by A job ad I read recently said, “A Note of Caution – PLEASE DO NOT ASK WHAT OUR BUDGET IS, that might work negatively against you.” I think I know what a person asking such a question is getting at, although I would find a more subtle way to do it. You need to know that this is not some guy who thought he’d start a magazine out of his basement and has no support, no way of paying the people he hires, or paying for what the company needs to grow, and so on.
To me, a job ad with that line says exactly that, so don’t bother applying. Who answers job ads like that? Oh god, that reminds me, I watched a couple of episodes about the reality tv show about personal shoppers—Million Dollar Shoppers. This one client (who had great taste in art), I can’t imagine what she thought when she watched herself on the second episode. If she’s as insane and awful as she was portrayed, perhaps she’s happy with it, but she was monstrous. At one point the monster-client had a friend with her and I kept waiting for the friend to say, “Stop. You can’t treat people like this, you’re acting like a crazy person.” All in all it looked like a soul-destroying job that didn’t pay much considering the time involved.
A couple of shots in Washington Square Park.
* I’m guessing for the long-term unemployed, a job’s a job, so there’s a certain segment out there that would apply anyway and hope things work out for the best. As long as the paychecks don’t start bouncing, even a startup with shaky financing can be an OK opportunity. When the IOUs start happening, though, it is probably time to reevaluate.
* Reality TV is heavily edited, we all know that. While we have a saying in our household that “they can’t edit what you don’t give them,” splicing and dubbing out of order does happen. The producers’ job is to build drama and make the show entertaining, not to accurately portray life as it happened. I recall one story about a reality show where the producer went up to a lady and told her point-blank “Look, you seem like a perfectly nice person, but if we use what you’re really like the show will fail because it’ll be too boring.” They edited her to seem like a raving lunatic, with her understanding about what had to happen.
Good point about the first. I was more responding to the tone in the ad and the person who wrote it seems awful and something was off.
About the second, yeah. I definitely shouldn’t take these things at face value. Maybe this woman agreed to it but how she must feel now to see herself like this!