Fuck you, boomer

Recall that, back in January 2015, I had just received my first offer to head overseas and teach English in South Korea. At the time, I was still "in mourning" over my dead American life and still a little shell-shocked from it all, so I foolishly shared my story on a public forum, the Over Fifty and Out of Work website, as they were still receiving daily comments from desperate out-of-work older Americans about their plight -- mostly baby boomers, many suicidal. The website owners would then share that message over on their corresponding Facebook page, and this would always bring out all kinds of sympathetic messages of condolences and “me, too!” remarks from its followers. Except, of course, when I did it.  

You see, having been in that dark place of debating suicide myself, I thought I’d post my story as a way of giving poor folks in my situation a light to reach for, i.e., go teach English overseas, so you won’t have to kill yourself. But, quite a few clueless commentators appeared accusing me of the usual “being too picky” and “maybe you should look for jobs outside your field of design” stuff routinely hurled at the unemployed. Amongst the comments appeared one seriously sick reply from someone by the name of Lauri Tilka-Palmer who took offense at my story and said that I should be “grateful” to have my mother’s basement to live in – I had meant to take a screenshot of it, but that comment was deleted (strangely, the majority of those other “clueless” negative remarks are also now gone). So, I attempted to clarify things a bit:

As I read through the comments I found it quite baffling how many chose to zero in on and complain about my “insensitive comment" about “lowly jobs.”  

And then the aforementioned lunatic made a reappearance (which remains posted today):

Whoa.

So, let me see if I’ve got this straight here…you live a life of misery due to your advanced age having relegated you to a shitty low-paying job (like secretary, delivery driver, security guard, customer service rep – yes, those are *shitty* jobs today, because they PAY SHIT), you regularly visit the Over 50 and Out of Work Facebook page to wallow in your misery with other equally miserable baby boomers about how miserable your life is due to the aforementioned shitty job…but, the instant someone says that shitty job you have is a shitty job, you get offended...? Well, gee, if your life is so great then why are you wasting your time on a website which served no other purpose than to be an outlet for boomers to bitch about their shitty life situations due to having shitty jobs and sometimes even confess suicidal intentions? 

I simply could no longer resist the urge to reply un-anonymously (which I eventually deleted because what’s the point):

I am the writer of the original post. I offered the follow-up information only to address what a few had insinuated in the comments in that I might have been too "picky" and should have "expanded" the job hunt to other areas. That's all I was trying to do here. Lauri Tilka-Palmer, I can now see "lowly" was a poor choice of word, and I merely meant it was lowly in salary -- I worked as a secretary the first years out of college. I earned around $13/hour 23 years ago. When I began applying for the same job last year (which I had no problem with since I had done it before), I discovered the salary range was $9 to $12 an hour. LESS than what I earned in that job two decades ago. So, yes, I'd call that salary lowly. And a single woman who lives alone cannot continue living alone on that salary, even with government handouts -- this is what forced me to move into my mom's basement. Again, I find a 47yo adult having to move back in with their parents a very LOWLY situation! I'm sorry you can't see that, Lauri Tilka-Palmer. I came to this site just to share a little of my pain so others can see they are not alone in this mess. I have nothing to be ashamed of -- and I am a firm believer in karma as well. So, good riddance to you, too, as you can be certain I will not be returning to this site. (And thanks to everyone else who left kind and supportive comments, I pm'd those who wanted more info on what I've learned about tefl, anyone else is free to msg me as well -- but Ms. Tilka-Palmer, I will report you for harassment if you msg me.)

I kept my restraint as doing otherwise would have just resulted in my comment being removed and my Facebook account potentially being suspended. I will now address a few of her “talking points” in a more uncensored fashion as I'd like to have done the first time, starting with the SHOUTING IN ALL CAPS part:

THIS IS TO THE 47 YEAR OLD WOMAN THAT IS MOVING TO SOUTH KOREA! GOOD RIDDANCE!

Good riddance to you, too, you miserable excuse for a human life form.

Sorry, but there are a lot of us over 50 that are looking for jobs.

Yes, and they’re not succeeding in finding them, and facing homelessness/suicide/etc. I wanted to offer that there's an alternative of which perhaps nobody had been aware.

I find it offensive that you call jobs lowly.

Who are you, the jobs police? If I want to refer to “secretary” as “the female ghetto of administrative work” (as dozens did here) then that’s my choice to do so.

