Will Work for Brain Scans
Your dream job—part-time zombie? candle consultant?—is only a click away
- By Richard Conniff
- Smithsonian magazine, May 2010, Subscribe
You know those days when your income no longer quite equals your outgo? Or when a friend suddenly discovers that Bangalore is not a party treat, but the new home in southern India of what used to be his career? That’s when I turn for comfort to the offerings on Internet job sites like Craigslist.
Naturally I skip past all the practical stuff. I know I would be a truly fine database administrator and an important addition to the team at (INSERT YOUR COMPANY NAME HERE), once I find out what a database is. But I don’t sense much magic there. Likewise, the many splendid career opportunities in health care administration fail to appeal because, to be honest, I don’t like being around sick people. (Oh, wait, that’s a prerequisite.)
What interests me are the unusual jobs, with the potential to tap my tremendous, though so far wonderfully disguised, career potential. And while classified ads in the newspaper are mostly limited to local opportunities (“grease cleaner, must be team player”), Craigslist lets me go global. Thus I spent much of one recent departmental meeting trying to decide, with the help of my iPhone, whether I should become a caretaker for a Buddhist monastery on the coast of New Zealand (“Perfect for a service-oriented person interested in self-development, peace and wisdom”) or a pub-crawl promoter in Prague where the Zen seemed to be mostly about finding the sweet spot between strolling and staggering. I applied to become a Zakelijke Uitdaging in Amsterdam, basically because it sounded so cool. Then I found out that it actually means “business challenge” in Dutch, and since my colleagues assure me that I am already a business challenge, this would be a lateral move.
Apart from language issues, it’s important to keep a few caveats in mind: any job advertised as “high class” usually requires you to get naked, or cheat grandmothers—possibly both at the same time. Also beware that many Internet job offerings make no sense, like the one seeking “hard-working college students” or another headlined “Rock Stars Wanted!” followed by the words “must pass drug screening.” (But, dude, the job is, like, the next best thing to groupies. You sit in a cubicle, phone up total strangers and ask if “they want to lower their phone, cable and Internet utility bills!”)
Compensation may be a problem. I was briefly excited by the possibility of earning $50 an hour as a “candle consultant,” but the phrase “earn free candles!!!!” set off alarm bells. Another ad offering “Intern Position at Organic Farm” promised “$200 at the end of 120 hours,” translation: “Indentured Servant Wanted for Stoop Labor (other leafy greens negotiable).” An ad seeking parents of suicidal teenagers for a scientific study offered $20 an hour PLUS PLUS PLUS a “complimentary CD with images of your brain.” And if an ad promises you “an income stream of $6,000 a month, and you only have to pay $27 once,” please say hi to all my good buds in Nigeria (and ask when they will be sending the other half of the formula for spinning bellybutton lint into gold).
But I’m starting to sound like one of those ads for a prescription drug where the side effects are worse than the disease. This is my cue to spend a little more workplace time polishing my “Personal Mission Statement” and practicing “Positive Career Management Visualization.” That way I will be ready when the right job turns up on Craigslist. Just now, for instance, I spotted a “Casting call for zombie/horror movie” in New Jersey, which would have been perfect, except that I am apparently too old to play someone who has recently been dead. Still, I remain “confident and self-assured,” because I know that the opportunity of a lifetime is just another 20,000 or 30,000 clicks away.
Richard Conniff’s newest book is Swimming With Piranhas at Feeding Time: My Life Doing Dumb Stuff With Animals.
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Comments (3)
This article is great! It's as if I wrote it! I have been deeply engrossed in my own lackluster job search. This was the humor I needed to get me through another internet job posting site!
Posted by Pam Garcia on June 3,2010 | 12:38 PM
Loved the article!
Never thought there were even such employments, this really brung(?) a light to my day!
Posted by Warbler on May 29,2010 | 10:59 PM
As a now no longer employed for wages or salary clerk in various industries of fourteen and one half years, I honestly agree with the assessment of the opportunity of a lifetime is that far away. It may be that the type of employment search you are writing of is much cheaper I can't say. I do know that for my clerical (including retail bookstore and other specialty retail), a resume based job search is not only a joke but a waste of time. Take your search and fill out an application at the local business. You will be infinitely richer. There is apparently NO laws being enforced in the United States from 1983 to present year/date that cover employment terminations. This includes US Code 11, Adversary Proceedings under Bankruptcy Law. I know firsthand this screws me out of purchasing land and building a house. But it doesn't mean my former manager who terminated me needed to follow me around the United States - what would happen when he does? nor does it mean that I should have listened to his order to NOT sell my two bedroom ranch. Belief in law is my downfall. I would take one of those jobs you list only I don't think there is much funding. I still want land and to build. But I can't. So much for faith.
Good luck.
Posted by Patricia MacKenzie on April 20,2010 | 02:08 PM