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!!

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Notable Quotables

Using Quotation Marks for Emphasis

Using Quotation Marks for EmphasisDear Everyone,

Who told you you could use quotation marks for emphasis?

No, seriously, this is not a rhetorical question: WHO WAS IT, and how did this nightmare begin? Who or what is responsible, so that we might blame and/or maim them? Is it your parents? Educators? The Internet? Is it the same person(s) who told you to repeatedly spell-slaughter the word “whoa” by writing “woah”? I KNEW IT.

Look: both mistakes are so excruciating, it is mystifying how anyone could make them even once, let alone fill the tubes of the Internet with this nonsense. Simply looking at the word “woah” immediately causes tear-ducts to fill with blood, unborn babies to spontaneously abort themselves and a plague of locusts to fall upon the land. Hyperbole? NOT AT ALL.

Although other sites can offer an in-depth exploration of the rampant misuse of quotation marks, we thought it best to briefly review the basics here. Quotation marks are not used for emphasis. That is not why they exist, nor is it a neat thing they do on the side. There are lots and lots and lots and LOTS of different ways to express something emphatically. Quotation marks are not one of them.

That said: here is today’s “job” to avoid!

 

Got it. You want some…thing that is LIKE a girl to live with you for an unspecified price and the exchange of menial labor? Awesome. You also have a random capitalization fetish? Got it. It seems impossible that this could get any creepier!

 

Oh.

Oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh

It got creepier.

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Modern Times

Modern Times

Modern TimesThere’s a lot to love about this modern age: refrigerators, antibiotics, indoor plumbing, the joys of basic cable, Quarter Pounders with Cheese… I mean, sure, we’re all undoubtedly hurtling towards some sort of massive, man-made apocalypse, careening into the black maw of human extinction… but we’ve sure made our ride nice n’ comfy!

And one of the comfiest aspects of our society? Even average joes can pay someone to do just about anything they don’t want to do themselves. We pay people to mow our lawns, watch our kids, deliver bags of pre-cooked food directly to our doorstep… There’s basically no job too personal/big/small/gross to be outsourced. Or is there…?


1) Is it possible you could have written this ad without using the phrase “pubic hair” in almost every sentence (and TWICE in the subject line?) We got it. We can’t un-get it. It is pressed into our brain, like a male sex symbol is apparently pressed into the silken locks around your genital area.

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No, Thank You

 

Thanks to our anonymous submitter for today’s most unfortunate job posting!

Ok!

Sounds good!

Sure thing!

WHAT THE F&*%?! No. Absolutely not. GROSS. No. What would I wear??!  How big are these “crawl spaces”?! No. Wait, do they bite? IS THERE A CHANCE I WILL GET BITTEN?! Ugh. Ugh. No.

Alrighty! Like… what kind of errands, though? “Pick up my dry-cleaning, then eradicate the killer bee swarm in my backyard. And while you’re back there, if you could just crush any snakes you see, we’d be much obliged. Just kinda give their skull a good stomp, ’til you hear the crunch. Watch the fangs. Oh! And we need toilet paper. Thanks.”

Point being: you obviously have a tendency to bury the lead.

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When Every Room Is The Ladies Room

Niagra Falls

Niagra FallsSo you’ve settled in, you’ve got your cup of coffee, and you’re once again browsing through the job listings… man, it’s all the same, right? Like, job after job, they all just blend in to one another…it’s like, you can barely keep your eyes open, it’s so dull—

OH MY GOD YOU STARTLED ME, JOB POST SUBJECT LINE!! With your bizarre message, obviously, but also with your ALL CAPS and your terrifyingly urgent punctuation!!!?!!!

Now, to answer your question… No. I am not. Thank goodness. It sounds both unsanitary and dehydrating.

Obviously the choice of “constantly” instead of “frequently” is problematic, but even better is the phrasing:

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