If you need a job, you take whatever comes along and be glad that God led you there.

Oh, boy, now I see what we're dealing with here, another stupid bible-banging member of the American Taliban.

I'd be glad for anything. There is not a lowly job in this world when you don't have one. Someone has to do the job. There is nothing wrong with being an Admin. Asst., Receptionist, Customer Service Rep, Data Entry Clerk, delivery driver and even something that pays minimum wage. At least you would have something coming in.

I never said it was “wrong” to be a receptionist, et al. As I've written elsewhere on this blog, I spent the first decade of my adult life working in secretarial jobs. I merely stated the FACT that “something coming in" often ain't enough to keep one from going homeless (40% to 60% of our homeless population are employed, d'OH), in which case one has every right to blast those jobs as being shitty jobs, because the pay *stinks*. Perhaps she should work on her reading and comprehension skills.

Maybe that's why you're in South Korea, for your unkind words and calling people's job lowly.

This woman is clearly unhinged. And, no, I was on my way to South Korea because America doesn't have jack shit to offer a large proportion of us anymore, and I'd rather DO SOMETHING to better my situation rather than spew hateful nonsense towards strangers on Facebook.

BTW, I took a quick glance at her Facebook page which seemed to indicate she's some kind of military brat, meaning that she's been brainwashed her entire life to believe that "We're Number 1!" nonsense, so any facet of reality that flies in the face of that illusion is going to set her off. No doubt my "Enjoy the mess you've made, America" comment is what sent her into a tizzy. Sorry, but America is no longer the “land of opportunity,” I wonder if she’s seen that recent report from the United Nations about poverty in America. Perhaps if closed-minded dolts like her opened their minds a bit and considered jumping this sinking ship, they wouldn’t be wasting time on some depressing Facebook page -- and wouldn’t be reduced to begging for money from strangers online to help pay their medical bills:

At least now you are blessed with a job. You should be ashamed of yourself.

Yeah, how DARE I share this story on a page full of suicidal people which could inspire these people to take the same path and thus NOT commit suicide! Seriously, what exactly am I supposed to be “ashamed of” here? YOU should be ashamed of YOURSELF for this sociopathic display of toxic slop spewed at me over absolutely nothing.

I wonder what KARMA will bring you next to deal with. I will say a prayer for you and you should ask God to forgive you for thinking you are better than anyone else with those jobs.

Take your fucking perverted concept of a “god” along with your "prayers" and shove 'em up your hateful ass, you beastly babbitty bougie bitchy bible-banging baby boomer. What I posted was a sincere and genuine effort to help people, and it’s not my fault you misinterpreted that with your diseased mind and soul.

They know they are blessed to have them. I can't believe you said all that you did. Shameful. There will be a lesson learned from what you said to others on here.

The only lesson here is that American baby boomers have earned their reputation.

Randstad admits they like them "young and hungry"

This is the latest "spam job" appearing through multiple staffing agencies in the area this past week. This one, however, uses a few extra terms not in the other ads I'd seen...

Job hunting in 21st century America = Gaslighting

The word “gaslighting” has been appearing quite a bit these days, mostly in the discussions about domestic abuse. I previously shared my observation that today’s job market can easily be categorized as abusive. After reading an old thread on the Indeed forum, and noticing that, coincidentally, the movie “Gaslight” was on TCM this week, I thought I’d take my observations a little further and make a direct parallel between gaslighting and looking for work in today’s America.

Let’s start with the definition of gaslighting. From Psychology Today: 

Gaslighting is a tactic in which a person or entity, in order to gain more power, makes a victim question their reality. It works much better than you may think. Anyone is susceptible to gaslighting, and it is a common technique of abusers, dictators, narcissists, and cult leaders. It is done slowly, so the victim doesn't realize how much they've been brainwashed. For example, in the movie Gaslight (1944), a man manipulates his wife to the point where she thinks she is losing her mind. 

