Thursday, January 25, 2007

Fantastic Job Opportunity: Must like sand

As you know, when I’m not planning my burst onto the literary scene, I busy myself (and fund cross-country dream-chasing adventures) with my freelance graphic design. Because dream-chasing ain’t exactly cheap, I’ve been on the lookout for any and all freelance work.

Today I found an ad on Craigslist with the heading “Multimedia Illustrator”. When I opened the ad it says: “California Needs You! The Army National Guard needs Graphic Designers and Video Editors!”

This is HILL-larious.

Really? The army needs me to DESIGN things? Really?

I dropped an e-mail to the guy that posted the ad, just for fun. I was so looking forward to how he was going to convince me that I would TOTALLY be doing graphic design if I enlisted in the army, and I TOTALLY wouldn’t be sent over to Iraq because we are running out of soldiers to send and the president kinda wants to send a bunch more.

This is the e-mail I got back:
“The position may be available when you actually join the Army National Guard.

You go to Basic Training, then to the school for a couple of months or more - you are then an Army soldier but, you only serve after that one weekend a month and two weeks a year.

There are a lot of great jobs, including the Multimedia Illustrator”



Me thinks that joining anything with the word ARMY in the title during WARTIME on the HOPE of getting a GRAPHIC DESIGN job might not be the most sound career plan.

Of course this is coming from a girl who is taking off two months to travel the countryside trying to save the world and sell books. So I don’t know that I’m really the one to bounce solid plans off of.

I mean, maybe I’m not thinking of all the benefits. There are many, my recruiter guy told me all about them:

*Sign on Bonuses Up To $20,000* (Wow! This would be AWESOME! These people must really want some graphic designers.)

*Monthly Paycheck* (I already have one of these, and it doesn’t involve me getting shot at hardly at all.)

*Over 150 Great Jobs to choose from* (Really? How many different ways can you name the job title “Person Who Shoots At Insurgents”?)

*Security Clearance if U.S. Citizen* (I don’t know why I would need clearance to make things pretty.)

*$400,000 Life Insurance* (Hmmm. Graphic Design very rarely carries the possibility of death, so not many other jobs have offered me Life Insurance.)

*Tax free grocery shopping at local Military Bases* (Tax free grocery shopping? Wow! Those taxes in Iraq are a real pain in the ass. All I have to do is shoot a few people to avoid them? Sign me up!)


If the book tour doesn’t work out I’ll give these guys a call, “Wait, why am I doing push-ups and getting weapons training for a graphic design job?”

3 comments:

tornwordo said...

Hilarious, and a bit scary.

Chunks said...

Totally scary!

The sad part of it is young, poor people just starting out may think that this is a good idea, or the only way out of where they are. It's sick and heartbreaking.

Don't fall for it Dawn! It's a trap!

Patricia said...

hey, don't be dissing the ad. they just want you to be an army of one graphic designer, that's all. be all you can be, that sort of thing. and really. to not have to pay taxes on your paper towels, what more do you need?