Killing Batteries

Welcome to the fourth installment of the “Worst travel writing jobs” series.
This doozy is so doozicable that I could write 500 words on the absurdity of the title alone, but it gets better.

Write 3000 unique articles on Travel, Entertainment, Beauty and Shopping topics

Only 3000? Because I was just thinking the other day that there aren’t nearly enough articles about travel, entertainment, beauty and shopping on the internet. And is it just me or could the divorce of Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes benefit from a little delving?

Job Description
Write 3000 unique articles on Travel, Entertainment, Beauty and Shopping topics (IT, PORT, DUTCH LANGUAGES).

Just to clarify, you want 3000 articles on a wide variety of topics in three languages? Off the top of my head, I’d say this job will take a team of six highly skilled polyglots about 6.5 months to complete, assuming no one takes vacation or gets sick or sneaks off for a giant poo.

Each article must be different, between 250 and 3300 words each. No repetition in articles, no spinning, scraping or similar.

But ‘scrinning’ is cool, right? How about ‘spaping’?

All articles must be written in English. Each article must pass Copyscape Premium, be free of grammar and spelling errors. Example topics include the following, but more will be added along the fields mentioned.

Grammar and spelling errors be deal breakers, but incoherence along the fields mentioned is donkey?

Please PM a sample article on one of the above topics otherwise your bid will not be considered. Any articles submitted will have its copyright pass to me upon lodging your bid.

You’re claiming copyright of the sample article I submit on the outside chance you bestow this monster job on me?

OK, fine. Here’s my original, unique sample article that you now own:

“Experts say shopping for beauty while traveling is good entertainment. Studies have shown that entertaining shopping is good for beauty and travel, but too much entertaining beauty is travel shopping.”

Do I get the gig?

Planned Start July 16 2012
Delivery Date Aug. 31 2012

Forty-six days to write 3000 articles? That’s just over 65 articles per day. Good thing I have Mr. Spock, Commander Data and Rain Man chained to desks in my basement, or this job might seem unreasonable. Still, turnaround is a bit tight. I’ll feed them energy drinks every hour for luck.

Payment will be $1 per article – so $3000 for 3000 articles. Please only bid if you accept this pay rate.

OK, forget the energy drinks. I’ll just force feed them sugar water and expired peanuts.

Payment will be made for articles upon completion.

So, essentially you want 3000 articles written on spec? No one in the history of the written word has ever accepted those terms, but OK.

Also we need same amount of articles to be produced in the following languages

- Italian
- Dutch
- Portugues (Brazil)

Good call on getting those 3000 articles written in Dutch. That will like, what?, literally double the number of articles written in Dutch on the internet? Ka-ching!

Welcome to the third installment of the “worst travel writing jobs” series.

This is not a travel writing job, but it popped up on my travel writing job search the other day and it was so breathtakingly shameful that I couldn’t resist mocking it.

Single Female Executive Assistant

Off to a bad start. I went ahead and ran this through the Subtext Filter and got: “Need smoking hot, personal assistant/plaything. Must type 60 words per minute, make coffee and be open to light dominant/submissive sex play. Self-esteem optional.”

Job Description

I am looking for a Female Organized, Proactive Administrative Assistant, preferably in the Pacific Time Zone to help me manage my daily schedule, including: client meetings, managing direct reports, and business travel. Other tasks include project management, invoicing, web research, data entry, proofreading, managing sales pipeline, and drafting content and blog posts.

In other words, this nubile young thing will effectively perform your entire job, with the additional unspoken understanding that they’ll be correcting your Random Capitalization tic?

The hours needed are 7am – 6pm, Monday through Saturday. The company is in the Green industry.

Only 66 hours per week? Now the requirement that she be single makes sense, since your executive assistant won’t have the time or energy to carry on a romantic relationship, except with you hot stuff.

Contractor requirements

You need to be able to speak, read, and write good English

Is there a bonus for people who can make sense of this job posting?

You must also be familiar with the following software: Microsoft Office, SMM, Google and Skype.

There’s a Google software now? Shit, back to college I go.

How to apply

In your cover letter, please reply back with your experience.  Please include references that I can review as well as samples of web work.

Samples of my web work include advanced computer working skills, mastery of manual keyboard typing and, by reading this post, deducing that you probably spill a lot of food on yourself while eating.

About the company

I am a busy entrepreneur who has recently started a green business. One target small businesses and entrepreneurs and the other targets the homeowners living green.

You’re busy AND an entrepreneur? My sincerest apologies for the previous sarcasm. We job seekers will now form an orderly line and wait patiently to fellate you.

Weekly Base pay + Bonuses each month base on performance. once work increases the base salary also will.

Well, that’s a relief. I was worried that working only 66 hours a week would go unrewarded.

Budget: $100.00

Wait, is this my weekly pay or how much you paid for your online business degree?

40 + Hours will be during business hours pacific standard time (California, USA)  between 8am to 8 pm – 5 to 6 days per week.

Now it’s 72 hours a week? Are you sure you don’t need TWO Single Female Executive Assistants? That would be totally pimp.

If interested, please reply to this job opening for a phone interview on skype.

“…Because my ChatRoulette account was disabled for legal reasons.”