How do you know if you are being gaslighted? Here are the signs: 

1. You are constantly second-guessing yourself

2. You ask yourself, "Am I too sensitive?" a dozen times a day

3. You often feel confused and even crazy at work

4. You're always apologizing to your mother, father, partner, boss

5. You can't understand why, with so many apparently good things in your life, you aren't happier

6. You frequently make excuses for your partner's behavior to friends and family

7. You find yourself withholding information from friends and family so you don't have to explain or make excuses

8. You know something is terribly wrong, but you can never quite express what it is, even to yourself

9. You start lying to avoid the put downs and reality twists

10. You have trouble making simple decisions

11. You have the sense that you used to be a very different person - more confident, more fun-loving, more relaxed

12. You feel hopeless and joyless

13. You feel as though you can't do anything right

14. You wonder if you are a "good enough" friend/spouse/employee/child

15. You find yourself withholding information from friends and family so you don't have to explain or make excuses

I read over this list, and was rather disturbed by how many of these points resonate with me as a job seeker. For example:

1. You are constantly second-guessing yourself

By July 2013, after having applied and applied and applied for jobs and barely getting so much as a phone screening, my confidence began to take a serious nose dive. By September, when that list of rejections hit 500, my psyche was shattered to the point where I began debating suicide. During this whole time, I blamed myself for my predicament, i.e., “what did I do for this to be happening to me?” Because, certainly, it was something I did. It had to be. And, if I can screw up that badly, then I might as well throw in the towel on this thing called life.

2. You ask yourself, "Am I too sensitive?" a dozen times a day

Every rejection email I received would send me into an emotional downward spiral, a cocktail of shock, hurt, anger, and depression. And, rather than developing "thicker skin," with each new rejection, the emotion didn’t dissipate. I tried to calm myself with the usual “they’re not worth it” defense mechanism we’ve all been taught since childhood, but it didn't help.

5. You can't understand why, with so many apparently good things in your life, you aren't happier.

I couldn’t understand why, with all my skills and years of experience, could I not attract the attention of one decent human being looking to hire a designer.

8. You know something is terribly wrong, but you can never quite express what it is, even to yourself.

Even when I had given up and began preparing to end my life, my common sense remained intact, and I knew deep down inside that there was something very wrong going on here. I didn’t know what that was specifically, but I definitely knew it (I even gave that title to my other blog).

9. You start lying to avoid the put downs and reality twists.

Like many long-term unemployed folks, I had to resort to lying about the gap on my resume when blessed with the occasional telephone screening with some HR twat or recruiter, i.e., “I’m not unemployed, I’m freelancing/contracting/self-employed!”

11. You have the sense that you used to be a very different person - more confident, more fun-loving, more relaxed.

12. You feel hopeless and joyless.

I didn’t realize it at the time, but I was somewhat happy (happy enough, at least) pre-2013 when I was able to land those contract-with-no-benefits jobs which at least permitted me to pretend to have a “normal” middle class life. I used to love shopping (haven’t shopped in years), I loved Christmas (fuck Christmas now), I loved shooting pool with my old team (had to quit because I couldn’t afford the membership fees), I loved reading my monthly National Geographic (had to cancel my subscription), I loved my little condo (I had to sell it and move into mom’s basement). What is there left to be “joyous” about? Only time will tell if the psychological damage I’ve suffered is permanent. 

13. You feel as though you can't do anything right.

Eventually, I began to question whether I was capable of doing anything, including any kind of job, be it designer or secretary or delivery driver or toilet scrubber, despite the evidence of my work history. After all, 2,000+ rejections can’t be wrong, right?

14. You wonder if you are a "good enough" friend/spouse/employee/child

I wondered if I shouldn’t do the world a favor and commit suicide, and thus “decrease the surplus population.”

15. You find yourself withholding information from friends and family so you don't have to explain or make excuses.

When assholes try to be “helpful” with their job advice circa 1992 (“Have you tried a temp agency?”), I have to bite my tongue. Answering truthfully to these fools would lead to me losing my temper and thus make me appear unstable.

______

One of the most insidious things about gaslighting is the denial of reality. Being denied what you have seen. Being denied what you have experienced and know to be true. It can make you feel like you are crazy. But you are not crazy.

My reality has been attacked from so many directions, from the government’s 4% unemployment rate to every person who hears/believes this statistic and says, “You just don’t want a job!” Recall this Reddit asstroll about whom I previously wrote. This was a good example of gaslighting. His message to me was abusive (“the world doesn’t owe you a job”), insulting (accusing me of attacking interviewers when I did no such thing), and not even close to helpful. Had I encountered this creep back in late 2013, I might have permitted myself to react in the worst way possible (as in, I’d have taken it as a sign that it was time for me to end it all).

_______

From Business Insider, here are some of the signs of gaslighting to look out for:

Sign #1: Lies

A gaslighter's main objective is to confuse you. Because of this, they don't really care whether their lies are blatant and obvious. When they say something that is obviously untrue, they will still say it with a straight face.

