Magic Pot of Jobs

I think this is about to become my new favorite blog: Ridiculous Job Postings .

In my office, there is one main number that rings to any of 7 lines. There are 8 of us in the office, and whoever isn’t in the middle of another call or an interview grabs the phone as he or she is able. There’s no administrative assistant or receptionist to screen calls.

So when I tell you that the person you’re calling isn’t available and offer their voicemail, don’t just tell me you’ll call again in an hour. It’s our job to be on the phone or in interviews pretty much all day, so there’s a good chance that when you call back, the person you want still won’t be available, and you’ll just have interrupted someone else’s day only to find out that the person you’d like to reach still can’t talk to you. And you’ll just keep doing it over and over, when the person you’re calling could have just returned a call after you left a message in voicemail.

Similarly, don’t refuse to leave a voicemail and ask me to leave a note instead. If you aren’t willing to leave a voicemail, but expect me to interrupt what I was doing to get up and go leave a note on someone’s desk, this is what that note will say:

John Smith called. He thinks he’s too good to leave voicemails.

If you’re anything like Wil Wheaton and me, you’re a big fan of the Nextel dancing spot.

Or maybe you’re like Seth Stevenson and didn’t get it at all:

So, for instance, this Nextel ad—coincidentally by the same creative team behind the sheepboys and the cannibalistic Starburst sculptor—shows a trio of nondescript office workers grinding to a Salt-N-Pepa song. For no clear reason at all, other than that it looks sort of funny. Then suddenly, and unrelatedly, they spend a few seconds toward the end of the ad demonstrating their Nextel phones’ advantages. The ad’s central joke has nothing to do with the product. It’s no accident that I remembered guys dancing to “Push It” but, until I watched the ad again, couldn’t for the life of me remember what they were selling.

Clearly, Stevenson has never had a job in the kind of office where, on a particularly hard day or when you’ve just accomplished something big and important, you turn off your phone, turn up your music, and get your groove on.

I, on the other hand, work in exactly that kind of office. And I understood immediately what the ad says about Nextel’s products for business:

- Nextel makes supply chain management so easy that I’ll have time to dance in my office!
- Nextel gives me such instant access to information that I’ll barely have to interrupt my dancing to get it!
- Nextel makes me look good to my boss!

What’s so hard about that?

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to go make the playlist for when Steph and I close that big placement we’ve been working on…

Thanks for hanging in for our move to the new host. Of course, that was almost a week ago, and I’m just now getting back around to posting- Stephanie and I have been slammed at the office, and both busy in our personal lives as well, so blogging has taken a back seat.

But today, I present you with a scene from our office:

Our intrepid heroine Stephanie is on her way out to a meeting she is particularly dreading. She pauses by her partner’s desk to receive some encouragement…

Tiffany: “…and remember, you’re a rockstar!”

Stephanie: “And YOU’RE a rockstar!”

they bump fists, Wondertwins style

Tiffany: “And together, we’re like… a really great rock BAND!”

Stephanie: “We’re like Heart! We’re chicks who ROCK!”