Avoid This Job

Notable Quotables

Dear 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. 

But, to be fair... times are tough. I mean, sure, nobody wants to move in with a random stranger who uses the word "girl" even more repetitively than late-eighties NKOTB, but it's rough out there. It can be hard to find a place to crash. At least this is a way to get your own space, your own bed, and-- oh, I'm sorry, what's that?

I get to sleep on a SOFA.

In your BEDROOM. 

I mean, I do get access to the dinning room.... but come on, that's the noisiest room in the house!

It certainly sounds like you have a great life. Is anything missing?

Oh! IS "ll" that's missing l'il ol' me??? ME, the stranger reading this on craigslist?? How flattering and not at all weird or inappropriate! 

Two truly wonderful things about that paragraph: 

1) The deferential respect for how your future couch-sleeping-slave's sexual orientation might "turn out." 

2) The apparently sincere use of the word "sparkle"

So... there are a lot of questions that remain deeply, uncomfortably unanswered. I assume you will wrap up all the loose ends with your closing remarks?

Precisely my final question! Thanks! 

Read the full post here for more "fun". And hey: girls, "girls" and everyone else: AVOID THIS JOB. 

(thanks to the two different ATJ readers who submitted this "job" post, Herbelem and Anonymous. You guys are "awesome", and we "salute" you.)

 

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.

 

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!)

 

Almost Famous

This is just... sad.

 
"Band Looking For Girls" -  great band name.

"Band Looking For Girls" - great memoir name.

"Band Looking For Girls" - heartbreaking job posting name.

The question that immediately comes to mind is: how unbelievably shitty must your band be that you have to ADVERTISE for groupies (or girlfriends?) Something is very wrong here. This ad was posted in Los Angeles, a city filled with millions of people who fit your precise, exacting specifications (that rare breed: girls who want to "have fun" and "meet new people"). Come on. It's HOLLYWOOD. At least 20% of the girls in question undoubtedly have yet to work through the insecurity, narcissism, body image and daddy issues that brought them to that great city! In other words: they are ideal candidates. So what is the hold up, fellas? You shouldn't be able to walk two steps from your filthy shared apartment without tripping over girls to exploit. They're L.A.'s number one import! And export!

You, Sir, Are No Gentleman

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...!

 

1) Gross.

Modern Times

There'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.

Catch Me A Catch

Have I seen the movie Roxanne? A much more important question is: Have YOU seen the movie Roxanne? If so, were you stoned and/or in grade school at the time? Does your skull contain an actual functioning brain, or just a gelatinous mass of brain-shaped goo? I ask because the moral of the Cyrano story is NOT, in fact, "Hey dudes! Look what a great idea this is!" Not at all. Did your head-goo tell you it was? Your head-goo was wrong.

Spider Sense

Spiderman is a pretty lucky guy. Granted, maybe not so much the day he was bitten by a radioactive spider in a freak accident at a science exhibition. That probably kind of sucked (your lab has enough money for a particle accelerator but not for a exterminator? Come on. That's just slovenly.) But to be fair that was really Peter Parker's crappy day, not Spiderman's. And actually, it worked out pretty well for him in the end. 

Wall-crawling, super-strength... all pretty cool. But the spider sense is really the prize. He can "sense danger" and has almost precognitive abilities! So vague. So awesome. So irritating if you are trying to plan him a surprise party. So what does this have to do with avoiding jobs? 

Bringing New Meaning To The Phrase 'Casting Couch'

Thanks to our anonymous submitter for this job listing. fantastic opportunity for any young actor to combine soul-sucking, reality show fame-whoring with actual whoring!

  
Highlights:

• While there are certainly sex workers who are also feminists, you appear to be using the two words interchangeably. That is... weird. 

• You want people to "act as" sex workers? To "improv" sex work? Just a little? Hmm. You know there is no "5-Second Rule" for sex work, right? It still counts. All the actual sex workers are "acting" too, just without the benefit of months of Meisner Technique classes and scene study over nonfat lattes at Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf.

Knight In Shining Armor

Many thanks to AvoidThisJob reader Aubriane for submitting this creepy find!

 

Well, hello Prince Charming! What a chivalrous hero! Helping ladies who "need rescued" is a dying art, so it's good to know there are still some gentlemen out there, looking out for those who are "down on their luck." Sure, like all charitable people/institutions, you have a age/weight restriction, but so what? It's like that plaque on the Statue of Liberty says: "Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free... (P.S. NO FATTIES)" 

Doggie Day Care

This is quite possibly the greatest job listing this blog has ever seen. Best enjoyed when read aloud, with a somber and dramatic flair; think James Earl Jones meets your high school drama teacher.

(click to enlarge image)

Right? Imagine, for example, James Lipton of 'Inside The Actors Studio' delivering lines like "Walk the most cutest male Pomeranian...!" It is the stuff dreams are made of.