Even if you have proof, they will often stick to their guns. This is all a tactic to keep you off-kilter. Eventually, they will attempt to make you believe that everything they say is the reality.

It will start off with something as simple as: "I didn't say that." But over time it will turn into something more disturbing, such as threatening to expose you as a liar or a fraud, when really you are neither of those things.

The more sure you are that they are wrong, and the more frustrated you get, the more they will persevere with their lies.

Look at my “fake job alert” posts. Company advertises a job, company rejects you when you apply for said job, company proceeds to re-advertise the exact same job. But, no, it’s not the “same job,” see, it’s got a different number in the ATS! Not the same job at all! Never mind that the description is an exact duplicate of the previous one! Hey, we’re not posting FAKE jobs, not at all! How dare you insinuate such a thing? And we’re NOT discriminating against folks over 30, pay no mind to the pictures on our website!

An even better example happens when you escalate your complaint to the company CEO, resulting in a completely non-apologetic “we’re sorry YOU think we did something wrong” apology – see IBM and State Street.

Sign #2: Isolation

Abusive people like to use the people around you as weapons. According to Sarkis, if you have children, a gaslighter will tell you that it was a mistake to have them. They will try and make you believe that you are worthless, and nothing else can compare to how important your relationship is.

They may say tell you your friend actually hates you, or your brother thinks you are useless. These are almost certainly lies, but when they are reinforcing your mind with the same stories over and over again, some of them may start to stick.

"Gaslighters are masters at manipulating and finding the people they know will stand by them no matter what — and they use these people against you," Sarkis writes. "When the gaslighter uses this tactic it makes you feel like you don't know who to trust or turn to — and that leads you right back to the gaslighter. And that's exactly what they want: Isolation gives them more control."

I have read many stories of unemployed people who were forced to take time off from work to take care of a family member. As a result, they are now officially “unemployable,” because, you see, having a job is the only thing that matters today. To hell with taking care of your family. If you put a loved one's interests over working, well, that just goes to show you aren't worthy of working.

Sign #3: Positive reinforcement

One of the most confusing — and effective — things a gaslighter can do is be nice to you. If someone was truly nasty and insulting towards you 100% of the time, the relationship probably wouldn't have gotten very far. However, when someone starts gaslighting you, they've already established a relationship with you that you believe is meaningful.

"Naturally, the abuse persists, and you’re never sure if it happened," Neo said. "Because the next day, he is so charming or so remorseful — or a mixture of both."

When a relationship starts with someone abusive — often a narcissist, a sociopath, or a psychopath — they will "love-bomb" you. According to a blog post in Psychology Today by psychiatrist Dale Archer, love-bombing is a tactic when somebody showers you with affection, and makes you feel like the luckiest person in the world.

However, the love-bombing, or idealisation, stage is quickly followed by the devaluation and discard stages, where you start to be insulted and wonder where on earth things started to go wrong.

The idea is that when they take this love and affection away, you will do anything within your power to try and get it back. You blame yourself for them changing the way they acted towards you, and you compromise yourself time and time again to get the perfect partner back again. You can't though, because that person never really existed.

Gaslighters will throw in the odd compliment, or the rare gift, to make you believe that it's the real them, and whenever they are angry at you, or abusing you, it's because you did something wrong.

Wow, there is so much here to address! Yes, recruiters and HR twats are ever so nice to you when they first reach out to you about your job application. Recruiters in particular go out of their way to tell you they just love what they see in your resume/background and promise you the world, and every call ends where they sound like your new BFF…and then you never hear from them again. With HR, they admit you’re perfect for the job as you’ve got every single qualification in the ad, and they tell you they’ll send your resume off to the hiring manager who’s “looking to act quickly on this job.” And, if the hiring manager passes on your candidacy, they’ll certainly give you feedback as to what was lacking in your experience/background. The next thing you get is a standard regurgitated rejection email (with no feedback as to why you were rejected).

My experience with Bain was probably the best example of this sign of gaslighting. I had two telephone screenings (the “love-bombing” stage), then an in-person interview, then…nothing (“devaluation and discard”). When I finally confronted them, they followed up with the “compliment/gift” of an email telling me that despite my “impressive background” I’m not qualified for the job.

