!! This offer (so generous. SO generous!) combines every 18-24 year old girl’s favorite things: multiple exclamation points, bad grammar, money, and (obviously) the moist touch of a craigslist stranger.

Tell me more!!

Continue reading “Getting Paid For It”

Brevity Is The Soul Of Wit

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.

Continue reading “Brevity Is The Soul Of Wit”

You, Sir, Are No Gentleman

Buffy Gentlemen

It sure seems like the word “gentleman” is getting thrown around a lot these days. Originally used to describe landed men of impeccable breeding, background and manners, it morphed slowly into a description of any considerate, kind, male-gendered person. To which we say, huzzah!

However, in a most astounding turnabout, the word “gentleman” has someone now become (at least in America) a word primarily used in the description of airport-adjacent strip clubs. Um. Huzzah? Sure, in the 20th century you got the vote, ladies, but they got the word “gentleman” and attached it to The Landing Strip, just off Route 17. So maybe let’s call it a draw.

Hey, and speaking of gentlemen…!

Continue reading “You, Sir, Are No Gentleman”