My Corona Diary (Take XLV): Didja Hear The One About...The Job That Didn't Exist?

 

<"The Big Lie," Take I:
The Reckoner>

<i.>

Rain or shine, employers never stop crying about how much the sky is falling. Show me one who claims contentment with their lot, and I'll show you someone whose lips move faster than the speed of light. Still, now that the pandemic seems firmly in our rearview mirror, you'd think the kvetching would finally slow down, right?

Life finally seems to have returned to normal (whatever that means, however you define it). Aside from the odd elderly person, hardly anyone wears masks in public anymore. That' includes the Squawker and myself, having ditched ours only a few weeks ago, unless we're in a large crowd. (We keep one in our pocket, for just that reason.)

Signs of normality abound, for those who keep score. The plastic shields that sprang up at most businesses, once the COVID-19 bomb dropped, have largely disappeared. The body temperature reader at my community health clinic has been removed. Most businesses have resumed their previous hours. Life's good, right?

Not so, according to the vampires we're counting on to get our economy humming again. Their plaintive pleas ring out, loud and clear, in newspaper op-eds, local TV news interviews, and social media pages: 

<"Nobody...

...Wants... 

To Work!

Where...Are...

The...Workers?

We...

Really...

Need...Them!!!">

I've got news for them. Plenty of us would like a more regular gig than the so-called Gigger Nation allows. But my recent experiences leave me asking a more basic, more pointed question:

<"Where... 

...Are...

...The...

...F#ck#n'...Jobs?">

<"The Big Lie," Take II:

"Elevator (Speech) To Nowhere":

The Reckoner>

<ii.>

My latest experience is a case in point. I responded to an Indeed.com ad for a reporter/correspondent. The tagline for the ad sounded promising: "Fast-growing media company, Concerto Media, seeks reporters for hyperlocal news sites."

Hmm, I thought. Sounds somewhat dry, yeah, but it doesn't make me wanna vomit. Yet. My eyes skimmed the river of promises: $46,000 a year, full health and vacation benefits, paid time off, even training on the corporate dime -- all the goodies you'd need to lure someone from the educated professional class, right?

Since the job was fully remote, "you don't need to live in the communities that you cover," the ad helpfully suggested. I waggled my eyebrows, held my breath, and did what most unfortunates in my position do. I swallowed hard, crossed my fingers, and filled out an application through Indeed.

Like the aspiring actor working the McJob McDrive-Through, the waiter doing demos, the garbageman pounding out his unreadable opus during National Novel Writing Month, I thought, Due diligence? Screw it. I'm not making enough, anyway. Screw intergrity. Just put the cash upfront, OK?

I duly filled out an application through Indeed, including links to three recent camps, and waited to see what would happen. The next day, I got a response, but not the kind I'd been expecting. Apparently, the good folks at Concerto required four clips. 

With all due respect, I pointed out in my response, the ad didn't specify any particular number. I submitted links to three clips, which most career experts consider the industry standard. Here's the screenshot to prove it! Oh, and here's your fourth link. Thanks for your time.

Or maybe I should have told myself, "Thanks for the warning," once I read the brushoff that flew into my inbox, only a day later: 

"Hello. Thanks for your interest in the News Reporter position at Concerto Media, LLC. At this time, we will not be pursuing your application. Best of luck to you in your job search...The Every Day View."

Huh? I stared at the screen, confused. What happened to Concerto Media? I thought I applied there, not this Every-Day-Whoever-The-F#ck-This-Is. "Okay," I sighed aloud. "Time to find out who these people are."

Guess what? Concerto Media came first, yet another flash in the pan startup -- that's shorthand for the Founder's Prayer, "Dear God: I hope enough suckers fall for my inane pitch, so I can cash out, and lay on the beach" -- built around the concept of a McDonald's-type model for local news. All of it hyperlocal, all geared toward a goldfish-type attention span, all of the time.

Or something like that. I got a queasy feeling, so I did the sensible thing, and stopped reading. In any case, Concerto's hopes of luring enough looky-loo eyeballs to ogle its content, and click on some pop-up ad or other, proved to be forlorn ones.

Enter The Everyday View, based in the East Coast area, like the smaller fish it ended up swallowing. It bought Concerto, closed about two dozen sites deemed insufficiently profitable, and started from scratch. 

<"The Big Lie, Take III:

Pyramid Scheme"/

The Reckoner>

<iii.>

I gleaned a handful reviews, via the usual suspects, Glassdoor and Indeed.com, and they spoke loud and clear. Concerto's rating averages three on a five-point scale, which is hardly terrible, but hardly great, either. 

One commenter said that they'd only hung onto the job, so they wouldn't have to commute. The savings that you could achieve, not sharing from sharing some hideous open plan office arrangement, with your fellow unfortunates -- can't beat that, right? D'oh!

A couple others said they really hated the work, which mainly seemed to involve plagiarizing national and/or regional stories to produce the so-called "hyperlocal" copy. This requirement alone, I suspect, will prompt most applicants to "head for the hills," as it's been put. The handful who stick it out won't last long, I'm sure.

Sadly, I'm not alone. Other people I've polled have run into Zoom sessions that were actually fronts for pyramid schemes, or "job interviews" aimed at tricking you into revealing personal information for the identity theft rings running them. In other cases, the site is legit, but your efforts slide down some virtual rabbit hole, and you never hear from anybody again.

Yet none of these issues, as grimy and greasy as they are, will stop the flood of employer complaints: "Those lazy hamsters. Why don't they  get back on the wheel when we demand it? Nobody wants to run 24-7, just to pay for their little concrete box, and God knows what else they're paying too much money to keep. Nobody wants to work!"

I've got news for them. Maybe if we had jobs that paid decently, nobody would have to run on any hamster wheel. Maybe the actor at the McJob McDrive-Through, the waiter doing demos, or the garbageman grinding out his Great Gatsby-styled masterpiece, would have more time to focus on those efforts, instead of patching two, three or even four jobs together, just to fund those goddamned, grimy, greasy, ever-escalating grocery, rent and utility bills.

Now comes the sting in this tale. I know what you're going to say. Silly old me, right? "The business of America is business," and all that crap. How dare I question the premise, in a society that's always hellbent on defining us by what we produce for a living.

I can hear your words clattering around my brain: "You stupid little bunny huggers! You godless, tree-humping liberals! You little incorrigibly idealistic hippies! You want to eat six impossible things for breakfast, and get pie in the sky delivered to your doorstep, three times a day. This is America, Jack. That doesn't happen!"

Well, guess what? Sooner or later, something's got to give around here. And I'm sick and tired of it always being me. --The Reckoner

Links To Go (The Sky Is Falling?
Don't You Believe A Word)

Deconstructing Narcisissm (YouTube):
Don't Be Surprised That Nobody
Wants To Work Anymore:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8XZ1dEjlawQ