The idea is that when they take this love and affection away, you will do anything within your power to try and get it back. You blame yourself for them changing the way they acted towards you, and you compromise yourself time and time again to get the perfect partner back again. You can't though, because that person never really existed.

Here, I’m reminded of NetCracker. I was so certain the woman liked me and that I had made a perfect impression. When I got that rejection email, I was in a state of shock. I did blame myself -- since they didn’t tell me HTML/CSS coding was now a huge factor in the candidate’s background, I didn’t talk much about my HTML/CSS experience listed on my resume, so clearly this is my fault! I debated replying to them and shouting in all caps that I have no problem using HTML/CSS but realized I’d be wasting my time. A few months later, they re-advertised the exact same job, then again in June 2014. That job never really existed.

Sign #4: Projection

If the gaslighting partner is a drug addict, that's what they will accuse you of being. If they cheat on you, they will say you are the one being unfaithful.

It's a distraction technique, according to Sarkis, because it keeps you on your toes, and makes you feel like you should be defending yourself. You're so busy doing this, the gaslighter gets away with whatever they want to.

Not quite projection but just as perverted, is when hiring managers say that “having additional skills such as X and Y are a plus,” skills that you do indeed have. Then they reject you because having X and Y makes you “overqualified.” Also, companies say they want someone “eager to learn new things and share ideas!” Yet, when I was interviewed by a number of companies (like this dumb place) and it was evident my list of skills was greater than their team’s skills, it was “oh, no, we don’t use that program here and we have no intention of learning that, we expect you to dumb yourself down to our level and fit in with the team.” And then you get rejected because of “cultural fit.”

Companies also write job descriptions where they proclaim they are “looking for the best and brightest” but then stipulate that the candidate cannot have more than a certain number of years’ experience, i.e., “must have 3 to 5 years’ experience.”  So, how exactly are they getting “the best?” How is someone with five years of experience automatically and blindly better than someone with six years of experience, or, say, twenty?

Sign #5: 'You're crazy'

Sarkis says this is one of the most important tactics to look out for. If someone ever dismisses your point of view as "crazy," you need to really consider why they are doing it.

It's dismissive and patronising, and it doesn't take your feelings into account. It makes you feel like you are not being heard. Worst of all, the more often the gaslighter calls you crazy, the more likely you are to finally believe it.

The level of dismissiveness that the unemployed must face is nauseating. Other standard accusations include having a "bad attitude” and being a "whiner.” Again, look at the aforementioned Reddit asstroll, or the politician who claims that the economy is booming so “if you’re not working it’s because you don’t want to work.”

Now, let’s take a look at that Indeed forum thread I mentioned at the beginning of this post. It’s an oldie, having started a full decade ago, and the theme is one with which any job seeker is familiar – “Employers who don't respond to applicants.” Scroll about halfway down the first page, note the appearance of one “Headhunter in Orlando, Florida.” Here we have an ordinary “rant” thread full of frustrated unemployed job seekers airing their legitimate gripes, and an abusive “headhunter” who shows up to tell everyone that everything they’ve observed and experienced isn’t real, calls them “whiners,” and attacks them personally with “I think the reason you are unemployed is your poor attitude and lack of professional experience.” 

Solid irony is a headhunter who claims to be professionally successful yet has oodles of time to spend in a discussion group for the unemployed. It's also become quite the standard these days for one of these "recruitment" folks to appear in a discussion group like this one and hurl insults at everyone in the genuine but misguided belief that this will somehow be construed as "helpful." Gaslighting. Bigly.

Here's a more recent example, in the "Why am I having such a hard time finding a job" thread. Right on cue, along comes "Average_HR_Guy in Michigan" to fling feces at everyone. 

What "just about every piece of research" are they talking about? Because every piece of research I keep seeing reveals continued head-scratching analyses over why wages remain stagnant. A simple Google search confirms this...

Oh, and here's a nice little design job (disguised as a "marketing assistant" role) recently advertised by some affiliate of Sotheby's (not exactly a poor company) in Boston (one of the most expensive cities in America) that pays a whopping $12 to $16 per hour (reminder: $12/hour is what I earned back in 1992).

But, no, none of this is real. "You're crazy! Pay no mind to the evidence!" says the gaslighter.

The desired effect: You're under their spell

Once they've worn you down, the gaslighter will have you where they want you. You'll be agreeable to everything they say and you will no longer question them when they blatantly lie to you. You'll be confused and disoriented, and feel like you have nobody left around you to trust.

