monday swat-in-the-face-with-my-white-glove blogging

condé nast is hiring. condé nast is always hiring, all the time. condé nast will not hire me, because i don't live in new york, or because i think gucci handbags are preternaturally ghastly, or because i don't have a master's in journalism from yale and a phd in comparative literature from columbia, or who knows why.* whatever the reason is, the human resources department is doing nothing to convince me that it has anything to do with my skills set not being up to the publisher's standards; right now condé nast is looking to hire a senior editor—let's take a look at the prereqs, why don't we:

The Senior Editor reports, edits, and packages stories. The position requires a proven history of reporting, editing, and compiling material specifically with food-related feature stories. This person will also have a solid knowledge of copyediting and fact checking. The Senior Editor must have published clips proving an ability to weave a compelling, literary story that evokes a strong sense of place, and captures the essence of an experience or destination are necessary. Experience editing high caliber writers is essential.

what does that sentence even mean? i have to read the job description three times just to figure out what the hell it's getting at, and they're the ones looking down their noses at me? pish.

in all honesty, i have no interest in this job, but it's the principle of the thing, you know? and we have something of a history. when their promotion department sent out an e-mail blast last march about the new yorker conference, i found a typo in it. you can't reply to those e-mails (i tried; they don't even want to hear it), so i couldn't help them, but it bothered me all day. that typo isn't present on the current conference page, which is basically an expanded version of the blast, but there are new and thrilling errors in its place. 2012 is a big deal, a big, lofty, intellectual, self-congratulatory deal; there's no room for editorial mishaps in that sort of thing. likewise, public notice of a job opening that is going to be viewed by many, many people—people who have come to you because you represent a standard they aspire to—should be checked once or twice before it's released, ideally by someone who can read and speak fluent, intelligible english. i understand that nobody's perfect, but sometimes the context in which that imperfection reveals itself makes it so much more disappointing.




* i know what you're thinking, and yes, i do capitalize properly in all official application materials. i don't enjoy it, but i do it.