This full time CAREER for the right person, with incentive bonuses and a great salary in the long run + the opportunity to come and work in California.

Woo hoo! Everyone knows that working 72 hours a week for $100 will surely lead to a comfortable life in California.

Welcome to the second installment of my new series “worst travel writing jobs,” where I basically write a bunch of droll, cheap-shot comments in response to terrible travel writer job postings, which, incidentally, is super easy and takes only a fraction of the time of writing a proper blog post!

(Hello, Genius College? It’s Dr. Pettersen. Start printing out my honorary degree, I’m sending a courier over to pick it up.)

This nugget of a travel writer job post was left for me in the comments of the first “worst travel writing jobs” post, which was awesome and saved me some time, so I encourage others to do the same. For the children.

English Writer for Travel Articles (Long Term)

“Long term”?!? Oh, hell yeah! Hello travel writing career! Hang on a sec while I go quit my day job by setting my boss’ hair on fire. There’s no way that’ll come back to haunt me now that I have this sweet ass long term gig.

We are looking for English language writers to write travel articles.

Yeah, you already said that. I’m all-in, baby! Just point me in the direction of the free hotel suite so I can get to work.

We will provide keywords and other Writer’s guidelines.

Keywords? How does that work? So, I’m not actually writing? And why did you capitalize ‘writer’s'? I wonder if it’s too late to extinguish my boss’ hair fire.

Length: 450+ words

That’s it? Shit bro, I write longer posts than that on my fantasy baseball discussion board. And I do that for FREE. This is gonna be a cinch!

Language: English

Of course.

Niche: Travel

You spelled ‘nice’ wrong, dummy.

Difficulty: Location-based research needed

Location-based research? So, this isn’t a desk job? I need to actually visit all these places? Well, that shouldn’t a problem since I’m getting all my travel comped and you reimburse expenses, right? Because no one in their right mind would expect me to pay for my travel out-of-pocket on what I’m sure is your very generous per-article fee.

SEO optimized: Keyword usage is needed (Provided)

I’m still not following this ‘keyword’ thing. So, you give me a list of words and I have to write other words around those words? That sounds like hell.

Subtitles: Needed

No deal. I hate movies with subtitles.

Volume: We will start with a sample and 10 articles per batch order within two days.

Soooo, if I understand this correctly, you would like me to crank out 4,500 (or more) words in 48 hours, even though the generally accepted (and sometimes awfully ambitious) industry per-day average is 2,000 words? It’s cool if I plagiarize, right? Because otherwise there’s no way this is possible without going completely insane in just a few weeks.

Rate: $30 per batch of 10 articles ($3 each)

The fuck?? So, for the privilege of working myself into crazy jail, you’re going to pay me nearly $0.007 per word? Yeah, lemme just quick pre-order my straitjacket. (Not that it’ll do any good.)

We would want to gradually increase the quantity of articles to be written if you are able to provide quality articles in a long run.

So, the un-fucking-believable workload you’re asking for is just the starting point? Damn, my straitjacket is gonna need a straitjacket.

Thank you.

You’re welcome, Satan. Your visits to the terrestrial world are always such a hoot.

As part of this blog’s ongoing deliciously directionless theme, I have decided to start a new series called “Worst travel writing jobs.”

Also, “Deliciously Directionless” would be an outstanding foodie travel blog name. You’re welcome.

This series stems from my ongoing job hunt. As many of you know, I have been casually job hunting for many months, and very seriously job hunting for the past few weeks. If, at this moment, you’re thinking “Hey, Leif would be perfect for that Chief Awesomeness Officer position we’ve been trying to fill,” then you should contact me immediately. I am not kidding.

In the meantime, I’m spending a lot of time trolling job boards and I am continually amazed at some of the postings aimed at travel writers. By ‘amazed’, I mean ‘nauseated’. The audacity, the gall, the dangerously misplaced sense of authority. As if the mere utterance of the words ‘travel writer’ will instantly hypnotize aspiring writers into working like rented mules for nearly nothing. I’m both astonished and sickened by these job postings on a daily basis. So, I’ve decided to work through these emotions by mercilessly mocking them, with all identifying information removed to protect the stupid, naturally. So here we go.

5 travel Related Articles – 700 words each – $15 each

Two cents a word? From an anonymous publisher? Wow! My travel writing career is going to soar like the voice of a baseball umpire after a fastball to the produce section.

Job Description
Hello, I need 5 travel related articles of 700 words each delivered asap. Each article needs to be 100% unique, informative and pays $15 each.

Hello, I need a million dollars delivered asap. And a burrito. These items must be delivered by Kate Upton, wearing a leopard-print catsuit, riding a miniature unicycle. Anything less will be unacceptable. Go.

Each article will be paid for after it is completed, meaning no upfront bids will be entertained. The topics are simple so I expect some creativity in the content as these are for a esteemed travel magazine.

Hold on, you want me to write for $0.02 a word ON SPEC? Well why didn’t you say so? That’s WAY more reasonable! And may I say, with such high editorial standards and generous pay, your “esteemed travel magazine” should be sold with washcloths, so readers can be ready to catch all the orgasm.

Thanks

No, thank YOU! And I genuinely wish you a speedy recovery from the head injury you sustained just before writing this.