"Because you don’t trust yourself, and instead have been conditioned — rewarded or punished accordingly," Neo said. "You fade away into a shell of who you are."

In other words, the gaslighter now has complete control.

  

Luckily, I snapped out of it during year #2 and recognized this for what it was: an abusive relationship marked by boatloads of gaslighting. While I’m lucky to have, er, survived this ordeal, I’m left pondering why America is treating its citizens so miserably. Is the aim to convince undesirables (over 40, unattractive) to commit suicide and “decrease the surplus population?” Who knows…

MEG Digital a/k/a Marketing Edge Group wants a note from your partner/spouse...

Well, isn't this adorable...

I'm always amused by the "must be an adult" requirement I often see in ads these days, as it's painfully clear that the author of the ad was not an adult but, rather, another twentydumbthing -- no mature adult would write such a stupid ad.

Journalism in the age of stupid

Back in September 2015, when my stack of rejections numbered in the 700-800 range, I was perusing the discussions on Reddit/Unemployed and came across a “journalist” who posted that he was looking to interview people who were unemployed and had encountered bad experiences with online job application systems (ATSs). I responded to him and he "interviewed" me for about 45 minutes. He said he was writing the article for "New Scientist," and I proceeded to give him a scathing critique of ATSs. This guy was young (of course) and came across as a bit naïve; for example, when I said that companies routinely post fake jobs, he was shocked by this point -- "Why would companies do that?" (Um, to boost their stock price, to fool rival companies into believing they're growing, to get tax credits, to harvest/sell your data...) I pointed out that the FTC was investigating how ATSs are being used to discriminate against people, and I told him to check out the comments on the Over 50 and Out of Work Facebook page (which, at the time, was still fairly active) as evidence that the job market is still very bad for the "older" demographic. I pretty much poured my heart out to him, telling him every little detail from my 700+ job rejections to my plans to leave America to teach ESL. The call concluded and I asked him to please be sure to send me a link to his article when it gets published. After the call, I sent him a huge follow-up email with tons of links to illustrate the points I brought up (most of which can be found across this blog). I sent him screenshots of ATSs asking me "Are you currently employed?" to show how they are used to weed out the unemployed. I sent him a link to a YouTube video showing how companies post jobs that nobody is qualified for so they can get a cheaper H1B applicant. I sent him a link to the Indeed forum’s "The Curse of Taleo" thread. I also recommended he speak to the owner of the Ask the Headhunter blog.

Over the next few weeks I waited for him to send me the link to the article. He didn't. I had to look for it myself...and here it is, https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg22830452-700-why-pleasing-ai-headhunters-could-help-you-land-your-perfect-job/. It requires a login to read, so I created one and have provided screenshots below:

Good grief! Here I am thinking he’s going to write an expose on the failures of ATSs, but, instead, we get a big piece of crap advertorial for StinkedIn glorifying the greatness of ATSs (and reports that it’s actually gonna get worse before it gets better courtesy of yet another fantastic crap app courtesy of StinkedIn...oh, goody). 

Of course, he never once told me his article was about how great ATSs are. Needless to say, I felt pretty stupid and duped, plus, I had to apologize to Nick @ ATH for sending this clown his way, as he wasted Nick's time as well. “BTW, I was indeed interviewed for that New Scientist article. The writer made it seem I resent automated recruiting because it costs me business. In fact, what I told him was that those stupid recruiting methods cost employers their best candidates. New Scientist won’t let me register to view the article, and the author has ignored my request for help getting in to read it. I gave him quite a bit of my time.” Apparently, getting quotations correct isn’t this “journalist’s” strength. (And, in case you’re wondering where my part appears in this article, I’m mentioned in the gray “afterthought” box at the bottom. Sheesh, he couldn’t even get the number of rejections correct, turning 700 into “several hundred.”)

  

Needless to say, I’ll never take the title “journalist” in this age seriously ever again (no doubt, StinkedIn compensated him nicely for it). And, considering that this drivel was published on a site called "New Scientist," I doubt I'll ever take the title "scientist" seriously, either.

Colette Baron-Reid is looking for a young "woo-woo" designer

More evidence the American job market has gone to "woo-woo"... 

Oh, yes, they're TRUE PROFESSIONALS -- it's in ALL CAPS so you know they really mean it! 

I particularly love how they explicitly demand a "young" applicant but then tip-toe around trying to say that applicant should be of a certain gender...