Checking out the job market

There just aren't any jobs for ordinary people any more. Instead, the "Appointments" pages are full of strangest things. This week, for instance, one ad that caught my eye exhorted me first to "Come on Up" and then floored me with the question: "Which way is up?" That's a very valid question, considering that if we are standing with our heads pointing up, what on earth are the Australians doing?

I mean, do their heads point up Down Under, or do they point down? The ad goes on to say that if you want the answer to these fascinating questions, all you have to do is "Ask an eFunds customer care professional, and you'll know." I would never have imagined there was money in answering questions like that.

Anyway, since I'm not sure which way is up, I've been looking at some of the other ads. Many of them develop the "Come on Up" theme, making it absolutely clear that up means very high. One of them says they construct high-rise careers, another wants me to "Soar Skywards ... and reach for the stars".

Yet another tells me to "jump to light speed". A closer scrutiny reveals that these aren't ads for the latest in space travel, but desk-bound jobs that keep you anchored firmly to ground reality.

I mean, how high can you rise with "certification of bills, preparation and evaluation of tenders, and negotiations", which is the job description of one of these high-rise careers?

But maybe bills are not the mundane things we think they are. One company urges its prospective employees to "conquer". One of the things conquerors will have to do is "Billing validation activities with accounting and data analysis."

If that was part of Alexander's job description, he would probably have thought better of conquering and become a clerk instead.

Conquest is also the theme of a Datamatics Technologies ad, which screams, "Young marketers -- Get set for the Conquest. Our policy: Hire the best, equip them, empower them, let them do it."

Beneath that caption are pictures of Napoleon Bonaparte, Alexander the Great, Hannibal, and Chandragupta Maurya. It's unclear whether Datamatics did indeed hire these people, empower them and let them do it.

The ad makes no mention of Napoleon's Waterloo, Hannibal's defeat at the hands of Scipio, and the fact that Alexander and Chandragupta died young, doubtless from stress and overwork. Incidentally, I do hope the ad refers to the original Hannibal, and not Hannibal the Cannibal.

Not being a hero, there's no choice but to move on. I learn that life is the underlying purpose of everything they do at Pfizer, perhaps a subtle way of telling people that their medicines won't kill them. That could also be the reason for Ranbaxy telling us to "Discover the Rewards of Life".

I've always wanted to do that, and maybe Ranbaxy will pay me for partying in Goa, scuba diving in the Maldives, bar-hopping in New York, pub-crawling in London, or rubbing shoulders with the glitterati at Cannes? No such luck, I'm afraid -- their idea of the rewards of life is to "develop the company's cardio-vascular respiratory business". Takes all sorts to make a world, I suppose.

Perhaps L&T would be a better bet, with their "Live your dreams ..."? I've always dreamt of that little cottage on a palm-fringed beach in Tahiti, but it turns out that at L&T living your dream involves "manual/automated testing, test plan development and experience in tools like Win Runner, Load Runner". Sounds more like a nightmare.

You also need loads of passion these days to be able to land a job. The ads speak of a passion for software, a passion to excel, a passion for construction, a passion for electrical wiring, and so on.

It may be tough having a passion for "receipts, storage and dispensing of raw materials in a computerised environment". But sorry -- no passion, no job.

The trouble is, an ad that fits me would go something like this: "Wanted a middle-of-the-road, ordinary sort of average guy willing to muddle through some light work for stratospheric pay", and I haven't seen any of those around. Do let me know if you come across one.

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